“Katonah, let me tell you a strange tale. Your brother kept guard last night between the river and our hut. But while we slept an aged woman crept up beside my bed and gave me this.”
De Sancerre removed from his breast the piece of mulberry bark upon which rested the name of Julia de Aquilar. Katonah gazed at the writing awe-struck.
“It is the name,” said the Frenchman, in answer to her glance, “of the woman with the raven hair.”
The Indian girl, with marvellous grace and agility, sprang to her feet. Motionless she stood for a moment looking down at de Sancerre.
“She followed you across the sea?” she asked, in a dull, passionless voice.
De Sancerre smiled as he slipped the bark into his doublet and rose to a standing posture.
“That could not be, Katonah,” he said, lightly. “I think some wizard, making medicine, has read her name upon my heart.”
More he might have said, but at that instant Chatémuc, with stormy brow, stood beside them. Not glancing at the Frenchman, his angry gaze rested upon the shrinking figure of Katonah. With an imperious gesture he pointed towards the camp, and, as the girl hurried away in obedience to her brother’s silent behest, de Sancerre threw himself wearily upon the bank, a mocking light gleaming in his eyes as he turned and watched the retreating Mohicans until they were lost to sight behind the osier-trees.
CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH DE LA SALLE REACHES A FATEFUL
DECISION
“I have heard it said that the good Father le Jeune, the Jesuit, not speaking Algonquin, was obliged to expound the mysteries of the faith to the Montagnais through the aid of a blasphemous backslider, far gone in liquor. This tool of Satan put vile words into the mouth of the Jesuit, so that the Montagnais laughed mockingly while le Jeune fondly thought that he was explaining to them the doctrine of the Trinity.”