“That one of their braves will suffer as they would make the man Verplanck suffer. He knows them, this Marc. He knows their ways, their secrets. He has done them too many favors for them to regard him lightly. He sits there a guard over their prisoner, yet they will not give up the Dutchman.”
“They will, then,” said François. “Proceed a little more rapidly, Ricard.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE MARK OF THE RED FEATHER
Into the company of Indians gathered around the imperturbable Marc and the prisoner suddenly walked Jeanne Crepin, whose coming was received with grunts of disapproval. She had an unpleasant way of appearing before these red brethren when she was least expected. They gave her a certain respect and even affectionate admiration, but they were not to be balked by a woman in their revenge. Lendert’s scalp was a possession not to be despised, and it had required the combined strategy of Jeanne and Ricard to prevent its being taken on that homeward march. Jeanne had insisted that he was Ricard’s prisoner and had refused to leave him while Ricard made a hasty journey in search of Petit Marc. After that Petit Marc took possession.
“You quarrel over the man,” he said to them. “One brother says he is mine, another he is mine. I am judge between you. He is neither the one’s nor the other’s. Ricard took him, as every one knows, but it was because the Frenchman, your leader, told him to do it, and therefore if he belongs to any one it is to François, but he does not belong to him. He belongs to Yonondio, and to him he must be delivered at last. If the Frenchman, François Sharp Eyes, were here he would tell you so, but he is slain and he cannot deliver him up to Yonondio. Will Yonondio protect you? Will he believe you to be his friends when you steal from him his prisoners? Yet Yonondio loves François Sharp Eyes, and he would give him to him because he is his.”
“The Frenchman, Sharp Eyes, is slain,” said an old chief. “What is my brother saying? How does he expect that the slain shall come and claim his prisoner?”
“François Sharp Eyes is not slain,” returned Marc, racking his brain for a device to lengthen the time for Lendert. “Moreover, my brothers forget that there are many who have lost friends in this war, and even in this battle, therefore it is but right and according to custom that this prisoner shall be delivered to one who has lost a friend in war. So only can the cloud be driven away which hangs over that one to whom grief has come.”
“My brother speaks what is true,” agreed the old chief, “and the prisoner must be given to one who has lost a friend in this battle.”
Then came a long discussion as to who should possess Lendert, and finally this matter was settled by his being handed over to one Red Feather. Petit Marc protested all the while that it was no one’s right to kill the man, and that the governor, Frontenac, whom the Indians called Yonondio, would tell their father, the King of France, and that he would be very angry that they had kept any prisoner from him. Nevertheless, every now and then murmurs arose, and the life of Lendert hung in the balance whenever news of a raid from the Iroquois aroused a new desire for revenge in Lendert’s captors.
At last came the word that a bloody skirmish had taken place and that here was new cause for maltreatment of this representative of the enemy. Encouraged by Petit Marc, Lendert bore himself stoically while the wily Marc cast about for a reason to delay the expected torture. Bound to a tree and hopelessly waiting the pleasure of his tormentors, Lendert lay when Jeanne appeared.