Then his eye rested upon Tayoga, at whom he looked long and searchingly, and the eye of the Onondaga met him with an answering gaze, fixed and unfaltering.
"Captain de Galisonnière has told me," said the Marquis, "that you are a young chief, or coming chief, of the Iroquois, that despite your youth you have thought much and have influence with your people. How do the Iroquois feel toward the French who wish them so well?"
"They do not forget that this Quebec is the Stadacona of one of their great warrior nations, the Mohawks," replied Tayoga.
The Marquis started and flushed.
"Quebec is ours," he said slowly, after taking due thought. "You cannot undo what was done two centuries ago."
"The nations of the Hodenosaunee do not forget, what are two centuries to them?"
"When you return to the Long House in the vale of Onondaga, and the fifty sachems meet in council, tell them Onontio has only kindness in his heart for them. The war clouds that hang over England and France grow many and thick, and my children are brave and vigilant. They know the ways of the forest. They travel by day and by night, and they strike hard. The English are not a match for them."
"If I should tell them what Onontio tells to me they would say: 'Go back to Quebec, which is by right the Stadacona of our great warrior nation, the Mohawks, and say to Onontio that his words are like the songs of birds, but we, the Hodenosaunee, do not forget. We remember Frontenac, and we remember Champlain, the first of the white men to come among us with guns, the use of which we did not know, killing our warriors.'"
"Time makes changes, Tayoga, and the Iroquois must change too."
Tayoga, was silent, but his haughty face did not relax a particle. The Marquis was about to say more upon the subject, but he had a penetrating mind and he saw that his words would be wasted.