Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France) -- Fiction
Morning came and he slept on, while the long wraiths of grey fog fled
across the waters and thinned into shadows, and the wind came ever
fresher and steadier out of the southeast to scatter the dissipating
mist and blow the skiff out to north and west. Behind her the morning
broadened, and overhead the fog gave place to blue sky, although
the sun itself remained dun and dim behind the heavy wrack of grey
obscurity that still overhung the straits and the Labrador coast.
Ahead in the west, however, the fog went whirling away and was gone,
until presently the sunlight struck all the wide expanse of sea into
glittering radiance, with the enormous granite cliffs of Mansfield
island forming a long blur against the western horizon. Off to the east
and north the ice blink made shimmering response to the sunlight, and
from the straits came the thunderous rumble and grind of ice-masses
fighting for freedom beneath the fog-blanket.
Crawford wakened. He sat up, blinking at the sunlight, then stared
at the running white crests all around, and laughed in sudden joyous
remembrance.
“I’ll whip you yet, Moses Deakin!” he cried out exultantly. “No food,
no rudder, no sail, no compass--yet I’ll whip you, sink me if I don’t!
Ay, warlock or not, I may give you a fight--for the--Star----”
The words died on his lips as he swung about and swept his eager gaze
along the horizon. For there, not a mile to the northeast and standing
squarely for him out of the cloud-bank that still hovered low above the
straits, was a fifty-gun ship--white canvas towering up into the sky
as she leaned over and headed for him across the wind! Crawford stared
at her all agape, incredulous, then leaped to his feet with a blaze of
excitement in his blue eyes. The French ship! Iberville! As he stood,
thus, leaning to the thrust of the boat and staring, the emerald jewel
came out from beneath his shirt; he replaced it with fumbling fingers,
and a laugh broke on his lips.
“The Star of Dreams, eh? There lies the ship Deakin saw in his vision,
and it seems that I’m destined to meet Iberville again. Did Deakin see
the Star Woman also?”
He had no answer to this query, but meet Iberville he did, half an
hour later, when he clambered up the side of the _Pelican_ frigate
and struck hands with the eldest of the famous Le Moyne brethren.
Young Bienville, boy in years yet wearing man’s uniform, stood beside
Iberville, and greeted Crawford with a cry and a hearty embrace.
“I knew it was you! Pierre scoffed at me, but I knew it!”
Crawford laughed into the ardent eyes of the handsome youngster, then
turned to the strong and masterful brother, who welcomed him with equal
warmth.
“My faith, it’s incredible!” said Iberville. “Why are you here alone in
an open boat, M. Crawford? Where’s that bark you had from me?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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