Massawippa went down and set the candle securely on the hearth. Claire waited until Massawippa had returned and filled both cups at the river. Then they descended into Jouaneaux’s house and carefully shut the door.
“Oh!” Claire exclaimed as this lid cut off the sunlit world above her head, “do you suppose we can easily open it again from within?”
“Yes, madame; as easily as the Iroquois could raise it from without. Jouaneaux was skillful for a Frenchman. But he relied on secrecy, for there are no fastenings to his door. A fox he called himself.”
“It would be charming,” said Claire, “if we could carry this pit with us on our way.”
Drift-bark and small sticks, half charred, were piled against the chimney-back. To these Massawippa set a light, blowing and cheering it until it rose to cheer her and helped the candle illuminate their retreat.
“Sit on the bottom of this boat, madame,” said Massawippa, folding her blanket and placing it there. “Let us eat now, instead of nibbling bits of bread.”
Claire took up one of the cups and drank reluctantly of river water, saying, “I am so thirsty! While you are taking out the loaves and the meat, show me all you have in the sack, Massawippa.”
Massawippa therefore sat on the floor with the sack’s mouth spread in her lap, and Claire leaned forward from her seat on the boat.
“There were the cups and the candle and one rope and the tinder that we have taken out,” said Massawippa. She did not explain that she despised the promiscuous use of pewter cups, and would not use one in common with the Queen of France.
Out of the bag, jostled by every step of the day’s journey, came unsorted a loaf of bread, some cured eels, a second rope,—“I brought ropes for rafts,” observed Massawippa,—a lump of salt, a piece of loaf sugar,—“For you, madame,”—more bread, more eels, another length of rope,—“I dared not buy all we needed at one place or at two places,” explained Massawippa,—the tinder-box, a hatchet, and, last, half a louis in coin, which Massawippa now returned to Claire.