That night when I heard the preparations above me for sailing on the morrow, it seemed impossible that only a week and three days had passed since we had come to anchor in the Tacatacourou--since we had made our league--found Mademoiselle--passed the hardships of the march and attack, and come to the successful ending of our expedition. De Gourgues said little. When he had finished speaking to the Indians he had come aboard and set all the seamen to work stowing the vessel and breaking out the spars and sails for the voyage. That night Mademoiselle and Maheera bade a tearful good-by, for they had come to love each other with a fond affection; and to this day I cannot forget the services the Indian maiden did for me and mine. On the morrow the anchors were broken out, and with a favoring breeze we moved slowly down the river toward the sea; while the Indians, shouting messages of good will to us, ran along the banks until the freshening wind had driven us from their sight.
When the ships passed the smaller forts I could see that there too the work of destruction had been complete; for the stones and fascines were scattered in all directions, and only a few overturned and broken gun rests showed where the bastions had been. We sailed out over the bar at high tide and with a last salute to our friendly hosts we set our prow squarely abreast the broad surges, for France. In a few days I could almost crawl about the decks without an arm to steady me. In two weeks I went about some simple duties; and in the long summer twilights, Mademoiselle and I would sit high up on the slanting after-castle near the lanthorns, looking back down the pink, swirling wake toward the land where we had both suffered so much. Of De Baçan we spoke but once. I let fall a word of regret that so gallant and splendid a fighter should have been of so ill-favored a disposition. But Mademoiselle made me no reply. With the thought how near she had come to falling into his hands after the capture of Fort Caroline, she shuddered, drew closer to me and would hear of him no more. We had too many present joys to conjure up the miseries that were past. We had been born into a new world of our own and we peopled it with fancies as blithe as ourselves. Under the laughing stars we were creatures of unreality, unconscious of all save the great love which had conquered everything. De Gourgues sat with us sometimes, but not for long; for there is no pain keener than that which comes from seeing a forbidden joy through the eyes of another.