They perfectly understood that if they had taken him, it was because he was willing that it should be so; that he had probably some powerful motive for acting thus, particularly after all the pains he had taken to conceal his track from all eyes, and find a retreat so impenetrable that the Indians themselves, those cunning bloodhounds whom nothing generally could throw off the scent, had given up searching for him.
What did he want amidst his most implacable enemies? What reason sufficiently strong had been able to induce him to commit the imprudence of delivering himself up?
This is what the trappers asked each other, whilst looking at him with that curiosity and that interest which, in spite of ourselves, we are forced to accord to the intrepid man who accomplishes a bold action, whatever otherwise may be his moral character.
"Sir," said Loyal Heart, after the pause of a few minutes, "as you have thought proper to place yourself in our hands, you certainly will not refuse to reply to the questions we may think proper to put to you?"
A smile of an undefinable expression passed over the thin, pale lips of the pirate.
"Not only," he replied, in a calm, clear voice, "will I not refuse to reply to you, gentlemen, but still further, if you will permit, I will forestall your questions by telling you myself spontaneously all that has passed, which will enlighten you, I am sure, with regard to the facts which have appeared obscure, and which you have in vain endeavoured to make out."
A murmur of stupefaction pervaded the ranks of the trappers, who had drawn near by degrees, and listened attentively.
The scene assumed strange proportions, and promised to become extremely interesting.
Loyal Heart reflected for a moment, and then addressed the pirate.
"Do so, sir," he said; "we listen to you."