[Illustration: She lay breathing like an infant 026]
The consequences of her waking did not threaten him as perilous. Without reasoning, he was convinced that a woman who lay down to sleep beside a burning candle in this wild place would make no outcry when she awoke and found the light had drawn instead of kept away possible cave-inhabitants. Day grew beyond the low sill and thinned obscurity around him, showing the swerve of the roof to a sloping shelf. Perspiration cooled upon him and he shivered. A fire and a breakfast would have been good things, which he had often enjoyed in danger. Rowing all night, and landing cannon at the end of it, and running a league or more for life, exhausted a man.
The woman stirred, and the young voyageur thought of dropping his knife back into its sheath. At the slight click she sat up, drawing in her breath.
He whispered: “Do not be afraid. I have not come in here to hurt you.”
She was staring at him, probably taking him for some monster of the dark.
The woman resumed her suspended breath, and answered in the same guarded way, and in French like his: “Yes. I come to this part of the island so of ten that I have put bread and meat and candles in the cave. How did you find it? No one but myself knew about it.”
“The candle was to keep off evil spirits. It has been blown out. Where did you come from?”
“From St. Joseph Island last night with the English. They have taken the island by surprise.”
She unexpectedly laughed in a repressed gurgle, as a faun or other woods creature might have laughed at the predicaments of men.
“I am thinking of the stupid American soldiers--to lie asleep and let the British creep in upon them. But have you seen my cow? I searched everywhere, until the moon went down and I was tired to death, for my cow.”
“No, I saw no cow. I had the Sioux to watch.”
“The Indian our commandant sent after me. Speak low. He may be listening outside.”
“If Indians have come on the island they will kill all the cattle.”
“There are the women and children and men--even poor voyageurs--for them to kill first.”
“I never have seen war. Why did you come here?”
“I did not want to, mademoiselle, and I deserted. That is why the Indian was sent after me.”