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“I had saved something to the last, as the great test, as the one thing to open his eyes wide, if they could be opened at all. Alors, there was no time to lose, for the wolf of Night was driving the red glow-worm down behind the world, and I knew that when darkness came altogether–darkness and night–there would be no help for him. Mon Dieu! how one sleeps in the night of the north, in the beautiful wide silence!… So, m’sieu’, just when I thought it was the time, I called, ‘Corinne! Corinne!’ Then once again I said, ‘P’tite Corinne! P’tite Corinne! Come home! come home! P’tite Corinne!’ I could see the fight in the jail of sleep. But at last he killed his jailer; the doors in his brain flew open, and his mind came out through his wide eyes. But he was blind a little and dazed, though it was getting dark quick. I struck his back hard, and spoke loud from a song that we used to sing on the Chaudiere–Babiche and all of us, years ago. Mon Dieu! how I remember those days–

“‘Which is the way that the sun goes?
The way that my little one come.
Which is the good path over the hills?
The path that leads to my little one’s home–
To my little one’s home, m’sieu’, m’sieu’!’

“That did it. ‘Corinne, ma p’tite Corinne!’ he said; but he did not look at me–only stretch out his hands. I caught them, and shook them, and shook him, and made him take a step forward; then I slap him on the back again, and said loud: ‘Come, come, Babiche, don’t you know me? See Babiche, the snow’s no sleeping-bunk, and a polar bear’s no good friend.’ ‘Corinne!’ he went on, soft and slow. ‘Ma p’tite Corinne!’ He smiled to himself; and I said, ‘Where’ve you been, Babiche? Lucky I found you, or you’d have been sleeping till the Great Mass.’ Then he looked at me straight in the eyes, and something wild shot out of his. His hand stretched over and caught me by the shoulder, perhaps to steady himself, perhaps because he wanted to feel something human. Then he looked round slow-all round the plain, as if to find something. At that moment a little of the sun crept back, and looked up over the wall of ice, making a glow of yellow and red for a moment; and never, north or south, have I seen such beauty–so delicate, so awful. It was like a world that its Maker had built in a fit of joy, and then got tired of, and broke in pieces, and blew out all its fires, and left–ah yes–like that! And out in the distance I–I only saw a bear travelling eastwards.”

The governor said slowly:

And I took My staff Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break My covenant which I had made with all the people.

“Yes–like that.” Pierre continued: “Babiche turned to me with a little laugh, which was a sob too. ‘Where is it, Pierre?’ said he. I knew he meant the bear. ‘Gone to look for another man,’ I said, with a gay look, for I saw that he was troubled. ‘Come,’ said he at once. As we went, he saw my dogs. He stopped short and shook a little, and tears came into his eyes. ‘What is it, Babiche?’ said I. He looked back towards the south. ‘My dogs–Brandy-wine, Come-along, ‘Poleon, and the rest–died one night all of an hour. One by one they crawl over to where I lay in my fur bag, and die there, huddling by me–and such cries–such cries! There was poison or something in the frozen fish I’d given them. I loved them every one; and then there was the mails, the year’s mails–how should they be brought on? That was a bad thought, for I had never missed–never in ten years. There was one bunch of letters which the governor said to me was worth more than all the rest of the mails put together, and I was to bring it to Fort St. Saviour, or not show my face to him again. I leave the dogs there in the snow, and come on with the sled, carrying all the mails. Ah, the blessed saints, how heavy the sled got, and how lonely it was! Nothing to speak to–no one, no thing, day after day. At last I go to cry to the dogs, “Come-along! ‘Poleon! Brandy-wine!”–like that! I think I see them there, but they never bark and they never snarl, and they never spring to the snap of the whip…. I was alone. Oh, my head! my head! If there was only something alive to look at, besides the wide white plain, and the bare hills of ice, and the sun-dogs in the sky! Now I was wild, next hour I was like a child, then I gnash my teeth like a wolf at the sun, and at last I got on my knees. The tears froze my eyelids shut, but I kept saying, “Ah, my great Friend, my Jesu, just something, something with the breath of life! Leave me not all alone!” and I got sleepier all the time.