"Nothing of the kind," answered the French officer, without waiting for the words which seemed about to follow. "Tell him there's but one choice: either to prove their story and their loyalty by fighting on our side, or to pass under the fire of these gentlemen." And he laid his hand upon a pile of muskets which stood close beside him.
This intimation was quite sufficient. The Honontkoh agreed to stay and fight, without any further conditions; and the Frenchman then gave strict directions, both to his own soldiers and to the Hurons, by whom they were much more likely to be efficiently obeyed, that their very doubtful allies should be kept continually in sight. He then seemed to cast all thought of the affair behind him, and turned towards Edith, who was already in the hut, saying,--
"I hope, mademoiselle, Pierrot has taken good care of you."
"With all the skill and courtesy of a Frenchman, monsieur," she answered, really pleased with the attention and almost fatherly kindness of the old soldier who had been arranging the hut.
"Then, now that you have the means of rest, it only remains to provide you with meat and drink," said the officer. "I see they have spread my table-cloth on the grass there. Will you and your friend come and partake of my fare? Pray make my words understood to him."
Woodchuck readily agreed to accept the Frenchman's hospitality; but Edith declined taking more than a little bread and some wine, alleging that she needed rest more than anything else. The French officer, however, would not be content with this, but with his own hands brought her some savory mess, which would not have disgraced a Parisian dinner-table, some choice wine, and, what was still more valuable to her, a small lamp. He then closed the hurdle-door of the hut upon her, and returned to his meal with Woodchuck, keeping up with him for half an hour a silent conversation by nods and signs, one half of which was probably unintelligible to both. The Frenchman then took possession of another hut, and invited Woodchuck to share it with him for the night.
But the stout woodsman declined any other covering than the sky; and stretching himself across Edith's door, was soon in profound slumber.
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
We must go back, for a very short time, to the spot where Edith and her Oneida captors set out upon what proved to them an unfortunate voyage across Lake Champlain, and to the very moment after their canoe had left the shore. The Long House of the Five Nations, as they were pleased to call their territory, extended from the Great Lakes and a point far west, to the banks of the Hudson, and Lakes Horicon and Champlain; but, as is always the case in border countries, the frontier was often crossed by wandering or predatory bands, and by outlaws from the Hurons and other nations under the sway of France, or from the Iroquois tribes attached to England. The peculiar habits and laws of the Indian tribes rendered the incorporation of fugitives with other nations a very easy matter, although the language of the Five Nations would seem to be radically different from that of the tribes originally inhabiting the seaboard of America. Thus, on the western shore of Lake Champlain, not a few pure Hurons were to be found; and, indeed, that tribe, during the successful campaigns of France against England, with which what is called the French and Indian war commenced, had somewhat encroached upon the Iroquois territory, supported in their daring by the redoubted name of Montcalm.
With some of these, it would seem, Apukwa and his companions had entered into a sort of tacit alliance; and towards their dwellings they had directed their steps after their attack upon Edith and her little escort, in the expectation of readily finding a canoe to waft them over the lake. At first, they had been disappointed; for the barques which had been there the day before were gone; and when they did find the canoe in which they ultimately commenced their voyage, the avaricious old man to whom it belonged would not let them use it without a world of bargaining; and it cost them a considerable portion of the little stock of ornaments and trinkets which they had found in Edith's plundered baggage, before the Huron consented to lend that which they did not dare to take by force.