"Ziff! Je vais donner un banquet a tout le moonde, moi!" he cried,
hustling and bustling hither and thither.
A scout from up the river announced the approach of Philip Dejean
with his flotilla richly laden, and what little interest may have
been gathering in the direction of M. Roussillon's festal
proposition vanished like the flame of a lamp in a puff of wind
when this news reached Colonel Clark and became known in the town.
Beverley and Alice sat together in the main room of the Roussillon
cabin--you could scarcely find them separated during those happy
days--and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a
Creole ditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible
nonsense. She knew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon,
a jack of all trades, had been able to teach her,--a few simple
chords to accompany her songs, picked up at hap-hazard. But her
voice, like her face and form, irradiated witchery. It was sweet,
firm, deep, with something haunting in it--the tone of a hermit
thrush, marvelously pure and clear, carried through a gay strain
like the mocking-bird's. Of course Beverley thought it divine; and
when a message came from Colonel Clark bidding him report for duty
at once, he felt an impulse toward mutiny of the rankest sort. He
did not dream that a military expedition could be on hand; but
upon reaching headquarters, the first thing he heard was:
"Report to Captain Helm.
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