Cabanacte, who had learned a little distorted Spanish from his loquacious grandparent, had caught the drift of the Frenchman’s speech. Putting forth a large, brown hand, shapely in its massiveness, he touched the buckles upon de Sancerre’s shoes and exclaimed, in what sounded like a parody upon Noco’s rendition of an alien tongue:
“Good! Good! The son of moonbeams has a lofty soul! And Cabanacte is his body-guard! No harm shall come to you, despite the oath our priests have sworn!”
The smile upon de Sancerre’s ever-changing face was the visible sign of varied emotions. Pleased at the cordial proffer of Cabanacte’s friendship, the Frenchman was astonished to discover that the giant had picked up a Spanish vocabulary which, in spite of his peculiar pronunciation, was not wholly useless. That the survival of a Spanish patois among these sun-worshippers suggested a pathetic page of unwritten history de Sancerre realized, but his mind at that moment was too disturbed to linger long over an ethnological and linguistic problem. Turning to face the Franciscan friar, he said:
“Père Membré, these pagan priests seek vengeance upon you. They have no reason yet for hating me, a splinter from a moonbeam who makes no open war against their creed. But, for the cause of Mother Church, we must lure them from their grim idolatry. Let Cabanacte use his strength and wits to find a pathway leading to our camp by which you may return. Here I shall stay until our leader, coming North again, shall send me word to quit this place, leaving behind me a friendly race, soil ready for the seeds of living truth.”
It was not excessive self-laudation which had led de Sancerre to believe that he possessed the qualifications essential to success in diplomacy. Whenever he had set out to effect a purpose seemingly worthy of studied effort, he had found no difficulty in checking the satirical tendencies of his flippant tongue. At this moment he was gazing at the Franciscan’s disturbed countenance with eyes which seemed to gleam with the fervor of his zeal for Mother Church. Wishing to convince Père Membré that the ultimate conversion of these pagans from their worship of hell-fire to the true faith depended upon their possession of a hostage who should study their manners and customs and learn the shortest path by which their unregenerated souls might be reached, de Sancerre explained his plan of action to the friar with an unctuous fervor which convinced the latter that he had underestimated the errant courtier’s enthusiasm as a proselyter.
“But the Mohican maiden, monsieur? I owe it to Chatémuc, the martyr, now with the saints in Paradise, to place her in the care of de la Salle. His sword, my crucifix, must guard Katonah for her brother’s sake.”
The walnut embers in the clumsy fireplace had grown black and cold. For some time past no sound had reached the ears of the schemers from the menacing environment outside the hut. The moon had touched its midnight goal, and sought, in passing, to probe the secrets of old Noco’s home.
“Bonnement!” exclaimed de Sancerre. “Go to her at once, good father, and tell her that ’tis best she should return with you to-night. I’ll join you presently. Meanwhile, I must have further speech with Noco and her grandson.”
Presently the moonbeams, which had stolen into the hut through chinks between the timbers and the hardened mud, threw a dim light upon a most impressive tableau. The white face of the Frenchman was bent close to the dusky visage of the athletic sun-worshipper, while Noco, squatting upon the ground, bent toward them her wrinkled, grinning countenance, an effigy of “Gossip,” wrought in bronze. Bending over the reed-made couch upon which Katonah, dumb with misery, lay listening, stood the gray friar, whispering to the phlegmatic and seemingly obedient maiden the Frenchman’s late behest.
Before the moonbeams could take their tale abroad, the scene had changed. From a corner of the hut Noco had brought to the Franciscan and his charge flowing garments of white mulberry bark, in which Katonah and the friar reluctantly enrobed themselves. With a harmless dye, old Noco, whose time-tested frame seemed to defy fatigue, deftly changed the protesting Membré’s white complexion to light mahogany.