“God, give her joy, but through me, through me!” Then I flung myself down again, and set my teeth, and turned my face to the wall. Thus I lay as one dead; and so it fell that when the door of the cave was darkened, and steps came to my bed, I did not look up.
The steps came close to me, moved away, and were still. A sick man’s curiosity soon works, and here, surely, were incalculable matters for me to find out. I turned over suddenly.
It was a fantastic figure that faced me, sitting on a billet of wood not far from the door. Withered herbs were in the high, peaked cap. The black-and-yellow mantle was drawn forward to cover the folded arms. The steely eyes were at my inmost thought.
There is no doubt I was still a sick man. I was unspeakably disappointed. Looking back upon it now, I verily believe that I expected to see Yvonne, as in a fairy tale.
“Why did you come in,” I asked peevishly, twisting under those eyes, “without proclaiming—
“Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the hour of her desolation cometh?”
I sat up as if a spring had moved me. My eyes alone questioned.
“Beauséjour has fallen. France is driven back on Louisbourg. The men of Acadie are in chains. The women await what fate they know not. Their homes await the flame.”
“They all are safe, under shelter of the governor—and of Anderson,” he added icily.
I had no more words for a moment. Then I asked—“And the Black Abbé?”
His sane calm disappeared. His face worked; his hands came out from under his cloak, darting like serpents; his eyes veered like pale flame. As suddenly he was calm again.
“He is at Louisbourg,” said he, “at Isle St. Jean—here—there—anywhere; free, busy, still heaping and heating the fires which shall burn his soul alive.”
I like a man who is in earnest; but I could think of nothing appropriate to say. After a pause I changed the subject.
“I am thirsty,” said I, “and hungry too, I think, though I have eaten all the barley bread. And I’m sorry, but I’ve broken the jar.”
From a niche in the wall he at once brought me more barley cake, with butter, and fresh milk, and some dried beef. The wholesome, homely taste of them comes back to me now. Having eaten, I felt that nothing could be quite so good as sleep; and with grateful mutterings, half spoken, I slept.