eyes unbound. Sunday, October 1, the English bombs again began singing
overhead. Subercase sends word he will capitulate if given honorable
terms. For a month the parleying continues. Then November 13 the
terms are signed on both sides, the English promising to furnish ships
to carry the garrison to some French port and pledging protection to
the people of the settlement. November 14 the French officers and
their ladies come across to the English camp and breakfast in pomp with
the English commanders. Seventeen New England captives are hailed
forth from Port Royal dungeons, "all in rags, without shirts, shoes, or
stockings." On the 16th Nicholson draws his men up in two lines, one
on each side of Port Royal gates, and the two hundred French soldiers
marched out, saluting Nicholson as they passed to the transports. On
the bridge, halfway out, French officers meet the English officers,
doff helmets, and present the keys to the fort. For the last time Port
Royal changes hands. Henceforth it is English, and in gratitude for
the Queen's help Nicholson renamed the place as it is known
to-day,--Annapolis. Among the raiders capitulating is the famous
bushrover Baron St. Castin of Maine.

When Nicholson returned to Boston all New England went mad with
delight. Thanksgiving services were held, joy bells rang day and night
for a week, and bonfires blazed on village commons to the gleeful
shoutings of rustic soldiers returned to the home settlements glorified
heroes.

{201}

[Illustration: PAUL MASCARENE]

At Annapolis (Port Royal) Paul Mascarene, a French Huguenot of Boston,
has mounted guard with two hundred and fifty New England volunteers.
Colonel Vetch is nominally the English governor; but Vetch is in Boston
the most of the time, and it is on Mascarene the burden of governing
falls. His duties are not light. Palisades have been broken down and
must be repaired. Bombs have torn holes in the fort roofs, and all
that winter the rain leaks in as through a sieve. The soldier
volunteers grumble and mope and sicken. And these are not the least of
Paul Mascarene's troubles. French priests minister to the Acadian
farmers outside the fort, to the sinister Indians ever lying in ambush,
to the French bushrovers under young St. Castin across Fundy Bay on St.
John River. Not for love or money can Mascarene buy provisions from
the Acadians. Not by threats can he compel them to help mend the
breaches in the palis