"He is coming back now," said Otaitsa. "My father would not let him return before. He was afraid, I believe, that the breath of the good man would melt his icy purpose. He had a power over Black Eagle that none other had. I prayed and besought in vain. But had Mr. Gore been here he would have conquered. Black Eagle knew it and feared, and therefore he sent him hence, and would not let him return till the day was past."
"Would that he were here now," said Walter, earnestly.
Otaitsa asked him why, and he answered, with a warm kiss: "That he might unite us forever."
A flush came upon her cheek, but there was the low sound of a step below, and looking down the stairs, she said: "Is that you, my father?"
"I come," said the chief; and slowly mounting the stairs, he entered the chamber where they were. His eyes roved round the room in a manner which evidently showed that it was strange to him; and then he fixed them on the pictures which lay upon the table, lighted but faintly by the lamp. At first he seemed not to distinguish what they were, but the moment he saw them clearly, he drew his mantle over his face and turned toward the door. He uttered no word, he shed no tear, but he descended slowly, and Walter and Otaitsa followed.
CHAPTER XXIX
On that part of Lake Champlain, or Corlear, as it was called by the Indians, where, quitting the narrow basin which it occupies from its southern extremity to some distance northward of Ticonderoga, it opens out into a broader sheet of water, and sweeps round the small peninsula of Crown Point, a large canoe was seen crossing to the Canada side, with some sixteen or seventeen persons on board, amongst whom were Edith Prevost and her companion, Woodchuck. There was no attempt at concealment, no creeping along under shelter of the banks, but boldly and openly the Indians paddled on, within range of the guns of the French fort, and then directly across the bows of two large, flat-bottomed boats or batteaux, accompanied by several light canoes, each of the latter containing six or seven men, which were going down the lake in the direction of Ticonderoga.
From each of the larger boats the flag of France was conspicuously displayed; but as the strange canoe above mentioned seemed bearing straight for the shore, fully in possession of France, its movements, for a time, appeared to excite no attention. Neither the batteaux nor the other canoes altered their course, the men in the former continuing a shouted conversation in a mixed jargon, part French, part Indian, with their dusky companions in the lesser craft, who kept as nearly alongside as possible.
At length, however, it would seem some suspicion was excited. Two figures, male and female, were discerned from the batteaux in the stern of the strange canoe, whose dress at once showed them to belong to none of the Indian tribes, and was also somewhat different from that of either the Canadian colonists or the native French. The two parties were now within less than a hundred yards of each other, and it seemed doubtful whether the large canoe would clear the eastern French boat without trouble. But suddenly a voice was raised loud in the foremost batteau and a question was put in French as to whither the others were bound, and who they were.
The Indians were silent, for they did not understand the words addressed to them; but Woodchuck whispered eagerly: "Answer! answer! if you can speak their jargon. Rather be in the hands of French officers than these incarnate devils!"