.

M. Etienne shook his head pensively. "_Rusticus expectat_ . . .
I should have supposed the rapids to stand in no danger."

"Had the Governor sent word to abandon the Fort, I might have
understood. It would have been the bitterest blow of my life--"

"Yes, yes, brother," M. Etienne murmured in sympathy.

"But to leave us here without a word! No; it is impossible.
They _must_ be on their way!"

In the strength of this confidence Dominique and Bateese had been
dispatched down the river again to meet the reinforcements and hurry
them forward.

Dominique and Bateese had been absent for a week now on this errand.
Still no relief-boats hove in sight, and the British were coming down
through the Thousand Islands.

Save in one respect the appearance of the Fort had not changed since
the evening of John a Cleeve's dismissal. The garrison cows still
graced along the river-bank, and in the clearing under the eastern
wall the Indian corn was ripe for harvest (M. Etienne suggested
reaping it; the labour, he urged, would soothe everyone's nerves).
Only on Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch the lunette now stood complete.
All the _habitants_ of Boisveyrac had been brought up to labour in
its erection, building it to the height of ten feet, with an abattis
of trees in front and a raised platform within for the riflemen.
Day after day the garrison manned it and burned powder in defence
against imaginary assaults, and by this time the Commandant and
Sergeant Bedard between them had discussed and provided against every
possible mode of attack.

Diane stood in the dawn on the _terre-plein_ of the river-wall.
The latest news of the British had arrived but a few hours since,
with a boatload of fugitives from the upstream mission-house of La
Galette, off which an armed brig lay moored with ten cannon and one
hundred men to check the advance of the flotilla. It could do no
more.

The fugitives included Father Launoy, and he had landed and begged
Diane to take his place in the crowded boat. For himself (he said)
he would stay and help to serve out ammunition to Fort Amitie--that
was, if the Commandant meant to resist.

"Do you suppose, then, that I would retire?" the Commandant asked
with indignation.

"It may be possible to do neither," suggested Father Launoy.

But this the Commandant could by no means understand. It seemed to
him that either he must be losing his wits or the whole of New
France, from M. de Vaudreuil