"Treason!" repeated the young man; and rose dumbfounded.
"It is suspected that you are a spy, in the employ of our enemies the Dutch."
CHAPTER XXVI.
STIGMA.
Thus Geoffrey became a prisoner among his own people, owing to the friendliness of Von Donck, the honest Dutchman having failed to reckon with the intense suspicion of the Puritan mind. When the manner of his guest's arrival had been explained to John Winthrop, that pious governor raised his eyebrows in astonishment, and did not hesitate to give instructions for the new-comer to be held in close confinement, pending an inquiry into the movements of the Dutch. While this investigation was being pursued, justly and in good order as the governor directed, or, in other words, with extreme slowness, many notable events occurred in the disordered country of the north.
The St. Wenceslas had slipped from her moorings and drifted down the St. Lawrence, bearing La Salle towards Acadie, and certain despatches which were destined for the chief minister of France. Unwillingly Roussilac had been compelled to record the services rendered to Church and State by the proud departing priest.
"You have well served yourself, Sir Commandant," La Salle had said, after insisting upon his right to peruse the detailed history of the Iroquois defeat, which contained no word of reference to the assistance rendered by the Algonquins. "And now, by Heaven, you shall serve me." And Roussilac, for all his ill will, was not strong enough to dare resist the priest.
There yet remained in that district the Kentish knight, old Penfold, and the Puritan; and when the man of Kent came to learn of La Salle's departure, he left his solitary cave, and buckled on his sword, and returned to action, though the dream of his life had vanished. His younger brother, the fool of the family, who from boyhood had spent his days in idleness, trolling for pike or chasing with his dogs, would continue to occupy the old mansion which the elder had abandoned, and leave it, as he had been empowered to do failing news from the New World, to his son, when the days of fishing and the chase should be accomplished.
The knight came to his home beside the lost waters, and his wife, who had visited him each day with food in the lonely cave, received him with her proud silence and stood to hear his will. She it was who had told him of the sailing of the ship and the going of La Salle.