The Star Woman/Book 2/Chapter 3

by H. Bedford-Jones

 

CHAPTER III

CONFIRMING A BELIEF IN MIRACLES

ON this early night of September there was gaiety aboard the Pelican. She lay anchored ten miles southwest of Fort Nelson, in the open bay. Upon reaching the river the previous day, she found all buoys destroyed and the channel-marks removed, so that Iberville dared not attempt the precarious river entrance, across the wide mud flats, until he had taken soundings. The bay charts and pilots were all with Serigny, as were the supplies and siege guns, and he was bitterly disappointed not to find his other three ships here ahead of him. At least he had beaten the English squadron, however.

So Martigny and a score of Canadians departed in the pinnace to take soundings, scout the fort, and roam the woods in search of friendly Indians, and that evening high celebration was held aboard ship. The guns were shifted, battle lanterns hung about, all hands made merry. There were fiddles, with a flute or two to help, and no lack of good wine all around. French and Canadians sang chansons and Mohawk chants and gay sentimental court ballads, officers and men intermingling in Latin good-fellowship, voyageur and chevalier dancing and drinking together, Iberville joining hands with his powder boys.

Crawford, who took small part in all this gaiety, tired of looking on and presently went up into the bows. He stood there smoking, his eyes watching the play of lights in the northern sky that fought the dim, sunny twilight in the south. There Iberville found him presently, when he strolled up with La Potherie, and clapped him heartily on the shoulder.

"What, dreaming of stars? Come and try our excellent Canary. To-morrow Martigny will return with the pinnace, we'll land guns and men, and crack this nut of Nelson. Ha! Art thinking of the Star Woman, eh?"

"Admitted. The name lingers. Do you know more of her than Perrot told?"

"Nay, Perrot is the only white man who has ever seen her."

Here Bacqueville de la Potherie struck in with avid interest. He was the avowed historian of the expedition, and was eager to learn of all things, while his open curiosity, his frankness and intelligence, endeared him to every one alike.

"Tell me about this Perrot—I have heard of him before this. And the Star Woman——"

Iberville obliged, and concluded with a laugh, "So, you see, our friend Crawford may yet set forth into the wilderness to seek her! Eh, Crawford? Why so gloomy, man?"

"Why so merry?" Crawford smiled. "It may be that I shall seek her. Who knows? I'm not gloomy, but your gay scene is not for me. I'm looking over the horizon."

"You'll die of that looking, one day."

"Ay. And how better?"

Iberville nodded soberly, his spirit perfectly comprehending that of Crawford.

"How better, indeed? There's blood of mine in those dark forests ashore. My brother Chateauguay lies under the pickets of that fort, which I have taken once or twice ere this, and shall take again. Well, I fight for my king while you fight for a dream—and devil shrive me if I'd not like to seek the Star Woman with you! Don't look too long at those lights in the sky—ah, but you should see them in winter, as I have seen them from yonder shores! Some say they foretell storm in summer. The Indians call them the spirits of dancing dead men. Faith, there'll be dead men dancing ashore once I get a mortar to bear on that accursed fort behind its cloak of trees! Come, Bacqueville, leave our man of destiny to dream——"

The other two departed, and Crawford presently went to the cabin which he shared with Fitzmaurice of Kerry. In ten minutes he was sound asleep to the whine of fiddles and the soft throatings of flutes.

It was broad daylight when he wakened to a great tumult of trampling feet on the decks, mingled with roars of joyous shouts and exultant oaths. The chaplain burst in upon him and in furious delight dragged him bodily from his berth.

"Up and on deck, ye sluggard! Here the fleet's in sight—Serigny's come at last, and we're standing out to meet 'em! Up, ye lazy divil!"

Crawford flung on his clothes hastily enough. When he got on deck, he found the Pelican heading out for the open bay, where three distant sail were leaning down the wind. The air had turned bitter cold overnight and storm was brewing in the grey sky, but who cared for that? Serigny was sighted, the long voyage was ended in triumph, a stroke at Nelson would be made ere set of sun! Out stood the ship to welcome her comrades, gay flags decking her spars, and Grandville's gunners unstopping cannon for a salute of welcoming.

