M. Etienne's eyes—they were, in fact, short-sighted—seemed to search inwardly for a moment before he answered:
"There was a family of that name in the Quercy; so late, I think, as 1650. I had supposed it to be extinct. It bore arms counterpaly argent and gules, a canton ermine—"
"My brother, sir," the Commandant interrupted, "is a famous genealogist. Do you accept this coat-of-arms he assigns to you?"
"If M. le Commandant will excuse me—"
"Eh, eh?—an awkward question, no doubt, to put to many a young man of family now serving with the colours?" The Commandant chuckled knowingly. "But I have an eye, sir, for nice shades, and an ear too. Verbum sapienti satis. A sergeant, they tell me—and of the Béarnais; but until we have cured you, sir, and the active list again claims you, you are Monsieur à Clive and my guest. We shall talk, so, upon an easier footing. Tut-tut! I have eyes in my head, I repeat. And this Indian of yours—how does he call himself?"
"Menehwehna, monsieur. He is an Ojibway."
"And you and he have come by way of the Wilderness? Now what puzzles me—"
"Papa!" interposed the girl gently, laying a hand on her father's sleeve; "ought we not to get him ashore before troubling him with all these questions? He is suffering, I think."
"You say well, my child. A thousand pardons, sir. Here, Bédard! Jérémie!"
But it was Menehwehna who, with inscrutable face, helped John ashore, suffering the others only to hold the canoe steady. John tried hard to collect his thoughts to face this new situation. He had dreamed of falling among savages in these backwoods; but he had fallen among folk gentle in manner and speech, anxious to show him courtesy; folk to whom (as in an instant he divined) truth and uprightness were dearer than life and judged as delicately as by his own family at home in Devonshire. How came they here? Who was this girl whose eyes he avoided lest they should weigh him, as a sister's might, in the scales of honour?