vision tinged and clouded, perhaps, by a drop or two of dusky
Indian blood. But now he had suddenly become intelligible to her, an
heroic figure, wonderfully simple. She let her memory call up
picture after picture of him--as he sat in the great parlour hearing
"cases," dispensing fatherly justice; as he stood up at a marriage
feast to drink the bride's and bridegroom's health and commend their
example to all the young _habitants_; as he patted the heads of the
children trooping to their first communion; as he welcomed his
_censitaires_ on St. Martin's day, when they poured in with their
rents--wheat, eggs and poultry--the poultry all alive, heels tied,
heads down, throats distended and squalling--until the barnyard
became Babel, and still he went about pinching the fowls' breasts,
running the corn through his hands, dispensing a word of praise here,
a prescription there, and kindness everywhere. Now bad harvests
would vex him no more, nor the fate of his familiar fields.
In the wreck of all he had lived for, his life had stood up clear for
a moment, complete in itself and vindicated. And the moment which
had revealed had also ended it; he lay now beneath the chapel
pavement at Fort Amitie, indifferently awaiting judgment, his sword
by his side.

They ran the Cedars and, taking breath on the smooth waters below,
steered for the shore where the towers and tall chimneys of
Boisveyrac crept into view, and the long facade of the Seigniory,
slowly unfolding itself from the forest.

Here the leading boats were brought to land while the flotilla
collected itself for the next descent. A boat had capsized and
drowned its crew in the Long Saut, and Amherst had learnt the lesson
of that accident and thenceforward allowed no straggling. Constant
to his rule, too, of leaving no post in his rear until satisfied that
it was harmless, he proposed to inspect the Seigniory, and sent a
message desiring M. Etienne's company--and Mademoiselle's, if to
grant this favour would not distress her.

Diane prayed to be excused; but M. Etienne accepted with alacrity.
He had saluted the first glimpse of the homestead with a glad cry,
eager as a schoolboy returning for his holidays. He met the General
on the slope with a gush of apologies. 'He must overlook the unkempt
condition of the fields. . . . Boisveyrac was not wont to make so
poor a show . . . the estate, in fact, though not rich, had always
been well kept up . . . the stonework