"Is it well, Shuswap?"
"It is the time of the wind of life, the good time," the old man answered. "The waters are free, and the animals breed in the forest. Where are the white men of the smooth tongue, Gitsa? Where are the men who came to us at the council fire and said to us, 'Your enemy is our enemy. Aid us now when we rise up against them'? Shall they return with the wind of life?"
"The north wind came upon them and swept them away," his son-in-law replied, employing the sachem's figurative speech. "You have something to tell me, Shuswap?"
"There is a strange ship come to the high cliffs, a great ship from the land of the accursed people," said the old man. "What is this that you have told us, Gitsa? Said you not that the King of England shall send many ships and men when the ice has gone, to drive out the men of France and restore their own to the tribes of the Iroquois? What is this that we see? The priest of France sends more ships, and more men who shall kill the beasts of the forest and the fish of the waters, and drive us back with their fire-tubes into the forests of the north where the enemies of our race, the Algonquins, lie ever in wait. Is there a king in England, Gitsa? Has he ships to send out? Has he men to put into them? Have you lied to the sachems of the Iroquois?"
"Be not afraid, Shuswap," said the white man. "You shall learn whether there be a king of England or no. But he has many enemies in the far-away world, and these he must conquer first. Even now we are sending a messenger to the king's country, and he shall return with ships and men, and the French shall flee before them."
The man of Kent spoke with a heavy heart. He dared not confess what he believed to be the truth—namely, that England was already embroiled in civil war.
"A tribe divided against itself shall be annihilated," said the sachem sharply, with the clairvoyant power of the primitive man. "The remaining tribes stand by until it is exhausted, and then fall upon that tribe, and it is known no more. Is it so with the English, Gitsa?"
"It is not so," replied the Englishman, a flush upon his tanned features. "England stands above other nations of the world, even as the sun is greater than all lights. She shines over the earth in her strength. Were there no England the world would fall into decay, the creatures who supply us with meat and fur would die, the fish would fail in the waters, the forests would wither, there would be no rain and no light by night or by day. The sun would turn black, the moon would fall into the sea, the very gods would die if England were no more. She shall take possession of this land in her own time, and Frenchmen shall have no place in it except as subjects of our king."
The old sachem lifted his cunning eyes and said: "It is well, Gitsa. But if it be so, why does not your king lift his hand and drive away his enemies, or blow with his breath and destroy their ships? Surely that would be a small thing to a king who governs the world."
"It would be a small thing in truth," replied the Englishman, smiling in spite of his sorrow. "But the ways of the king are not our ways. He allows his enemies to go upon their course, until a day comes when he shall say, 'You have gone too far.' It is thus that he shows his power."