Gaining the high poop-deck by the helm, where Iberville stood with his brother, Crawford joined the group of officers there. Signals were run up, and Iberville raised a glass to scrutinize the approaching ships. Then Crawford saw his eyes widen, saw him lower the glass, saw a sudden deadly pallor creeping into his cheeks. For one instant Iberville stood thus as though paralyzed, then turned and quietly touched the arm of La Potherie.

"Bacqueville, order food served out at once—swiftly! Then take charge of the forecastle; I'll send the Canadians to you. Bienville, how many men aboard fit for service?"

a A hundred and twoscore, Pierre," returned the boy carelessly. "Forty sick below, a score gone with Martigny in the pinnace—"

"Go below. Tell Grandville and La Salle to clear the lower deck for action. You'll take the upper tier with De Ligondez. Why the devil didn't Martigny come back last night—we've not men enough to man the guns! Here, sergeant!" A Rochefort marine saluted. "Have handropes stretched along the decks—ice is forming already, I see. Order the magazines opened. St. Martin! Get every Canadian to the forecastle instantly, under La Potherie, with fusils and fresh horns of powder, and serve out bullets. Swiftly, swiftly! Roundshot on deck, there!"

At these rapid and impetuous orders, every eye was fastened on Iberville in stupefied amazement. From the masthead now rang down a sharp cry.

"No signals answered!"

Silence came upon the ship, a dread and terrible silence of horrified incredulity, of dismayed consternation—until a Canadian gave voice to the sharp, yelping war whoop of the Mohawks. Then all beheld tiny flecks of scarlet break out from the three ships bearing down the wind, and the white smoke of a gun jetted from the foremast.

Not Serigny—but the enemy!

"You'll run out to sea?" Crawford turned to Iberville. The latter smiled grimly, his eyes flitting over the ship, not answering for a moment.

Here mad activity was leaping forth—gunners stripping, boys on the run with powder and shot, ports slamming open, ropes being stretched for hand-hold, guns being unstopped. Spray was forming into ice as it fell. Iberville turned and silently swept his arm in three directions. This threefold gesture included the shore to the north, the long stretches of shallows and reefs to west and south—and to the eastward the open sea where the three English ships foamed down the wind.

"Why run, when one must fight?" said Iberville briefly. "Stand by the helm, my friend, for I'll have need of your quick eye and hand there! The Pelican goes forward."

Go forward she did, with the crash of a gun to echo the words.

It meant something that Iberville was a captain in the royal navy, in a day when ensigns commanded brigs, lieutenants sailed frigates, and captains manœuvred fleets. Against him were three ships, each of them alone a fair match for the crippled Pelican, and four veteran commanders of the English company who knew every foot of the uncharted waters.

During three and a half hours Iberville fought them with his seamanship, while his lieutenants fought them with small arms and great, and the guns thundered. The tactics of the English never varied. They had Iberville where they wanted him—far outnumbered, cut off from flight, with treacherous shoals reaching from the land for miles to entrap him. Again and again they tried to force him in upon the shallows; again and again he evaded the trap, tacking back and forth, taking their hurricane of shot as he slipped past, while his own guns roared unceasingly. Ball and grape screamed through his rigging, for their great intent was to dismast and cripple and pound him into submission. As fast as a line was shot away, the seamen were up and repairing it, and ever Iberville kept just out of their reach, kept off the shoals, kept giving back broadside for broadside.

The wind was freshening fast, the cold was growing more intense, threat of snow was in the air. On the forecastle clustered the dark Canadians, half naked and painted to the waist, joining musketry and Mohawk whoop to the din; La Salle and Grandville fought the lower-deck guns, young Bienville the upper tier after Chevalier de Ligondez was struck down. From every hand iron and lead were smashing into the devoted Pelican, until her decks were red with frozen blood as she tacked and wore, and the handlines were crimson-dripping streaks; yet ever she evaded the shoals. Fitzmaurice of Kerry tended a gun or knelt beside a dying man indifferently, and from the tall figure of Iberville shot swift and cool orders to Crawford, who helped swing the great rudder of the doomed ship. Doomed she was, as every man there knew ere the fight was an hour gone, yet in the furious exultancy of battle none cared.

