But for once the fierce priest had reckoned amiss. Quicker than the lightning’s flash the hand of the Indian went to his tomahawk, his eyes glittering balefully. With a motion almost as rapid the whistle wherewith Le Loutre summoned his lambs was at his lips, while with his disengaged hand he held a crucifix aloft. But that almost might have ruled betwixt life and death had not Margot sprung forward and placed her slight body as a shield for the priest.
“Jean Jacques,” she cried, “is this thy new faith? to strike the anointed of God?”
The upraised tomahawk dropped, and the Indian grunted sullenly. But Le Loutre, the full violence of whose fanaticism was aroused by the ‘perversion’ of one of his lambs, was not to be so easily pacified, though life itself were at stake; and the influence of the paleface maiden might not have availed to save him, so irritating was the language he used toward the already enraged Micmac, had not Margot, aghast at the prospect of beholding the abbé murdered before her very eyes, hastily promised to go with him whither he would, if so be he would permit the Indian to depart in peace.
“Swear upon the crucifix,” insisted Le Loutre, “that you will follow me back to the true fold.”
Scarcely realized by herself, the girl’s heart and sense, and perhaps also the recollection of Gabriel’s persecution, were combining to lead her in spirit away from that fold; and now she drew back.
“I will take no oath, mon père,” she said gently, “but I promise to go with thee now; more I cannot promise.”
Then she turned to Jean Jacques, holding out her hand in grateful farewell.
“But Gabriel had neither eyes nor ears for the priest.”