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"O, come now," said Claude, "don't begin again. I thought you'd given up all anxiety. There's not the slightest occasion for being worried about it. I'll find out whether they can take me to Louisbourg, and so I'll leave you, and you'll get back to Boston quicker than if you took me where you first proposed." "Yes; but suppose she's goin' to France, and chooses to take me prisoner?" said Zac.
Still there came no further sounds, and Claude, after listening for a long time without hearing anything, began, at length, to conclude that Zac had been deceived. "Don't you think," he asked, "that it may, after all, have been the rustle of the sails, or the creaking of the spars?" Zac shook his head.
At length, after having thus passed the whole night, the path came to a creek. Here Zac paused. "Now, little gal," said he, "you may go to sleep till mornin', for I think we've got pooty nigh onto the end of our tramp."
They now learned that Claude was on his way to Louisbourg, and that they would thus be able to reach their original destination. They also learned the circumstances of Zac, and his peculiar unwillingness to trust his schooner inside the harbor of Louisbourg. Zac's scruples were respected by them, though they all declared that there was no real danger.
As I was a standin' here, jest afore you come up, I thought I heerd voices out thar on the starboard quarter voices " "Voices!" said Claude. "O, nonsense! Voices! How can there be voices out there? It must have been the water." "Wal," continued Zac, still speaking in a low tone, "that's the very thing I thought when I fust heerd 'em; I thought, too, it must be the water.
Vigilance only was necessary, together with coolness and nerve, and all these qualities he believed himself to have. The knowledge of the woods which Zac claimed stood him in good stead on the present occasion; he was able to guide his course in a very satisfactory manner; and about sundown, or a little after, he struck the trail.
The next moment Claude was disarmed, and in the hands of his enemies. Seizing Margot in his arms at the first alarm, Zac had fled to the woods. Being stronger than Claude, he was fortunate in having a less unwieldy burden; for Margot did not lie like a heavyweight in his arms, but was able to dispose herself in a way which rendered her more easy to be carried.
Upon this, Zac and Terry each seized one of the slumbering Acadians, and before they were fairly awake they were disarmed. Zac and Terry both scorned to bind them, partly out of kindly feeling towards them, partly because they themselves had not been bound, and partly out of the pride of their manhood.
On reaching the woods, Zac did not at once plunge in among the trees, but continued along the trail for some distance, asking Margot to tell him the moment she saw one of the pursuing party. As Margot's face was turned back, she was in a position to watch.
Every soul in the place had her omen. Jane Restless had a magpie. That very morning the bird had stolen a leaden plummet belonging to Restless and carried it to her cage, where she promptly set to work to hatch it out. And she fought when Zac went to take it away. She made such a racket when it was gone that Jane was sorry, and picked out a small chicken's egg and put it into the bird's cage.
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