Upon the shore were bustle, cheerfulness, and
song, until every canoe was launched, and then the band of warriors got
in, and presently were away in the haze.
The long bark canoes, with lofty prows, stained with powerful dyes, slid
along this path swiftly, the paddles noiselessly cleaving the water with
the precision of a pendulum. One followed the other with a space
between, so that Iberville, in the first, looking back, could see a
diminishing procession, the last seeming large and weird--almost a
shadow--as it were a part of the weird atmosphere. On either side was
that soft plumbless diffusion, and ahead the secret of untravelled wilds
and the fortunes of war.
As if by common instinct, all gossip ceased soon after they left
the shore, and, cheerful as was the French Canadian, he was--and is--
superstitious. He saw sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,
and the supernatural in everything. Simple, hardy, occasionally bloody,
he was ever on the watch for signs and wonders, and a phase of nature
influenced him after the manner of a being with a temperament. Often, as
some of the woodsmen and river-men had seen this strange effect, they now
made the sacred gesture as they ran on. The pure moisture lay like a
fine exudation on their brown skins, glistened on their black hair, and
hung from their beards, giving them a mysterious look.
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