The swelling spring was chilled by cold rain, driving in from the bay and sweeping through the half budded woods. The tide went up St. John River with an impulse which flooded undiked lowlands, yet there was no storm dangerous to shipping. Some sails hung out there in the whirl of vapors with evident intention of making port.

Marie took a glass up to the turret and stood on the cannon to watch them. Rain fine as driven stings beat her face, and accumulated upon her muffling to run down and drip on the wet floor. She could make out nothing of the vessels. There were three of them, each by its sails a ship. They could not be the ships of Nicholas Denys carrying La Tour's recruits. She was not foolish enough, however great her husband's prosperity with Denys, to expect of him such a miraculous voyage around Cape Sable.

Sails were a rare sight on that side of the bay. The venturesome seamen of the Massachusetts colony chose other courses. Fundy Bay was aside from the great sea paths. Port Royal sent out no ships except D'Aulnay's, and on La Tour's side of Acadia his was the only vessel.

Certain of nothing except that these unknown comers intended to enter St. John River, Madame La Tour went downstairs and met Klussman on the wall. He turned from his outlook and said directly,—

"Madame, I believe it is D'Aulnay."

"You may be right," she answered. "Is any one outside the gates?"

"Two men went early to the garden, but the rain drove them back. Fortunately, the day being bad, no one is hunting beyond the falls."

"And is our vessel well moored?"

"Her repairing was finished some days ago, you remember, madame, and she sits safe and comfortable. But D'Aulnay may burn her. When he was here before, my lord was away with the ship."

"Bar the gates and make everything secure at once," said Marie. "And salute these vessels presently. If it be D'Aulnay, we sent him back to his seigniory with fair speed once before, and we are no worse equipped now."

She returned down the stone steps where Van Corlaer's courtship had succeeded, and threw off her wet cloak to dry herself before the fire in her room. She kneeled by the hearth; the log had burned nearly away. Her mass of hair was twisted back in the plain fashion of the Greeks—that old sweet fashion created with the nature of woman, to which the world periodically returns when it has exhausted new devices. The smallest curves, which were tendrils rather than curls of hair, were blown out of her fleece over forehead and ears. A dark woman's beauty is independent of wind and light. When she is buffeted by weather the rich inner color comes through her skin, and the brightest dayshine can do nothing against the dusk of her eyes.

If D'Aulnay was about to attack the fort, Marie was glad that Monsieur Corlaer had taken his bride, the missionaries, and his people and set out in the opposite direction. Barely had they escaped a siege, for they were on their way less than twenty-four hours. She had regretted their first day in a chill rain. But chill rain in boundless woods is better than sunlight in an invested fortress. Father Jogues' happy face with its forward droop and musing eyelids came before Marie's vision.

"I need another of his benedictions," she said in undertone, when a knock on her door and a struggle with its latch disturbed her.

"Enter, Le Rossignol," said Madame La Tour. And Le Rossignol entered, and approached the hearth, standing at full length scarcely as high as her lady kneeling. The room was a dim one, for all apartments looking out of the fort had windows little larger than portholes, set high in the walls. Two or three screens hid its uses as bedchamber and dressing-room, and a few pieces of tapestry were hung, making occasional panels of grotesque figures. A couch stood near the fireplace. The dwarf's prominent features were gravely fixed, and her bushy hair stood in a huge auburn halo around them. She wet her lips with that sudden motion by which a toad may be seen to catch flies.

"Madame Marie, every one is running around below and saying that D'Aulnay de Charnisay is coming again to attack the fort."

"Your pretty voice has always been a pleasure to me, Nightingale."

"But is it so, madame?"

"There are three ships standing in."

Le Rossignol's russet-colored gown moved nearer to the fire. She stretched her claws to warm and then lifted one of them near her lady's nose.

"Madame Marie, if D'Aulnay de Charnisay be coming, put no faith in that Swiss!"

"In Klussman?"

"Yes, madame."

"Klussman is the best soldier now in the fort," said Madame La Tour laughing. "If I put no faith in him, whom shall I trust?"

"Madame Marie, you remember that woman you brought back with you?"

"I have not seen her or spoken with her," said Marie self-reproachfully, "since she vexed me so sorely about her child. She is a poor creature. But they feed and house her well in the barracks."

"Madame Marie, Klussman hath been talking with that woman every day this week."

