The Indian frowned; his suspicions were returning; he gave a menacing glance at the monk, who, obeying the advice given him, had insensibly withdrawn a few steps, and was preparing to be an apparently calm witness of the coming scene. Still, after an internal conflict of some seconds, the Sachem succeeded in mastering the wrath that agitated him, and assumed an affable and confiding countenance.
"I only wished to speak to my brother," he replied, in an insinuating voice; "Blue-fox has for many moons desired to see again the face of a friend."
"If it were really as the Chief says," the hunter continued, "nothing could have been more easy. Many days have succeeded one to the other; many years have been swallowed up in the immense gulf of the past, since the period when, young and full of faith, I called Blue-fox my friend. At that period he had a Pawnee heart; but now that he has plucked it from his bosom, to exchange it for an Apache heart, I know him no longer."
"The great hunter of the Palefaces is severe to his Red brother," the Indian answered, with feigned humility, "What matter the days that have passed, if the hunter finds again his friend of the olden time?"
The Canadian smiled disdainfully as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Am I an old woman, to be deceived by the smooth words of a forked tongue?" he said. "Blue-fox is dead; my eyes only see here an Apache Chief, that is to say, an enemy."
"Let my brother remove the skin from his heart, he will recognise a friend," the Indian continued, still in a honeyed voice.
Tranquil involuntarily felt impatient at such cynical impudence.
"A truce to fine speeches, whose sincerity I do not believe in," he said. "Was he my friend who a few days ago tried to carry off my daughter, and at the head of his warriors attacked the calli in which she dwelt, and which is now reduced to ashes?"
"My brother has heard the mockingbird whisper in his ear, and put faith in its falsehoods; the mocker is a chattering and lying bird."