Illustrated by
Harold DeLay
Chance
place for heating and cooking. But, seated at the table, were the most romantic figures in all America—Pierre le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, darkly handsome, saturnine, magnetic, and his brother, the boy Bienville, on first campaign.
Iberville looked up at the hovering tap-boy. His face warmed, his eyes kindled, the spell of his lean, eager self leaped forth.
"Ha, pale cheeks and big eyes!" he exclaimed in his vibrant, gusty manner. "Brave eyes, by my faith! Fetch us wine, brave eyes!"
Later, when the innkeeper was passing, Iberville hailed him and spoke about the tap-boy. English, no doubt?
"Not at all, monsieur," was the reply. "A lad who fled here for shelter. One of the Irish slaves."
That explained everything. In Newfoundland were many of the hapless Irish Jacobites, sold as slaves to the English settlements. Wherever possible, they fled to freedom among the French, but too often died in the effort.
So Bess Adams, waiting on the little group of Canadians, heard wondrous things amid their laughter and eager talk. It was the dead of winter. Iberville had brought a few of his Canadian backwoodsmen, and meant to lead them on snowshoes to destroy every English settlement on the island. And what men they were!
Iberville himself, at home in Versailles or the deep forest; his young brother, the lovely, lordly Bienville; Abbé Baudoin, who had been a musketeer before he became a fighting chaplain; Montigny, the dark, savage Canadian leader, and the rest of them. Romantic names and men, every one.
"Now listen, my friends!" cried Iberville, as the tap-boy poised opposite. "With the spring, my brother Serigny brings a fleet from France; we'll sweep the English out of Hudson's Bay. But first, our work lies here! And when the fleet comes, when I leave here for the north, I want to leave this whole island a French possession."
Hudson's Bay! He was leading a fleet to the great bay, to conquer the whole vast fur trade at one swoop! Bess Adams went about her work with a dream in her dark eyes. And, all this long frost-ridden winter, whenever Iberville saw her, he greeted her with a slap on the shoulder and a cheery word. "Ha, brave eyes!" It was his name for her. He remembered her. That in itself was enough to make one's heart leap high.
She saw him often, for he was in Placentia on hurried trips, now and again. English prisoners poured in, St. John's was taken, the settlements scattered along the island shores were raided and wiped out. But here, in the rude log tavern where the Canadians roared their drinking songs, Iberville was no stranger.
A slender man, all fire and flame. To the French, he was a puzzle. To the Canadians, a demigod. To the Indians, a great war-chief. To the English, a
devil let loose. But to Bess Adams,
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