Solid shot and grape and musketry they poured into her, and she gave back shot and grape and ball—but each time a little less swiftly, as her gunners died, and scurvy-smitten scarecrows staggered up from below to drag weakly at the guns. Foot by foot, it seemed, she was driven back, cornered and hemmed in, the three ships bearing around her like wolves around a stag at bay. Noon came and passed, but none thought of food. Crawford, following the anxious looks of Iberville, saw the storm-clouds sweeping blackly down, knew the wind was thickening, swung the helm grimly. Then, suddenly, from Iberville burst one shrill and frightful yell.

"Wear, Crawford, wear—for the love of the saints, wear——"

Crawford flung himself to help the St. Malo man at the helm. There upon them was bearing the Hampshire, driving full down the wind with obvious intent to ram and sink the battered Pelican. A huge ship was the Hampshire, a royal navy ship new and stoutly built, and Fletcher was on her quarterdeck. He had Iberville to reckon with, however, and he failed in his stroke, and Crawford saw him shaking his fist and cursing in furious rage as he lost the weather-gauge and was evaded.

With this, the two ships ran down the wind yard to yard, so close that boarders gathered in readiness, so close that bulwarks almost touched at every sea, so close that English and French answered curse with curse, grenade with grenade—while the great guns thundered in broadsides that left each ship rocking and reeling and staggering down the rolling seas. Fletcher would not be first to draw off, nor would Iberville; so the guns roared, and men died, until a last crashing broadside sent the Pelican up into the wind with half her rigging cut away and more than half the men in her waist mowed down by a storm of grape. In this moment she was theirs for the taking.

But there was none to take her.

Crawford, struck down by a splinter, was dragged to his feet by the shrill, terrible scream of dying men. He looked for the enemy ship, and saw only a welter of shattered masts and rigging; like a sounding whale she had plunged bodily, was gone all in an instant, down until she staggered upon the shallows and lay quiet with only her topmasts above water, and wounded men shrieking as they drowned.

"Hard over!" shouted Iberville, and leaped to the helm. "At them, Bienville—fire!"

Once more the guns crashed out, and now for the last time. As Iberville swooped upon her, the Hudson's Bay reeled up into the wind and lowered flag and foresail. The Dering, not waiting to face the Frenchman alone, shook out her reefed sails and went scudding away through the whistling tempest for Fort Nelson and safety.

Iberville groaned as his gaze swept the red-frozen deck, while his ship bore down upon Nick Smithsend's crippled frigate. Then he was at the helm, once more in action.

"Take fifteen Malouins and board her as we touch, Crawford! Swiftly! I must away to catch the Dering—swiftly, swiftly! Get her into the river if ye can——"

Crawford leaped into the bloody waist, while Iberville's voice sent some St. Malo seamen to join him. The two ships came staggering and reeling together, and grapnels were flung out. Crawford jumped across the shattered rails, the men trailing after. Somehow all scrambled aboard, the irons were flung off, and the shattered Pelican went lurching away in pursuit of Grimmington and the fleeing Dering.

Here on the prize Crawford stood aghast. The ship was torn to ribbons alow and aloft. He found dying men, blood freezing in pools, screams and curses of wounded resounding. Smithsend came up to him, bitterly enough, and started at Crawford's English words.

"Your parole, cap'n? Good. I'm to take you into the river if possible."

"More like into hell," growled Smithsend. "Rudder's gone, we're half full of water, not men enough alive to man a tier of guns——"

As something touched his face, Crawford looked up and saw a drift of white snowflakes breaking down the wind like a silver cloud.

"Run in beside the wreck of your frigate and anchor, and get the pumps to working," he said, and ordered his men to help the English seamen.

