“Good!” cried McCabe. “I am glad you enter into my scheme so willingly. You are a first-rate friend.”
Simon Girty sneered.
“Pooh! pooh! man, you don’t understand me. I doubt if I could induce myself to do this thing if you were the only one to be benefited by the massacre, although I will try to secure that girl and place her in your arms alive. Pshaw! I am not what I used to be. I would not enter so willingly in your little scheme if it did not possess the attraction of blood! Ha! ha! I’m an Indian now, and it is pastime to lift the scalps of the detested pale-faces. Ah, McCabe, experience has taught me that revenge is sweet, sweet, sweet! Depend upon it, I will see that every mother’s son of the white-livered devils becomes food for the buzzards before another dawn. But to help me to bring this about, you must do your duty by causing them to linger on the island a sufficient length of time after dark, and you will do well to put them off their guard at the same time, if you can.”
“Trust me for that,” rejoined McCabe, earnestly. “I will go over to them this afternoon, and the interval between this time and that, shall be spent in planning the best way to deceive them. But how shall I get to them? I have no means of going out to the island, unless I swim.”
“There is no need of that. Concealed in a little cove, a short distance above the island, are the canoes in which I and my warriors came over here. You will have no difficulty in finding them. Go; take one of them, sharpen your wits and play your part.”
“I’ll do it, by Jove! Have no fears for me. If you don’t come off victorious I shall not be to blame.”
“I suppose not—unless you play me false.”
“And you know I will not do that.”
“I am not certain.”