"Swein Poulsson helped get your breakfast, sir, and would eat nothing
either," I ventured.
"Davy," said Colonel Clark, gravely, "I hope you will be younger when you
are twenty."
"I hope I shall be bigger, sir," I answered gravely.
CHAPTER XIV
HOW THE KASKASKEIANS WERE MADE CITIZENS
Never before had such a day dawned upon Kaskaskia. With July fierceness
the sun beat down upon the village, but man nor woman nor child stirred
from the darkened houses. What they awaited at the hands of the Long
Knives they knew not,--captivity, torture, death perhaps. Through the
deserted streets stalked a squad of backwoodsmen headed by John Duff and
two American traders found in the town, who were bestirring themselves in
our behalf, knocking now at this door and anon at that.
"The Colonel bids you come to the fort," he said, and was gone.
The church bell rang with slow, ominous strokes, far different from its
gentle vesper peal of yesterday. Two companies were drawn up in the sun
before the old Jesuit house, and presently through the gate a procession
came, grave and mournful. The tone of it was sombre in the white glare,
for men had donned their best (as they thought) for the last time,--cloth
of camlet and Cadiz and Limbourg, white cotton stockings, and
brass-buckled shoes. They came like captives led to execution.
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