Within two weeks of the time that Phips in his Bridgwater Merchant,
manned by a full crew, twenty fighting men, and twelve guns, with
Gering in command of the Swallow, a smaller ship, got away to the south,
Iberville also sailed in the same direction. He had found awaiting him,
on his return to Quebec, a priest bearing messages and a chart from
another priest who had died in the Spaniards' country.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH THE HUNTERS ARE OUT
Iberville had a good ship. The Maid of Provence carried a handful of
guns and a small but carefully chosen crew, together with Sainte-Helene,
Perrot, and the lad Maurice Joval, who had conceived for Iberville
friendship nigh to adoration. Those were days when the young were
encouraged to adventure, and Iberville had no compunction in giving the
boy this further taste of daring.
Iberville, thorough sailor as he was, had chosen for his captain one who
had sailed the Spanish Main. He had commanded on merchant-ships which
had been suddenly turned into men-of-war, and was suited to the present
enterprise: taciturn, harsh of voice, singularly impatient, but a perfect
seaman and as brave as could be. He had come to Quebec late the previous
autumn with the remnants of a ship which, rotten when she left the port
of Havre, had sprung a leak in mid-ocean, had met a storm, lost her
mainmast, and by the time she reached the St. Lawrence had scarce a stick
standing.
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