one outside the gates?"

"Two men went early to the garden, but the rain drove them back.
Fortunately, the day being bad, no one is hunting beyond the falls."

"And is our vessel well moored?"

"Her repairing was finished some days ago, you remember, madame, and she
sits safe and comfortable. But D'Aulnay may burn her. When he was here
before, my lord was away with the ship."

"Bar the gates and make everything secure at once," said Marie. "And
salute these vessels presently. If it be D'Aulnay, we sent him back to
his seigniory with fair speed once before, and we are no worse equipped
now."

She returned down the stone steps where Van Corlaer's courtship had
succeeded, and threw off her wet cloak to dry herself before the fire in
her room. She kneeled by the hearth; the log had burned nearly away. Her
mass of hair was twisted back in the plain fashion of the Greeks--that
old sweet fashion created with the nature of woman, to which the world
periodically returns when it has exhausted new devices. The smallest
curves, which were tendrils rather than curls of hair, were blown out of
her fleece over forehead and ears. A dark woman's beauty is independent
of wind and light. When she is buffeted by weather the rich inner color
comes through her skin, and the brightest dayshine can do nothing
against the dusk of her eyes.

If D'Aulnay was about to attack the fort, Marie was glad that Monsieur
Corlaer had taken his bride, the missionaries, and his people and set
out in the opposite direction. Barely had they escaped a siege, for they
were on their way less than twenty-four hours. She had regretted their
first day in a chill rain. But chill rain in boundless woods is better
than sunlight in an invested fortress. Father Jogues' happy face with
its forward droop and musing eyelids came before Marie's vision.

"I need another of his benedictions," she said in undertone, when a
knock on her door and a struggle with its latch disturbed her.

"Enter, Le Rossignol," said Madame La Tour. And Le Rossignol entered,
and approached the hearth, standing at full length scarcely as high as
her lady kneeling. The room was a dim one, for all apartments looking
out of the fort had windows little larger than portholes, set high in
the walls. Two or three screens hid its uses as bedchamber and
dressing-room, and a few pieces of tapestry were hung, making occasional
panels of grotesque figures. A couch stood near the fireplace. The
dwarf's