"One plays as your friend, the other as your foe! Show neither friend nor foe your hand! Let the game tell! 'Twas the reined-in horse won King Charles's stakes at Newmarket last year! Hold yourself in, I say!"
"In," I repeated, wondering at this homily.
"And hold yourself up," he continued. "That coxcomb of a marquis always trailing his dignity in the dust of mid-road to worry with a common dog like La Chesnaye—pish! Hold your self-respect in the chest of your jacket, man! 'Tis the slouching nag that loses the race! Hold yourself up!"
His words seemed hard sense plain spoken.
"And let your feet travel on," he added.
"In and up and on!" I repeated.
"In and up and on—there's mettle for you, lad!"
And with that terse text—which, I think, comprehended the whole of M. Radisson's philosophy—we were back at the beach.
The Indians were not in such a state as I have seen after many a trading bout. They were able to accompany us. In embarking, M. Radisson must needs observe all the ceremony of two races. Such a whiffing of pipes among the stately, half-drunk Indian chiefs you never saw, with a pompous proffering of the stem to the four corners of the compass, which they thought would propitiate the spirits. Jean blew a blast on the trumpet. I waved the French flag. Godefroy beat a rattling fusillade on the drum, grabbed up his bobbing tipstaff, led the way; and down we filed to the canoes.
At all this ostentation I could not but smile; but no man ever had greater need of pomp to hold his own against uneven odds than Radisson.