As he swung between his captors McElroy looked back at the closed gates
of De Seviere and a sharp pain struck at his heart, a childish hurt
that the post he had loved should watch his exit from the light of life
with unmoved front. It seemed almost that the bastioned wall was
sensate, as if the small portholes here and there were living eyes,
cold and hard with indifference, nay, even a-glitter with selfishness.
But quick on the sense of hurt came the knowledge which is part of
every man in the wilderness; and he knew well that every face in the
little fort was drawn with the tragedy, that from those blank portholes
looked human eyes, sick with the thing they could not avert, that
whoever had taken charge within was only working for the safety of the
greatest number, and with the thought his weakness passed.
Only one more pang assailed him.
He gave one swift thought to Maren Le Moyne. Where in Fort de Seviere
was she, and what was in her heart?
Then he was swung, still bound, into the bottom of a canoe, saw De
Courtenay tossed into another, felt the careless feet of Nakonkirhirinons
as the paddlemen stepped in, and existence became a thing of gliding
motion, the lapping of water on birchbark, and the passing of a long
strip of cloud-flecked sky, pink and blue and gold with the new day.
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