"I applaud your thoughtfulness. This continued delay in the ceremony is annoying. Master Ormerod, your sufferings are upon your own head."
I looked eagerly for Marjory's face as we were marched across the yard inside the stockade and through the heavy timber doors of the house. But she was not visible. The house was sturdily built, evidently with an eye to defensibility, and the cellar beneath it, to which we were conducted, was floored with clay and walled with immense wooden slabs. Our guards examined our bonds carefully, fastened our legs and then left us, three of them sitting just outside the door at the foot of the stairs which ran down from the kitchen above.
We remained there three days, without intercourse with any one except our Indian jailers, who brought us messes of food twice daily. In that time the bump on my head was reduced and Ta-wan-ne-ars' cuts began to heal.
On the third day several Cahnuaga chiefs visited us and removed one of our Senecas with an assurance that he was destined for the torture-stake. The man laughed at their threats, and called back to his brothers that he would set them a good example. I do not doubt that he did.
On the fourth day we were eating our meager fare of boiled corn when the door was flung open violently and the gaunt figure of Black Robe entered unannounced. Behind him, obviously unwillingly, walked Murray.
"Which is the Englishman Ormerod?" demanded the priest in French.
"Here I am, father," I answered, standing up as well as I could.
"Mistress Murray tells me that you have won her affections?" he asked coldly.
My heart leaped with sudden joy.
"That is true, father," I said.