noon
There could be but one meaning to this sudden change . They were close to LE SAINT-ESPRIT RAPIDE -- the Holy Ghost Rapids . Carrigan was astonished . That day at noon he had believed the Holy Ghost to be twenty or thirty miles below him . Now they were at its mouth , and he saw that Bateese and Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain were quietly and unexcitedly preparing to run that vicious stretch of water . Unconsciously he gripped the gunwales of the canoe with both hands as the sound of the rapids grew into low and sullen thunder . In the moonlight ahead he could see the rock walls closing in until the channel was crushed between two precipitous ramparts , and the moon and stars , sending their glow between those walls , lighted up a frothing path of water that made Carrigan hold his breath .