The dwarf's lady looked keenly at her.

"Oh, no. There could be no talk between those two."

"But there hath been. I have watched him. Madame Marie, he took me up when I went into the fort before Madame Bronck's marriage—when I was but playing my clavier before that sulky knave to amuse her—he took me up in his big common-soldier fingers, gripping me around the waist, and flung me into the hall."

"Did he so?" laughed Marie. "I can well see that my Nightingale can put no more faith in the Swiss. But hearken to me, thou bird-child. There! Hear our salute!"

The cannon leaped almost over their heads, and the walls shook with its boom and rebound. Marie kept her finger up and waited for a reply. Minute succeeded minute. The drip of accumulated rain-drops from the door could be heard, but nothing else. Those sullen vessels paid no attention to the inquiry of Fort St. John.

"Our enemy has come."

She relaxed from her tense listening and with a deep breath looked at Le Rossignol.

"Do not undermine the faith of one in another in this fortress. We must all hold together now. The Swiss may have a tenderness for his wretched wife which thou canst not understand. But he is not therefore faithless to his lord."

Taking the glass and throwing on her wet cloak, Marie again ran up to the wall. But Le Rossignol sat down cross-legged by the fire, wise and brooding.

"If I could see that Swiss hung," she observed, "it would scratch in my soul a long-felt itch."

When calamity threatens, we turn back to our peaceful days with astonishment that they ever seemed monotonous. Marie watched the ships, and thought of the woman days with Antonia before Van Corlaer came; of embroidery, and teaching the Etchemins, and bringing sweet plunder from the woods for the child's grave; of paddling on the twilight river when the tide was up, brimming and bubble-tinted; of her lord's coming home to the autumn-night hearth; of the little wheels and spinning, and Edelwald's songs—of all the common joys of that past life. The clumsy glass lately brought from France to master distances in the New World, wearied her hands before it assured her eyes.

D'Aulnay de Charnisay was actually coming to attack Fort St. John a second time. He warily anchored his vessels out of the fort's range; and hour after hour boats moved back and forth landing men and artillery on the cape at the mouth of the river, a position which gave as little scope as possible to St. John's guns. All that afternoon tents and earthworks were rising, and detail by detail appeared the deliberate and careful preparations of an enemy who was sitting down to a siege.

At dusk camp-fires began to flame on the distant low cape, and voices moved along air made sensitively vibrant by falling damp. There was the suggested hum of a disciplined small army settling itself for the night and for early action.

Madame La Tour came out to the esplanade of the fort, and the Swiss met her, carrying a torch which ineffectual rain-drops irritated to constant hissing. He stood, tall and careworn, holding it up that his lady might see her soldiers. Everything in the fort was ready for the siege. The sentinels were about to be doubled, and sheltered by their positions.

"I have had you called together, my men," she spoke, "to say a word to you before this affair begins."

The torch flared its limited circle of shine, smoke wavering in a half-seen plume at its tip, and showed their erect figures in line, none very distinct, but all keenly suggestive of life. Some were black-bearded and tawny, and others had tints of the sun in flesh and hair. One was grizzled about the temples, and one was a smooth-cheeked youth. The roster of their familiar names seemed to her as precious as a rosary. They watched her, feeling her beauty as keenly as if it were a pain, and answering every lambent motion of her spirit.

All the buildings were hinted through falling mist, and glowing hearths in the barracks showed like forge lights; for the wives of the half dozen married soldiers had come out, one having a child in her arms. They stood behind their lady, troubled, but reliant on her. She had with them the prestige of success; she had led the soldiers once before, and to a successful defense of the fort.

"My men," said Marie, "when the Sieur de la Tour set out to northern Acadia he dreaded such a move as this on D'Aulnay's part. But I assured him he need not fear for us."

The soldiers murmured their joy and looked at one another smiling.

"The Sieur de la Tour will soon return, with help or without it. And D'Aulnay has no means of learning how small our garrison is. Bind yourselves afresh to me as you bound yourselves before the other attack."

"My lady, we do!"

Out leaped every right hand, Klussman's with the torch, which lost and caught its flame again with the sudden sweep.

"That is all: and I thank you," said Marie. "We will do our best."

She turned back to the tower under the torch's escort, her soldiers giving her a full cheer which might further have deceived D'Aulnay in the strength of the garrison.