for her."

Meanwhile Iberville had turned to the table, and was now reading a
letter. A pleased look came on his face, and he nodded in satisfaction.
At last he folded it up with a smile and sealed it. "Well," he said,
"the English is not good, for I have seen my Shakespeare little this
time back, but it will do--it must do. In such things rhetoric is
nothing. You will take it, Perrot?" he said, holding up the letter.

Perrot reached out for it.

"And there is something more." Iberville drew from his finger a costly
ring. It had come from the hand of a Spanish noble, whose place he had
taken in Spain years before. He had prevented his men from despoiling
the castle, and had been bidden to take what he would, and had chosen
only this.

"Tell her," he said, "that it was the gift of a captive to me, and that
it is the gift of a captive to her. For, upon my soul, I am prisoner to
none other in God's world."

Perrot weighed the ring up and down in his hand. "Bien," he said,
"monsieur, it is a fine speech, but I do not understand. A prisoner,
eh? I remember when you were a prisoner with me upon the Ottawa. Only a
boy--only a boy, but, holy Mother, that was different! I will tell her
how you never gave up; how you went on the hunt after Grey Diver, the
Iroquois. Through the woods, silent--silent for days and days, Indians
all round us. Death in the brush, death in the tree-top, death from the
river-bank. I said to you, Give up; but you kept on. Then there were
days when there was no sleep--no rest--we were like ghosts. Sometimes
we come to a settler's cabin and see it all smoking; sometimes to a fort
and find only a heap of bones--and other things! But you would not give
up; you kept on. What for? That Indian chief killed your best friend.
Well, that was for hate; you keep on and on and on for hate--and you had
your way with Grey Diver; I heard your axe crash in his skull. All for
hate! And what will you do for love?--I will ask her what will you do
for love. Ah, you are a great man--but yes! I will tell her so."

"Tell her what you please, Perrot."

Iberville hummed an air as at some goodly prospect. Yet when he turned
to the others again there grew a quick mist in his eyes. It was not
so much the thought of the woman as of the men. There came to him with
sudden force how these two comrades had been ever ready to sacrifice
themselves for him, and he ready to accept the sacrifice. He was not
ashamed of the mist, but h