As the sunset drew on, Crawford heard how Iberville and his six-score Canadian rovers had wiped the Newfoundland settlements out of existence, yet doing it with no needless slaughter. They had come overland from Placentia in the dead of Winter and struck the east coasts like a thunderbolt, nor could the scattered settlements resist them, though there were some hundreds of hunters to swell the ranks of the settlers. The impregnable island of Carbonear alone held them at bay, while those who escaped had fled to Bonavista in the north, which Iberville would attack ere the snows melted. Crawford in turn told Sir Phelim his own story, and that of the Star of Dreams, and the darkness came upon them while they talked, with the burned houses below glowing as red patches against the star-glistening snow. “If we can carry off that bark,” said Sir Phelim, a new ring to his voice, “then I’ll ha’ faith in your Star of Dreams, Harry! She’s loaded to the gunnel with supplies of all kinds, carries three twelve-pounders and as many culverins, and Iberville has put aboard her a good share of the new-killed meat and the captured cod. What a prize she’d be for destitute men! But they’ll have a guard aboard her, and how could we reach her?” “That’s to find out,” said Crawford. “They’ll not suspect you, Phelim--could ye not find out their dispositions, and where the boats lie on the shore?” Sir Phelim nodded and rose. He departed limping, by reason of a broken leg that had knit poorly, and Crawford stared after his vanished figure with sorrowing gaze. “Devil take all kings!” he muttered. “There goes a better man than any of the Stuart breed he has fought for--yet at forty Phelim Burke is an old man of seventy! And down yonder honest settlers are driven forth and good Canadians are risking life and limb--murder is done and steel cleaving flesh--for what? For the pride of besotted fools who wear gilt crowns. I’ll fight, sink me if I don’t, but it’ll be for my own hand, for my own life, for my own free pleasure. Ay, my Star of Dreams, lead the way! We’ll go over the horizon together.” He built the fire up afresh, careless whether it were seen by the French below, and, taking out his pipe, smoked in thoughtful reflection. In throwing off all shackles of allegiance, in declaring his quest of freedom, he knew well that he made of himself nothing better than an outlaw; he had no intention, however, of stalking up and down the haunts of men and vaunting himself. He cared nothing for the eyes of other men--he was questing that which would answer to the inner man alone. One thing he forgot--that every act committed in this world, whether for good or ill, brings a certain reckoning in its train. And now there was upon him the reckoning of an act which he had already forgotten.