He had his choice, and his men
were soon gathered round him. A tree was cut down in the woods some
distance from the shore, shortened, and brought down, ready for its duty
of battering-ram.
The night was beautiful. There was a bright moon, and the sky by some
strange trick of atmosphere had taken on a green hue, against which
everything stood out with singular distinctness. The air was placid, and
through the stillness came the low humming wash of the water to the hard
shore. The fort stood on an upland, looking in its solitariness like
some lonely prison-house where men went, more to have done with the world
than for punishment. Iberville was in that mood wherein men do stubborn
deeds--when justice is more with them than mercy, and selfishness than
either.
"If you meet the man, Pierre?" De Casson said before the party started.
Iberville laughed softly. "If we meet, may my mind be his, abbe! But he
is not here--there is no vessel, you see! Still, there are more forts on
the bay." The band knelt down before they started. It was strange to
hear in that lonely waste, a handful of men, bent on a deadly task,
singing a low chant of penitence--a Kyrie eleison. Afterwards came the
benediction upon this buccaneering expedition, behind which was one man's
personal enmity, a merchant company's cupidity, and a great nation's lust
of conquest! Iberville stole across the shore and up the hill with his
handful of men.
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