“What was the trouble?” asked the priest.
“Pirates’ booty, which he, with a large force, seized as a few of my men were carrying it to the coast. With his own hand he cut down my servant, who had been with me since from the first. Afterwards in a parley I saw him, and we exchanged—compliments. The sordid gentleman thought I was fretting about the booty. Good God, what are some thousand pistoles to the blood of one honest friend!”
“And in your mind another leaven worked,” ventured the priest.
“Another leaven, as you say,” responded Iberville. “So, for your story, abbe.”
“Of the first journey there is nothing more to tell, save that the English governor said you were as brave a gentleman as ever played ambassador—which was, you remember, much in Count Frontenac’s vein.”
Iberville nodded and smiled. “Frontenac railed at my impertinence also.”
“But gave you a sword when you told him the news of Radisson,” interjected Perrot. “And by and by I’ve things to say of him.”
The abbe continued: “For my second visit, but a few months ago. We priests have gone much among the Iroquois, even in the English country, and, as I promised you, I went to New York. There I was summoned to the governor. He commanded me to go back to Quebec. I was about to ask him of Mademoiselle when there came a tap at the door. The governor looked at me a little sharply. ‘You are,’ said he, ‘a friend of Monsieur Iberville. You shall know one who keeps him in remembrance.’ Then he let the lady enter. She had heard that I was there, having seen Perrot first.”
Here Perrot, with a chuckle, broke in: “I chanced that way, and I had a wish to see what was for seeing; for here was our good abbe alone among the wolves, and there were Radisson and the immortal Bucklaw, of whom there was news.”
De Casson still continued: “When I was presented she took my hand and said: ‘Monsieur l’Abbe, I am glad to meet a friend—an old friend—of Monsieur Iberville. I hear that he has been in France and elsewhere.’”