So intently did we peer ahead into the faint mists that rose from the surface of this narrowing lake that without knowing how it happened, or when, we saw the lake was a lake no longer, but a broad brown river that swept us along between banks as flat as those behind us had been steep and rocky. We had come to Canada at last.

The river was the Richelieu, though Verrieul said it was also known as the Iroquois, because it was the pathway followed by the Iroquois in the old days when they went north to wage war on the Montagnais.

This river, Verrieul said, ran straight north and emptied into the St. Lawrence at Sorel, the town at the end of the tremendous wide place known as Lake St. Peter, and that was how we would go: through St. John’s, a matter of thirty miles from Lake Champlain: then on twice as far again to Sorel, through water a little broken: then down the St. Lawrence to Quebec.

X

WHENEVER Cap Huff spoke of Quebec, which he often did, he smacked his lips. “It ain’t much to look at,” he told us, “but after we’ve reported to Arnold, we’ll scout out around Sillery.” He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “There’s a place out in Sillery that’s got brandy in the cellar that’ll surprise you! Take maybe a third of a bottle, and for three days afterward you won’t remember none of the worst things you ever done. That’s the nice thing about it!”

But the closer we came to Canada, the more silent Nathaniel grew. His increasing quiet, I felt, was somehow due to Marie de Sabrevois; to something she had said to him in London, or something in the letter she had given him—the letter Nathaniel had never mentioned to me. I became almost certain of this when I heard him asking Cap Huff how long we would stay in St. John’s.

“Stay?” Cap asked. “We’ll stay long enough to get some food. We’ll buy us a couple of young pigs, maybe, and a barrel of that cider with brandy in it.” His answer seemed comforting to Nathaniel, and I made up my mind to keep my eye on him in St. John’s.

We were halfway between the lake and St. John’s when we caught sight of the bateaux we were pursuing. They were abreast of a long, low island in the river—an island overgrown with alders. This low island, Verrieul said, was Isle aux Noix—a gloomy place, almost a swamp, but used for military camps by French armies and Indian war parties since time out of mind. We were to know it better soon; and even now there was a singular thing about it that caught our attention.