Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 59: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WITHOUT FEAR. Bienville was the scion of the noblest house in Canada—that of Le Moyne. His family was wealthy and powerful, and, in the period that Paradis had known the lad he had seen in him the ability and courage that were later to stand the Canadian in good stead throughout the decades of his tenure of office as governor of Louisiana. He knew that the impressionable heart of the young man had been lost to the fair Felice and he determined that, cost what it might in tears and anguish, he would place every obstacle in D’Albret’s path, that the way for Bienville might be made more smooth, and he hoped in time that Felice would forget her love for the handsome Gascon and return in full measure the passion that Bienville entertained for her. Paradis, no less than D’Albret, had seen the expression of consternation and anxiety that had overspread Bienville’s countenance when Felice had fainted and he had also in- terpreted aright the light that had burned in the young Canadian’s eyes. When, therefore, the day came that Felice was able to sit up in the sunny cham- ber which she and her father shared as a living room, and she asked her father to find D’Albret and bring him to her, the seaman left her with determination in his countenance and a vague misgiving in his heart. Beside a cannon which was _ being mounted into position the captain found D’Albret and Bienville discussing old times together when the boy was a student in Paris, and the mariner’s determination wavered for a moment as the Gascon’s hearty laughter answered some facetious re- mark on the part of the Canadian. But he steeled himself to the disagreeable task he had set himself to do and, as the two young men looked up at his approach, he smiled upon them impartially. “ Pardieu!” he exclaimed as he patted the smooth brass barrel of the gun. “ Me- thinks that any unbidden guests will be en- tertained more lavishly than they expect should they visit us. I would that Felice were strong enough to come out and see the preparations being made for her defense.” He looked about him at the mounted cannon—the alarm bell whose strident tones 4AA 209 would call the settlers into the fort should mecessity arise—the loop-holes through which two score muskets could be dis- charged simultaneously. “And Felice—” ventured D’Albret hesi- tantly; “is she better?” Paradis nodded and he rubbed a nervous hand along the polished gun. ‘“She is up and sitting comfortably at a window,” he replied. ‘I have a message which she desired I deliver—” Both young men stared eagerly at the lowered face of the captain, and he inwardly cursed himself for the pusillanimity which caused him such qualms of conscience be- fore the earnest eyes of Antoine d’Albret. ‘Then she sent you to—to deliver a message?”’ prompted the Gascon, and he waited with breathless intensity for the older man’s answer. Captain Paradis again nodded his head, then he straightened up and looked de- terminedly at D’Albret. ‘She asked me to tell M. de Bienville that she was lonely and that she wished to be entertained,” he replied, and he turned his eyes from D’Albret’s stricken face and accompanied the ecstatic Canadian back to his quarters. CHAPTER IX. THE BORDER-LINE OF FOREST. "ALBRET remained where the others D had left him and he stared after the two figures as one stunned. ‘The warm sun which aforetime had thrilled him with the mellow promise of the summer day, and under whose soft rays the wooded countryside and silvery sands had never been so beautiful, now beat pitilessly down upon a land utterly barren and interminably drab. The blue had gone from the sky— the sweetness from the songs of the birds, and the spicy odors which blew in from the flower-carpeted rim of the forest: were no longer pleasing to his nostrils. He mechanically moved to follow Bien- ville and Paradis but, as the door opened and closed behind them, he checked him- self and walked dejectedly toward his own quarters outside the fortress gates. CoOnnicoool< CO