"We must try. Great God, do you think I'll leave her in that brute's power? Every Brondel man marches at once!"
"No," thundered the priest. "You won't dare! You have the Factor's order. Don't dare wreck his plan through selfish desire. In another day he will be here. But move these men now to waste them in futile assaults and you halve his strength—you lose the Company's campaign!"
Dunvegan groaned. Well he knew that. Yet inactivity galled and tortured.
"Dey got dose prisonaires aussi," Basil put in.
"Are you crazed with your wound?" Dunvegan's eyes flashed.
"No. But I be see dem. Dis Glyndon an' Gaspard!"
"They were guarded," began the chief trader vehemently; "are guarded now—" but he broke off to see and to make sure.
Underground they looked into a cellar-dungeon, empty of captives. Stiff in death but without any marks of violence the Indian guards lay on the floor. Dreaulond sniffed their lips.
"Dat diable Gaspard geeve dem de dog-berry poison," he announced. "Mus' be dropped in dere rum at de feast las' night."
It had been the duty of the guards to apportion the prisoners their food as well as to watch them. Thus their absence had not been marked through the day. It was evident that their escape had been effected some time after the supper and dance had ended when the Indians had succumbed to the fatal drink.