But the friendship between him, Captain Whyte, Lieutenant Lanham and the other young officers grew. People instinctively liked Robert Lennox. Whether in his gay mood or his grave he had a charm of manner that few could resist, and his story was so strange, so picturesque that it invested him with compelling romance. He told all about his kidnapping and his life upon the island, but he said nothing of Adrian Van Zoon. He let it be thought that the motive of the slaver in seizing him was merely to get a likely lad for sale on a West India plantation. But his anger against Van Zoon grew. He was not one to cherish wrath, but on this point it was concentrated, and he intended to have a settlement. It was not meant that he should be lost, it was not meant that Adrian Van Zoon should triumph. He had been seized and carried away twice, and each time, when escape seemed impossible, a hand mightier than that of man had intervened in his favor.
He spoke a little of his thought once or twice when he stood on the deck of the Hawk on moonlight nights with Captain Whyte and Lieutenant Lanham.
"You can't live with the Indians as much as I have," he said, "especially with such a high type of Indian as the Iroquois, without acquiring some of their beliefs which, after all, are about the same as our own Christian religion. The difference is only in name. They fill the air with spirits, good and evil, and have 'em contending for the mastery. Now, I felt when I was on the island and even before that I was protected by the good spirits of the Iroquois, and that they were always fighting for me with the bad."
"I take it," said Captain Whyte, "that the Indian beliefs, as you tell them, are more like the mythology of the old Greeks and Romans. I'm a little rusty on my classics, but they had spirits around everywhere, good and bad, always struggling with one another, and their gods themselves were mixtures of good and evil, just like human beings. But I'm not prepared to say, Mr. Lennox, that you weren't watched over. It seems strange that of all the human beings on the slaver you should have been the only one saved and you the only one not stained with crime. It's a fact I don't undertake to account for. And you never found out the name of the pirate captain?"
"Neither his nor that of his ship. It had been effaced carefully from the schooner and all her boats."
"I suppose it will remain one of the mysteries of the sea. But tell me more about my cousin, Grosvenor. He was really becoming a trailer, a forest runner?"
"He was making wonderful progress. I never saw anybody more keen or eager."
"A fine lad, one of our best. I'm glad that you two met. I'd like to meet too that Frenchman, St. Luc, of whom you've spoken so often. We Englishmen and Frenchmen have been fighting one another for a thousand years, and it seems odd, doesn't it, Mr. Lennox, that it should be so? Why, the two countries can see each other across the Channel on clear days, and neighbors ought to be the best of friends, instead of the most deadly enemies. It seems that the farther a nation is from another the better they get along together. What is there in propinquity, Mr. Lennox, to cause hostility?"
"I don't know, but I suppose it's rivalry, the idea that if your neighbor grows he grows at your expense. Your hostility carries over to us in America also. We're your children and we imitate our parents. The French in Canada hate the English in the Provinces and the English in the Provinces hate the French in Canada, when there's so much of the country of each that they're lost in it."
"It's a queer world, Mr. Lennox. In spite of what you say and which I endorse, I'm going with an eager heart in the great expedition against Quebec, and so will you. I'll be filled with joy if it succeeds and so will you."