"The forts are our king's; the man is with my conscience, my dear friend." "But if you make sorrow for the woman?" "You brought me a gift from her!" His finger touched his doublet. "She is English, my Pierre." "She is what God made her." "She may be sworn to the man." Iberville started, then shook his head incredulously. "He is not worthy of her." "Are you?" "I know her value better and prize it more." "You have not seen her for four years." "I had not seen you for four years--and yet!" "You saw her then only for a few days--and she was so young!" "What are days or years? Things lie deep in us till some great moment, and then they spring into life and are ours for ever. When I kissed King Louis' hand I knew that I loved my king; when De Montespan's. I hated, and shall hate always. When I first saw this English girl I waked from youth, I was born again into the world. I had no doubts, I have none now." "And the man?" "One knows one's enemy even as the other. There is no way but this, Dollier. He is the enemy of my king, and he is greatly in my debt. Remember the Spaniards' country!" He laid a hand upon his sword. The face of the priest was calm and grave, but in his eyes was a deep fire. At heart he was a soldier, a loyalist, a gentleman of France. Perhaps there came to him then the dreams of his youth, before a thing happened which made him at last a servant of the Church after he had been a soldier of the king. Presently the song of the voyageurs grew less, the refrain softened and passed down the long line, and, as it were, from out of far mists came the muffled challenge: "Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn." Then a silence fell once more. But presently from out of the mists there came, as it were, the echo of their challenge: "Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn." The paddles stilled in the water and a thrill ran through the line of voyageurs--even Iberville and his friends were touched by it. Then there suddenly emerged from the haze on their left, ahead of them, a long canoe with tall figures in bow and stern, using paddles. They wore long cloaks, and feathers waved from their heads. In the centre of the canoe was what seemed a body under a pall, at its head and feet small censers. The smell of the wood came to them, and a little trail of sweet smoke was left behind as the canoe swiftly passed into the mist on the other side and was gone. It had been seen vaguely. No one spoke, no one challenged; it had come and gone like a dream. What it was, no one, not even Iberville, could guess, though he thought it a pilgrimage of burial, such as was sometimes made by distinguished members of Indian tribes. Or it may have been-- which is likely--a dead priest being carried south by Indian friends.