psed figure of
the girl began to grow upon the water. More stones in the moist walls
showed glistening surfaces as the light mounted. The fact that they had
lost their master, that his household was without a head, that the
calamity of Kaskaskia involved their future, then took possession of
both poor fellows, and the great heart of Africa shook the boat with
sobs and groans and useless cries for help.

"Come out here, you black rascals!" called a voice from the log dam.

Angelique lifted her head. Colonel Menard was in plain sight, resting
his arms across a tree, and propping a sodden bundle on branches.
Neither Angelique nor his men had turned a glance through the eastern
gap, or thought of the stream sweeping to the dam. The spot where he
sank, the broken floor, the inclosing walls, were their absorbing
boundaries as to his fate. As the slaves saw him, a droll and sheepish
look came on their faces at having wailed his death in his living ears.
They shot through the door vigorously, and brought the boat with care
alongside the trunk supporting him.

The colonel let them take tante-gra'mere in. He was exhausted. One arm
and his cheek sunk on the side of the boat, and they drew him across it,
steadying themselves by the foliage upreared by the tree.

He opened his eyes, and saw rose and pearl streaks in the sky. The sun
was mounting behind the bluffs. Then a canopy of leaves intervened, and
a whir of bird wings came to his ears. The boat had reached dead water,
and was moving over the submerged roadbed, and groping betwixt the stems
of great pecan-trees,--the great pecan-trees which stood sentinel on the
river borders of his estate. He noticed how the broken limbs flourished
in the water, every leaf satisfied with the moisture it drew.

The colonel realized that he was lying flat in a boat which had not been
bailed dry, and that his head rested on wet homespun, by its odor
belonging to Louis or Jacques; and he saw their black naked arms
paddling with the oars. Beyond them he saw Wachique holding her mistress
carefully and unrestrained; and the negro in her quailed before him at
the deed the Indian had done, scarcely comforted by the twinkle in the
colonel's eye. Tante-gra'mere was sitting up meekly, less affected by
dampness than anybody else in the boat. She had a fresh and toughened
look. Her baptism in the rivers had perhaps renewed her for another
century.

"Madame, you are certainly the most remarkable woman