She was not fire, and spirit, and courage, and loyalty,
and temper, and tenderness. No, she was not in the least like that. I
think that she would soon forget. Have we dropped this subject
forever, mademoiselle?"
She made me a grave curtsy. "Till we reach Montreal," she promised,
and she did not raise her eyes.
We were married at noon. The altar stood under an oak tree, and the
light sifted in patterns on the ground. I wore satin, and ribbon, and
shining buckle, for I carried those gewgaws in my cargo, but my finery
did not shame my bride's attire. She stood proud, and rounded, and
supple in her deerskins, and a man might have gloried in her. Seven
hundred Indians, glistening like snakes with oil and vermilion,
squatted around us, but they held themselves as lifeless as
marionettes. It was so still that I heard the snore of a sleeping dog
and the gulls in the harbor squawking over a floating fish. Father
Nouvel spoke very slowly. This was a real marriage, a sacrament, to
him.
As we turned from the ceremony, Onanguisse came forward. He was not
painted, but he wore a mantle of embroidered buffalo skin, and his
hair, which was dressed high with eagle's feathers, was powdered with
down from the breasts of white gulls.
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