ld have passed on towards the chapel. Amherst
gently detained him.

"I spare you my compliments, sir, and my condolence; they would be
idly offered to a brave man at such a moment. Forgive me, though,
that I cannot spare to consult you on my own affairs. Time presses
with us. You have, as I am told, good pilots here who know the
rapids between this and Montreal, and I must beg to have them pointed
out to me."

M. Etienne paused. "The best pilots, sir, are Dominique Guyon there,
and his brother Bateese. But you will find that most of these men
know the river tolerably well."

"And the rest of your garrison? Your pardon, again, but I must hold
you responsible, to deliver up _all_ your men within the Fort."

"I do not understand . . . This, sir, is all the garrison of Fort
Amitie."

Amherst stared at the nineteen or twenty hurt and dishevelled men
ranged against the tower wall, then back into a face impossible to
associate with untruth.

"M. le Capitaine," said he very slowly, "if with these men you have
made a laughing-stock of me for two days and a half, why then I owe
you a grudge. But something else I owe, and must repay at once.
Be so good as to receive back a sword, sir, of which I am all
unworthy to deprive you."

But as he proffered it, M. Etienne put up both hands to thrust the
gift away, then covered his face with them.

"Not now, monsieur--not now! To-morrow perhaps . . . but not now, or
I may break it indeed!"

Still with his face covered, he tottered off towards the chapel.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RAPIDS.

They had run the Galops rapids, Point Iroquois, Point Cardinal, the
Rapide Plat, without disaster though not without heavy toil. The
fury of the falls far exceeded Amherst's expectations, but he
believed that he had seen the worst, and he blessed the pilotage of
Dominique and Bateese Guyon.

Here and there the heavier bateaux carrying the guns would be warped
or pushed and steadied along shore in the shallow water under the
bank, by gangs, to avoid some peril over which the whaleboats rode
easily; and this not only delayed the flotilla but accounted for the
loss of a few men caught at unawares by the edge of the current,
swept off their legs, and drowned.

On the first day of September they ran the Long Saut and floated
across the still basin of Lake St. Francis. At the foot of the lake
the General landed a company or two of riflemen to dislodge La
Corne's militia; but La Corn