“Say that I pray God may bless him, and make him a friend of my country,” she added in a low, almost broken voice, and she held out her hand to him. The gallant woodsman pressed it to his lips. “I am sorry, madame,” he replied, with an admiring look. She shook her head sadly. “Adieu, monsieur!” she said steadily and very kindly. A moment after he was gone. She looked at the missive steadfastly for a moment, then thrust it into the folds of her dress and, very pale, walked quietly to the house, where, inside her own room, she lighted a candle. She turned the letter over in her hand once or twice, and her fingers hung at the seal. But all at once she raised it to her lips, and then with a grave, firm look, held it in the flame and saw it pass in smoke. It was the last effort for victory. EPOCH THE FOURTH CHAPTER XIX WHICH TELLS OF A BROTHER’S BLOOD CRYING FROM THE GROUND Two men stood leaning against a great gun aloft on the heights of Quebec. The air of an October morning fluttered the lace at their breasts and lifted the long brown hair of the younger man from his shoulders. His companion was tall, alert, bronzed, grey-headed, with an eagle eye and a glance of authority. He laid his hand on the shoulder of the younger man and said: “I am glad you have come, Iberville, for I need you, as I need all your brave family--I could spare not one.” “You honour me, sir,” was the reply; “and, believe me, there is none in Quebec but thanks God that their governor is here before Phips rounds Isle Orleans yonder.” “You did nobly while I was away there in Montreal waiting for the New Yorkers to take it--if they could. They were a sorry rabble, for they rushed on La Prairie, that meagre place,--massacred and turned tail.” “That’s strange, sir, for they are brave men, stupid though they be. I have fought them.” “Well, well, as that may be! We will give them chance for bravery. Our forts are strong from the Sault au Matelot round to Champigny’s palace, the trenches and embankments are well ended, and if they give me but two days more I will hold the place against twice their thirty-four sail and twenty-five hundred men.” “For how long, your excellency?” Count Frontenac nodded. “Spoken like a soldier. There’s the vital point. By the mass, just so long as food lasts! But here we are with near two thousand men, and all the people from the villages, besides Callieres’s seven or eight hundred, should they arrive in time--and, pray God they may, for there will be work to do. If they come at us in front here and behind from the Saint Charles, shielding their men as they cross the river, we shall have none too many; but we must hold it.”