The Mohican turned and looked down at the friar with a gleam of mingled astonishment and inquiry in his melancholy eyes. The grunt to which he gave vent the Franciscan well understood.
“You are amazed at my knowledge of their customs, my Chatémuc,” remarked the Franciscan, smilingly. “But have I not heard many wild and horrid tales in the years through which I’ve borne the cross to outlands such as this? ’Tis strange, indeed, how rumor flies through forests, over lakes, and makes the mountains rear their tops in vain. ’Tis thus the saints work miracles for us, that we may bear the Word to savage lands. As feeble men, we could do naught, my son; but with the pioneers of Mother Church march all the hosts of heaven, and when the day is darkest and the heathen shout for joy, there comes a wonder, some marvel on the earth, some sudden splendor of the midnight sky, and the cross, triumphant, gains another tribe! Oh, Chatémuc, the glory of it all!”
The gray eyes of the Franciscan gazed upward at the set face of the seemingly stoical Indian, whose religious enthusiasm was rapidly rising to fever-heat under the intoxicating influence of the fanatical friar’s carefully-chosen words—words whose effect upon the devout Mohican Zenobe Membré was not now testing for the first time.
“But their fire, father? It always burns?” asked Chatémuc, presently, in a low voice.
“Day and night, year after year, from generation to generation, they keep alive this idolatrous blaze, a flame lighted in hell and carried to these pagans by Satan’s self. And while it burns, my Chatémuc, ’twill be impossible to lure their souls to Christ.”
The searching gaze of the friar scanned closely the phlegmatic face of the Mohican. Not a muscle in Chatémuc’s copper-colored countenance moved, but a dangerous gleam had begun to flash in his eyes as they rested now and again upon the white-robed sun-worshippers striding on ahead of him.
“They guard the fire by day and night?”
“’Tis never left alone, my son,” answered the Franciscan, fully satisfied with the effect that his words had had upon Chatémuc.
The native American is not a rash and impulsive being. Courageous Chatémuc was, beyond many of his race; but he was, nevertheless, an Indian, and inclined to attain his ends by craft and subtlety rather than by reckless daring. It was not until the French had introduced the native American to the civilizing influence of brandy that the latter abandoned, at times, in his warfare the methods of a snake, and fought, now and then, like a lion.
“How large a guard, my father, do they keep around their fire?” asked the Mohican, presently.