Iberville laughed. Then he leaned forward, and found Perrot’s eyes in the half darkness. “Perrot, she kept the letter, she would have kept the ring if she could. Listen: Monsieur Gering has held to his word; he has come to seek me this time. He knows that while I live the woman is not his, though she bears his name. She married him--Why? It is no matter--he was there, I was not. There were her father, her friends! I was a Frenchman, a Catholic--a thousand things! And a woman will yield her hand while her heart remains in her own keeping. Well, he has come. Now, one way or another, he must be mine. We have great accounts to settle, and I want it done between him and me. If he remains in the ship we must board it. With our one little craft there in the St. Charles we will sail out, grapple the admiral’s ship, and play a great game: one against thirty-four. It has been done before. Capture the admiral’s ship and we can play the devil with the rest of them. If not, we can die. Or, if Gering lands and fights, he also must be ours. Sainte-Helene and Maricourt know him, and they with myself, Clermont, and Saint Denis, are to lead and resist attacks by land--Frontenac has promised that: so he must be ours one way or another. He must be captured, tried as a spy, and then he is mine--is mine!” “Tried as a spy--ah, I see! You would disgrace? Well, but even then he is not yours.” Iberville got to his feet. “Don’t try to think it out, Perrot. It will come to you in good time. I can trust you--you are with me in all?” “Have I ever failed you?” “Never. You will not hesitate to go against the admiral’s ship? Think, what an adventure! Remember Adam Dollard and the Long Sault!” What man in Canada did not remember that handful of men, going out with an antique courage to hold back the Iroquois, and save the colony, and die? Perrot grasped Iberville’s hand, and said: “Where you go, I go. Where I go, my men will follow.” Their pact was made. They sat there in silence till the grey light of morning crept slowly in. Still they did not lie down to rest; they were waiting for De Casson. He came before a ray of sunshine had pierced the leaden light. Tall, massive, proudly built, his white hair a rim about his forehead, his deep eyes watchful and piercing, he looked a soldier in disguise, as indeed he was to-day as much a soldier as when he fought under Turenne forty years before. The three comrades were together again. Iberville told his plans. The abbe lifted his fingers in admonition once or twice, but his eyes flashed as Iberville spoke of an attempt to capture the admiral on his own ship. When Iberville had finished, he said in a low voice: “Pierre, must it still be so--that the woman shall prompt you to these things?” “I have spoken of no woman, abbe.”