Groping her way, the wounded ship slowly reeled in toward the shallows and dropped anchor, still miles off the land. There was no help to be given the crew of the Hampshire; these had vanished under the icy water, to the last man. Crawford met with no opposition as he took over the ship, for the English were dazed, stunned, unable to realize how they had been beaten and broken by a single ship. Gradually they recovered, fell to work wearily enough, taking up the new fight to save their ship and their lives.

While some patched up the gaping holes below and got the ports closed again, others labored getting the pumps into action. Crawford, seeking for wounded, crawled into the forepeak with a man to hold a lantern. And, as the light was held up, he gazed into the snarling features of Moses Deakin. Astounded, he saw that Deakin was not only in irons, but was half buried under the shot-torn bodies of other men in irons, while a horrible sound of groaning came out of the darkness around. Crawford's face showing in the lantern-light, a great cry burst from Deakin.

"Crawford! Blood and wounds—be it you or not?"

Crawford made no response. Leaving his men to care for the wounded, he turned and went back on deck. He sought out Smithsend and discovered to his amazement how Deakin had come to be aboard; for the present, however, he let things bide as they were in the face of more important matters, hoping that the situation would become no worse for all of them.

Vain hope! Hours later, the shot-riven Pelican, having failed to catch the Dering, came tacking back in the driving snowstorm and anchored alongside the prize. Iberville demanded pilotage into the river, but stout Smithsend, who had flung his charts and directions overboard, refused point-blank. Iberville now managed to sling a mortar aboard the prize, with a few marines, bidding Crawford get into the river if he could; for by this time there was no doubt whatever as to the issue. It was sauve qui peut!

The storm had settled into a howling tempest out of the northeast, which precluded any hope of beating off the land, and with night the sea was rising in huge billows sweeping down the full length of the bay. Hawser after hawser parted. In vain Crawford and Smithsend tried to keep the rudderless ship where she was. From the wounded men came low shrieks of utter despair as the frigate went staggering blindly down the wind, ice forming over everything, snow hiding the foamy seas from sight, nothing to be seen in the gloom but the faces of unburied dead men peering horribly through shrouds of ice.

In vain did they try to steer with booms or oars. It was a night of horror, with naught to be done save to work the pumps and hope for the best, as the weight of ice dragged her more heavily down by the nose and she drifted aimlessly and without direction. A little after midnight, Crawford crawled down to where Moses Deakin lay, and after unlocking the man's irons gave him the keys.

"If any of your men be alive, set them loose. I can't leave you here to drown like rats. Come up above, get some food, and lend a hand with the pumps."

Then Crawford was back on deck again, where Smithsend was trying to fashion a jury rudder from the smashed spars aloft.

Toward morning the ship struck heavily, but wrenched free, passed over the shoal, and drove on. With daylight the storm was whirling down worse than ever, huge waves bursting over the whole ship, water gaining on the pumps, every man reeling with weariness and utter exhaustion. During a lull in the tempest, Crawford peered off to starboard and saw a dim shape rolling sternfirst before the wind, and knew that the Pelican was plunging to her doom. The brazen voice of Moses Deakin thundered at his ear.

"She's driving on the middle shoal—she'll strike, and the land six mile away! We're well outside. Pray to your star now, Crawford! We'll go ashore twenty mile farther down the coast."

Both ships were indeed lost, since the shores were miles distant and guarded by long shallows, all the small boats were shot away, and with every moment the weight of new ice was bearing the bows deeper into the water. So they drove on, and any thought of enmity betwixt French and English was forgotten, death being close upon all alike. Fur-pirates and company servants and French marines huddled together or worked at the pumps in dismal despair.

With afternoon came more snow, hiding all the shores ahead. Crawford was at work in the icy bows, trying to chop loose a spare anchor, when suddenly he and his men were sent all asprawl on the ice, grasping at the handlines, hurled headlong. With a hideous lurch and shudder, the doomed ship struck, lifted, and struck again.

Crawford saw the masts topple, heard the crash of splintered wood above the roar of the storm, and then was swept overboard with the tangle of masts and spars and rigging. And this, for the moment, was the end of everything so far as Crawford was concerned. After a little he revived, gasping, and managed to lash himself to the litter of wreckage, but passed again into oblivion.

