mmanded in his life, save on that one day in
Carancro, when, stung to madness by the taunts of a brave man, and
driven to the wall, he had grappled and slain his tormentor. He had
the thought now to return, and under cover of the swamp's deep outer
margin of shadow, silently lift into the canoe the bit of iron that
anchored the lugger, and as noiselessly draw her miles away to another
covert; or if the storm still held back, even at length to step the
mast, spread the sail, and put the horizon between him and the steamer
before daybreak. This he had now started to do, and would do, if only
courage would hold on and the storm hold off.

For a time his canoe moved swiftly; but as he drew near the lugger his
speed grew less and less, and eye and ear watched and hearkened with
their intensest might. He could hear talking on the steamer. There was
a dead calm. He had come to a spot just inside the wood, abreast of
the lugger. His canoe slowly turned and pointed towards her, and then
stood still. He sat there with his paddle in the water, longing like a
dumb brute; longing, and, without a motion, struggling for courage
enough to move forward. It would not come. His heart jarred his frame
with its beating. He could not stir.

As he looked out upon the sky a soft, faint tremor of light glimmered
for a moment over it, without disturbing a shadow below. The paddle
stirred gently, and the canoe slowly drew back; the storm was coming
to betray him with its lightnings. In the black forest's edge the
pot-hunter lingered trembling. Oh for the nerve to take a brave man's
chances! A little courage would have saved his life. He wiped the dew
from his brow with his sleeve; every nerve had let go. Again there
came across the water the very words of those who talked together on
the steamer. They were saying that the felling of trees would begin in
the morning; but they spoke in a tongue which Acadians of late years
had learned to understand, though many hated it, but of which he had
never known twenty words, and what he had known were now
forgotten--the English tongue. Even without courage, to have known a
little English would have made the difference between life and death.
Another glimmer spread dimly across the sky, and a faint murmur of
far-off thunder came to the ear. He turned the pirogue and fled.

Soon the stars are hidden. A light breeze seems rather to tremble and
hang poised than to blow. The rolling clouds, the dark wilderness