“A ransom!” she repeated; “for her! Man, there isn’t gold enough in all France, to buy her ransom!”
She checked herself suddenly and added in a calmer tone:
“Never mind what I mean, Rene, but listen to what I bid you do. Go back to the English General and tell him what has happened; tell him that my prisoners are my own and he can not interfere; but my people will now be with him to a man. The next battle he fights, tell him to call for as many warriors from the Six Nations as he may wish.”
The spy bowed respectfully. One could see in his wicked, crafty face, how his petty soul was overawed by the woman’s boldness.
“Rene will do his errand well,” he said; “the queen has always been content with him?”
“Yes, yes! You will tell the General that before long the queen hopes to see him; she has many things to tell, many plans to reveal which are for his ear alone. Tell him this, that soon she will reign alone among the Indians, and then—but no matter.”
Gi-en-gwa-tah was listening breathlessly to her words; the spy looked at her in surprise.
“But the queen has a husband, a great chief.”
“Bah! the power that made can unmake; Mahaska will soon sweep the traitor from her path—his days are on the wane.”
Even in that terrible moment, bitter sorrow was the prominent feeling in the chief’s mind as he heard those words.