If Crawford was gone, however, Moses Deakin remained; and if ever a man made use of his head with certain death on all sides, that man was the Bostonnais. He had survived a perilous trade these many years by just such ability. He knew well that no mercy awaited him either from French or English—and Deakin acted accordingly. Receiving no mercy, he was not the man to accord mercy.

The ship was sogged into the shallows with her bows under water, waist and high stern exposed and beginning to break up fast as the thunderous rollers burst above her. All was confusion, flying spray, screams of the wounded as they washed away. On the poop, Smithsend was knocking together a raft to float some of the hurt men ashore. The land was at least three miles distant, but was quite hidden behind snow and obscurity. So far as Deakin was concerned, the land was as perilous as the bay, but he had no choice and so acted swiftly.

His brazen voice gathered three of his surviving men, and with these he made his way to the waist of the ship. There under the flying spray three seamen were at work, desperately trying to loosen the two halves of the broken mainyard, which had smashed through the bulwarks and wedged there. Deakin leaped upon the three and struck them aside, his men knocked them into the surging tide below. Whirling, Deakin spat orders at his own three.

"Go get some food, a fusil, and dry powder—sharp about it! Strip some tarpaulin off the guns below and fetch it. Move fast, blast ye! She's breakin' up."

Breaking up she was. Wounded men were going to leeward, clinging to bits of wreckage, swimming frantically in the icy water, pulling each other down. The Bostonnais hurled himself at the two fragments of the great spar lodged in the bulwarks. His immense strength prised them free, he tore at other flotsam, stood guard over it all until one by one his three men came staggering back to the spot with their burdens. One bore food and a fusil, another had powder and ball and pistols, the third brought tarred canvas.

Deakin sent them after line, and got the powder, weapons and food all firmly lashed inside roll after roll of the tarpaulin. Then the four men flung to work at the spars and wreckage, and in ten minutes accomplished more than the green hands with Smithsend on the poop could effect in an hour's time. They were seasoned men, knowing what fate faced them unless they gripped at the forelock of destiny—therefore they grasped hard and sure, without pity.

They got the little raft into the water, loaded their precious burden aboard, and caught hold of the lines on each side. She floated high. Next moment men were around them, pleading, yelling, fighting for a shred of the visible hope. Moses Deakin, towering above them with a jagged splinter of rail of his hand, struck them down. His voice boomed, and they were off, all four men swimming, drifting inshore with the wind and current.

Still other men came clustering about, dark figures pouring out of the broken wreck as ants pour forth from a burning log. Wounded men, company servants and seamen, one or two Frenchmen; Deakin and his men silently watched them come, then struck out grimly and mercilessly, beat off the hapless refugees, kept their raft ever pushing ahead over the shallows, leaving in their wake a mournful wail of despairing voices that followed them down the wind. The four quickly overtook and passed the first stragglers, resolutely shoved onward, pausing only to smite down one or two who sought the help of their float. Thus they had covered nearly a mile when Deakin uttered a relieved grunt.

"Shoal! Down feet."

They let themselves down, found the water shoulder-high, presently only waist-high. At this level it remained for another two miles, and they dragged the float by the lines. Moses Deakin was in the lead, bent over, straining at the ropes with his immense strength, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the shore. Soon this came into sight ahead, the low ground dark with trees. In twenty minutes the four men were carrying their burdens up from the water, staggering through snow and shore-ice up to the line of trees, where they sank down in absolute exhaustion.

"No time to waste here," panted the Bostonnais, gazing into the storm and wiping the spray from his face, his great beard heaving above his chest. "We're seven or eight leagues east o' Nelson. No use goin' west—such o' them fools as gets ashore will all head that way."

"Then where the devil do we head for—New Severn?" demanded one of the three rogues, ironically.

"Ay, New Severn."

"The English company hath a gallows there, master."

Deakin glared from bloodshot eyes at the objector. Then, realizing the need for patience, he stooped and drew with his finger in the sand a rough right angle, indicating the line of the shore to the west.

