It was the wide stretch of water, gleaming like silver, that fascinated me, as it always did in its numberless changing moods. What unutterable loneliness spoke to the soul in those unknown leagues of tossing sea! how far the eye wandered unchecked, searching vainly for aught to rest upon other than glistening surge or darkling hollow! The mystery of the ages lay unexpressed in those tossing billows, sweeping in out of the black east, making low moan to the unsympathetic and unheeding sky. Deeper and deeper the spirit of unrest, of doubt, of brooding discontent, weighed down upon me as I gazed; life seemed as aimless as that constant turmoil yonder, a mere silver-tinted heaving, destined to burst in useless power on a shore of rock, and then roll back again into the mighty deep.
I leaned over the palisades, sunk deep in revery of home, recalling one by one the strange incidents of the last month that had so curiously conspired to cause a total upheaval of my life; and for the moment I grew oblivious of my surroundings. A mere lad, knowing little of himself and less of life, had ridden westward from the Maumee; a man, in thought and character, leaned now over that beleaguered stockade of Dearborn.
I was recalled to actualities by a light touch on the sleeve of my shirt, and a half-laughing, half-petulant voice at my elbow.
"Well, Master Laggard! do I not show you great honor in thus seeking you out, after your avoidance of me all these hours?"
I glanced aside into the fair face and questioning eyes, noting at the same time that De Croix stood only a step beyond her in the shadows.
"I have been very busy, Mademoiselle," I tried to explain; "it has been a time when every strong hand was needed."
"Fudge!" was the indignant rejoinder. "Did I not perceive you loitering more than once to-night,--though each time I drew near, hopeful of a word of greeting, it was to behold you disappear as if by magic? Do I flatter you by thus showing my interest? Yet 't was only that I might have explanation, that I sought you thus. Come, confess that you feared my just resentment for going forth on so perilous a trip without telling me of your plans."
"'T was not altogether that," I answered, for dissembling was never an easy task for me, "as I only did what I believed would most please you. Nor have I anything to regret in my action, now that we have thus gained the pledge of the Pottawattomies for protection upon the march."