Crawford glanced around, could see nothing, but caught the click of a pistol at cock. Without sign of his surprise, he took the pipe from his lips and laughed shortly.
“Greetings, mon ami! You have somewhat the advantage of me. Since I am prejudiced against speaking with unseen friends, may I suggest that you advance without fear?”
A somewhat boyish laugh sounded softly, but it died out into ominous words.
“Your pardon, monsieur! This is an affair in which I have no share, save that of curiosity—and compellance. My brother Pierre-Jean Beovilh, the great war-chief of the Abnakis, desires to ask you a question.”
While these words sounded at the elbow of Crawford, a man stepped into the circle of firelight opposite him and came to a halt. Crawford gazed curiously at the visitor, not betraying the dismay which seized upon him; he saw a tall Indian, who had flung aside his garments and stood naked to the waist, painted and feathered, the features repulsively ugly and ferocious. As he stared at the Abnaki, the latter spoke to him curtly and without any of the usual preliminaries, in very good French.
“Who are you, who hold in your hand the sacred calumet of the Abnaki, which has a home in the lodge of my brother Saint-Castin at Pentagoet?”
And Crawford realized that the stone pipe in his hand was one which had been taken from the mantel of Saint-Castin, where pipes had stood racked.
Inspecting the war-chief, at whose belt hung fresh scalps, Crawford took his time about responding. Suddenly piecing together what he had previously learned and what Phelim Burke had been telling him, he comprehended his acute peril.
This Pierre-Jean Beovilh had come from Acadia to join Iberville’s raiders, was the highest Abnaki chief, and belonged to the now destroyed clan of the Caniba. Saint-Castin, by his marriage to a red princess and his unsanctioned union with many other ladies of colour, had constituted himself a sort of vicar-general to the Abnakis. It was highly probable that the sacred relics of the Caniba clan had been deposited with him for safe-keeping, and that this white stone calumet was one such relic, profaned by Crawford’s usage.
Now, knowing himself trapped, Crawford took the one open trail—that of audacity. He must know with whom he dealt, for the greatest danger was that the whole Canadian force would be brought upon him. One shot, one yell, would bring them.