"Now look 'ee! We be forty league south o' Danish river. How be we to get there? Not by walking, wi' the woods full o' French and English dogs! Besides, by the shore 'tis more like eighty leagues than forty. Therefore, turn toward Severn. Ye fool, we may not have a mile to go! We'll find redskins anywhere about here, at the first creek we come by, and Injun canoes too. They're all down at the coast for the trade, them that don't live here. Follow the coast east and we'll come on 'em, certain. Then we ha' the tarpaulins for sails to our canoe. Blood and wounds! Get a canoe and head north—what better d'ye want? Canoe can go over the shallows—French ships must go six leagues out to sea to find a draft o' seven fathom! D'ye get it in your thick head?"

"Ay, master——"

"Keep it there, then." Deakin knocked the man sprawling and leaped to his feet. "Shanks' mare and away! The storm be falling by to-night, most like."

The four men rose and went lurching off along the edge of the trees, following the low line of the shore and keeping their eyes open for the first sign of a creek. Half frozen though they were, they dared not linger here to light a fire.

Meanwhile, with the strong set of currents bearing it eastward along the coast, all the tangled top-hamper of the wreck drifted away, and in the midst of it was Crawford. So it happened that the four men, staggering onward by the shore, came upon this tangle of lines and spars, grounded upon a shallow.

Crawford was alive and awake by this time, but there was scarce enough life in his brain to admit any impressions; his body was quite helpless, sodden garments fast frozen to the maintop that held him above water, and waves still breaking over him. None the less, he dimly comprehended that there was clear sunlight overhead, and that the tempest was over. So he was not dead after all! Not dead, yet not far from it; and evidently dreaming, since there dimly pierced to his senses, as though from some great distance, the brazen tones of Moses Deakin.

"What, ye will not? Blood and wounds, but I say ye shall! Into the water, all of ye! In, and haul him ashore. But for him ye'd be frozen stark in irons this minute, ye rogues; and Moses Deakin pays tit for tat. Move sharp, or I'll bash your lousy heads!"

Crawford tried to see who spoke, but his feeble gaze could comprehend only ice and water. The spars and wreckage surged. Then in front of him he beheld a fragment of jagged wood upflung, and it came toppling at him, nor could he move a muscle to avoid it. Down it came, crashed him across the head and forced him under the water, and again his eyes closed and he knew no more.

After this, he had a strange vision. A delicious pain ran through his whole body as warmth crept into it, and soft fingers of women were dressing his hurts, and he was sipping hot broth. He saw around him strange dark faces which he took for Indians. Not the redskins he had known in New York, but flatter-faced people, lacking the pride and fierceness of the Iroquois, sloven with dirt. Then all this drifted away again on the wings of sleep.

With his next awakening, however, Crawford was himself in mind if not in body, and though his head was heavily bandaged, his senses were clear enough. He awoke to warmth, and sunlight flooding above sparkling wave-crests, and the slow rise and fall and surge of a craft under sail. He perceived that he was sitting propped up amidships in a long canoe; behind his shoulders was a pole, to either end of which was lashed a bit of plank. These planks went down into the water on each side of the canoe, acting in place of centreboard. The craft was speeding forward under a good breeze, was heading to the north, and her sail was made from patched tarpaulin. Two men, at first strangers to Crawford, were lying asleep in the bow; but presently he recognized them for two of Moses Deakin's men. From behind him sounded the rumbling tones of Deakin himself, conversing with another.

"Ay, that's the wreck of Iberville's ship down yonder. She's a good two leagues off the land, and the same from the fort. Smoke i' the trees means that some o' them have got safe ashore, plague blister them!"

"We'd ha' better chance for life with them than i' the wilderness," grumbled the unseen man. "What be the use o' making Danish river, Master? Injuns won't be there this time o' year, and we have no ship."

