Then we consulted about our imminent start, and I told my servant it would be better to send the post-chaise across the Seine. He agreed with me. And for me to come to it as if by accident the moment we were ready to join each other on the road. He agreed to that. All of our belongings would be put into it by the valet and himself, and when we met we would make a circuit and go by the way of St. Denis.
"We will meet," I told him, "at eleven o'clock in front of the Tuileries."
Skenedonk looked at me without moving a muscle.
"I want to see the palace of the Tuileries before I leave France."
He still gazed at me.
"At any risk, I am going to the Tuileries to-night!"
My Iroquois grunted. A glow spread all over his copper face and head. If I had told him I was going to an enemy's central camp fire to shake a club in the face of the biggest chief, he could not have thought more of my daring or less of my common sense.
"You will never come out."
"If I don't, Skenedonk, go without me."
He passed small heroics unnoticed.