“Maybe you haf deserted ze army?” burst out Jean Bevoir, and gave the young soldier a shrewd look from his wicked eyes.
“If I have it is none of your affair, Jean Bevoir. Now let me ask a few questions. How did you get here? Did General Johnson let you go?”
“Yees,” answered Bevoir, without hesitation. “He examine me an’ say I am free.”
The falsehood was told so readily that Henry was staggered by it.
“General Johnson made a mistake to let you free!” he cried. “If this war ever comes to an end, you shall suffer for what you have done.”
“Ha, you threaten me, you, von prisonair!” roared the French trader, shaking his fist in Henry’s face.
“You don’t deserve your freedom, and you know it.”
Bevoir drew a long breath. “Ve vill not talk about zat,” he said. “I shall tell ze French commander zat you are von spy—an’ Chalette an’ Gasse shall tell ze same. You vill soon learn zat ze French know vat to do to ze spy, ha! ha!” And he laughed wickedly.
At these words Henry’s heart sank within him. He realized only too well what Bevoir’s words meant. If taken into the French camp as a spy he would most likely be shot.
Truly in breaking out of the guard-house in Quebec and coming to this place he had leaped “out of the frying-pan into the fire.”