"How know ye that, ye rogue?" snapped Deakin fiercely, then laughed. "No Injuns? Wait and see. If they ha' word for me from the Star Woman, they'll be there waiting. As for the ship, we left three men aboard her. Soon's the ice let her free, they'd bring her across the bay to our old place. We have only to wait. And if they come not, what then? Why, make the best of it! Blood and wounds, can we not winter with the redskins? Or we can come south again after the fighting's done and take a craft from one o' the forts. As for that, the Star Woman herself may well be waiting to meet me, as I bade her! Hark—ay, that devil Iberville is safe ashore! Hear the great gun from the fort, eh? Likely Iberville is hammering at the gate with his naked fists."

The dull note of a distant cannon rolled to them from the distant forested shore.

So it was no dream, and he was alive! Crawford relaxed and closed his eyes again. He could realize that Moses Deakin had saved him, could dimly grasp that it had been done to repay his own act in setting the Bostonnais free. He could even figure out to some extent all that had passed, since Deakin was now heading for the Danish river. But nothing mattered. Weariness returned upon him, and despite the hunger gnawing at his vitals, he fell back into slumber.

Then oaths and wild curses, with a brazen roar of maniacal fury from Moses Deakin, wakened him some time afterwards and brought him wide-eyed. The four men in the canoe were pouring forth a storm of bitter imprecations, which for once were sincerely heartfelt. Crawford, seeing the men in the bow shaking fists to starboard, turned his head.

There, far out beyond the shallows that hedged the whole low coast, he descried the white sails of three tall ships heading to the southward, and a little behind them the brown canvas of a corvette. This, as the raging curses of his companions informed him, was no other than the Albemarle. Presently the distant roll of a cannon reached them, and another.

"Ay, they've seen us, and much good it'll do them. The French ha' got our ship, eh?" Moses Deakin faced the issue squarely. "Never mind that, lads, never mind! On to the Danish, and we'll find the redskins waiting for us. We'll find the Star Woman there too, or a message from her. They'll be sure to wait all summer, until the ice comes again—ha! Art awake, Crawford? Here's food and drink, such as we ha' got left. Don't move too much, for this cursed craft of ours is cranky."

"One o' the French ships ha' sent a pinnace after us!" yelled a man. "See her bit o' sail, master?"

Deakin cursed, then laughed, for it was close to sunset.

"Sink me, let 'em come! No bluff-bowed navy boat can keep up wi' this canoe, and they'll be glad to give over the chase before dark. Here y'are, Crawford——"

Crawford thankfully ate and drank, while the canoe plunged on. The pursuing sail was lost to sight ere twi- light, and when a small river appeared on their left, Deakin held the canoe in for it. He wanted to renew their scanty supply of fresh water and give all hands half an hour ashore, as well as to rearrange their makeshift sail.

Upon landing, one of the men took the fusil and departed after game, presently returning with a rabbit. A fire was set going, and all five gathered about it. Crawford was weak, but long sleep had refreshed him and the weakness would soon pass, while his split scalp was al ready healing beneath soothing Indian unguents. When the five had polished off the last drop of broth and the last scrap of meat from the boiled bones, a remnant of tobacco was shared.

"Now—what!" demanded Crawford, meeting the wide gaze of Moses Deakin. The latter, having learned Crawford's tale by snatches, grimaced in his beard.

"As to you? Well, I said ye were a warlock, and it's proved true. Another eight leagues, and we'll land to cut across Cape Churchill. No use rounding that shore when we can save time and food by legging it. As for you, we're square. I've paid ye tit for tat."

"Granted," said Crawford. "You've not seen my ship or men?"

"Nay. Will ye come with us?"

Crawford smoked out his scanty allotment of tobacco.

"Agreed," he said, wondering whether he would find Frontin at the Danish river. If Frontin had read that scrap of bloodstained paper, had brought the Northstar to the place—then what? If there were no south sea passage, what lay in the future? Was the horizon empty? Crawford put his hand inside his shirt and pulled forth the Star of Dreams, still safe on its thong. The other men blinked at the green jewel in the firelight.

"Agreed," repeated Crawford. "I'm with you, Cap'n Deakin. We'll see what haps at the Danish river."

"Ay," growled Deakin, and rose. "All hands! Let's get off while the wind holds."