"To be sure. Forgive my stupidity. It hath gone so far as that already, hath it?"
"It hath gone so far as attempted assassination—for the second time," I retorted.
"Assassination! Tut, tut," he rebuked me. "Master Ormerod, you use strong language. And who in this little town of ours would seek to murder a gentleman new-landed like yourself?"
Ta-wan-ne-ars stepped to the front.
"Does Murray know this scalp?"
He permitted an end of the lock of Bolling's hair to show through his clinched fingers.
Marjory shrank back in terror. Murray's face became convulsed with passion.
"'Sdeath!" he swore. "If Bolling is dead by this savage's hand I shall know the wherefore of it! What? Do the Iroquois take scalps within the city!"
Ta-wan-ne-ars laughed, and slowly opened his fist to reveal the single lock of hair.
"Ta-wan-ne-ars only takes the scalps of honorable warriors," he said in his smooth, low-pitched voice. "But the Red Death escaped tonight by the width of these hairs. Does Murray think Ga-en-gwa-ra-go would have been angry with Ta-wan-ne-ars if the tomahawk had struck true?"