the wall. No sentinels were there. The Swiss had already
dropped down the ladder outside and was out of sight, and she heard the
running, climbing feet of D'Aulnay's men coming to take the advantage
afforded them. Sentinels in the other two bastions turned with surprise
at her cry. They had seen Klussman relieving the guard, but his subtle
action escaped their watch-worn eyes. They only noticed that he had the
strange woman with him.

D'Aulnay's men were at the foot of the wall planting ladders. They were
swarming up. Marie met them with the sentinels joining her and the
soldiers rushing from below. The discharge of firearms, the clash of
opposing metals, the thuds of falling bodies, cries, breathless
struggling, clubbed weapons sweeping the battlements--filled one vast
minute. Ladders were thrown back to the stones, and D'Aulnay's repulsed
men were obliged to take once more to their trench, carrying the stunned
and wounded. A cannon was trained on their breastworks, and St. John
belched thunder and fire down the path of retreat. The Swiss's treason
had been useless to the enemy. The people of the fort saw him hurried
more like a prisoner than an ally towards D'Aulnay's camp, his wife
beside him.

"Oh, Klussman," thought the lady of St. John, as she turned to station
guards at every exposed point and to continue that day's fight, "you
knew in another way what it is to be betrayed. How could you put this
anguish upon me?"

The furious and powder-grimed men, her faithful soldiers, hooted at the
Swiss from their bastions, not knowing what a heart he carried with
him. He turned once and made them a gesture of defiance, more pathetic
than any wail for pardon, but they saw only the treason of the man, and
shot at him with a good will. Through smoke and ball-plowed earth,
D'Aulnay's soldiers ran into camp, and his batteries answered. Artillery
echoes were scattered far through the woods, into the very depths of
which that untarnished Easter weather seemed to stoop, coaxing growths
from the swelling ground.

Advancing and pausing with equal caution, a man came out of the northern
forest toward St. John River. No part of his person was covered with
armor. And instead of the rich and formal dress then worn by the
Huguenots even in the wilderness, he wore a complete suit of hunter's
buckskin which gave his supple muscles a freedom beautiful to see. His
young face was freshly shaved, showing the clean fine texture of the
skin.