"What is that, Count?" La Corne stood up erect as if in mental defiance of a new danger.
"Pierre Philibert will return home to-night," replied the Governor;
"he carries the sharpest sword in New France. A duel between him and Le Gardeur would crown the machinations of the secret plotters in this murder. He will certainly avenge his father's death, even upon Le Gardeur."
La Corne St. Luc started at this suggestion, but presently shook his head. "My life upon it," said he, "Le Gardeur would stand up to receive the sword of Pierre through his heart, but he would never fight him! Besides, the unhappy boy is a prisoner."
"We will care well for him and keep him safe. He shall have absolute justice, La Corne, but no favor."
An officer entered the room to report to the Governor that the troops had reached their assigned posts, and that there was no symptom of rioting among the people in any quarter of the city.
The Governor was greatly relieved by these tidings. "Now, La Corne," said he, "we have done what is needful for the public. I can spare you, for I know where your heart yearns most to go, to offer the consolations of a true friend."
"Alas, yes," replied La Corne sadly. "Men weep tears of water, but women tears of blood! What is our hardest grief compared with the overwhelming sorrow and desolation that will pass over my poor goddaughter, Amelie de Repentigny, and the noble Lady de Tilly at this doleful news?"
"Go comfort them, La Corne, and the angel of consolation go with you!" The Governor shook him by the hand and wished him Godspeed.
La Corne St. Luc instantly left the house. The crowd uncovered and made way for him as they would have done for the Governor himself, as with hasty strides he passed up the Rue du Fort and on towards the Cape, where stood the mansion of the Lady de Tilly.
"Oh, Rigaud, what a day of sorrow this is!" exclaimed the Governor to De Vaudreuil, on their return to the Castle of St. Louis. "What a bloody and disgraceful event to record in the annals of New France!"
"I would give half I have in the world could it be forever blotted out," replied De Vaudreuil. "Your friend, Herr Kalm, has left us, fortunately, before he could record in his book, for all Europe to read, that men are murdered in New France to sate the vengeance of a Royal Intendant and fill the purses of the greatest company of thieves that ever plundered a nation."
"Hark, Rigaud! do not say such things," interrupted the Governor; "I trust it is not so bad as that; but it shall be seen into, if I remain Governor of New France. The blood of the noble Bourgeois shall be requited at the hands of all concerned in his assassination.
The blame of it shall not rest wholly upon that unhappy Le Gardeur.
We will trace it up to its very origin and fountain-head."
"Right, Count; you are true as steel. But mark me! if you begin to trace this assassination up to its origin and fountain-head, your letters of recall will be despatched by the first ship that leaves France after the news reaches Versailles." Rigaud looked fixedly at the Count as he said this.
"It may be so, Rigaud," replied the Count, sadly; "strange things take place under the regime of the strange women who now rule the Court. Nevertheless, while I am here my whole duty shall be done.
In this matter justice shall be meted out with a firm and impartial hand, no matter who shall be incriminated!"
The Count de la Galissoniere at once summoned a number of his most trusted and most sagacious councillors together--the Intendant was not one of those summoned--to consider what steps it behooved them to take to provide for the public safety and to ensure the ends of justice in this lamentable tragedy.
