"Then you are determined to die?"
"Yes."
"For some one else?"
"Pshaw! For me it is no sacrifice. You know that I would have killed him, had God given me the time."
Antoine drew off his mitten, and held out to him his bare right hand. "You are a noble man," he said; "I will keep your secret."
As they returned to the shack, Eyelids looked up at them inquiringly, as though he were about to ask them what preparations he should make for their journey. When he saw how, saying nothing, they sat themselves down to wait, he shrugged his shoulders desperately. Presently, with a false show of indifference, he set about playing the moccasin-game, which consists of placing buttons, bullets, and anything small which comes handy, into an empty moccasin, shaking them up together, and guessing the number which the shoe contains. It is a gambling game which, in earlier days, was wont to cause much bloodshed and ruin among the buffalo-runners of the plains.
The hours went by and the night grew late. The meal which had been spread was still untasted. They did not converse; there seemed so little to say, and, moreover, their voices might prevent them from hearing the first warning of Peggy's approach. The roaring of the logs in the stove, and the monotonous clicking of the buttons and bullets one against the other as Eyelids shook them, and again as he emptied them upon the floor, like the ominous tapping of muffled hammers at work about a coffin, were the only sounds, and these, at last, by reason of their regularity, began to grow nerve-racking. Between the emptying of the moccasin, and the gathering up and re-shaking of the counters, Granger held his breath. It seemed to him that Eyelids was gambling with an invisible player, and that the stake which he stood to lose or win was his own life. It was inconceivable that any man should have sat playing all these hours at a game of hazard, risking nothing, having for antagonist himself.
Relief came from without. From far across the river the forest-silence was shattered by a piercing cry. It reached him distantly at first, but, with each interval that elapsed, it grew nearer. It was like the tortured, desperate complaining of a soul in its final agony. Stealing to the window, he looked out, and saw upon the farther bank the outline of a timber-wolf. He looked at Beorn; he also had heard it, for he had pricked up his ears like a husky and was listening. Fearing that the suspense of these long and silent hours might cause him to behave unworthily, he clutched Antoine by the shoulder, and whispered, "For God's sake, say something. Tell us one of your tales."
Then Le Père thought awhile, and afterwards, in a low sonorous voice, commenced to recount the story of the founding of the Huron Mission—one of the noblest histories in the world, of men who have died for men. As he progressed, Eyelids looked up from his moccasin-game and the little tappings, as of muffled hammers about a coffin, ceased for a spell.
He told them of Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit; how he was the most timid of men, and how for his love of Christ he became brave.