“A little compliment to me, that is all.”
Danton stood looking at him in surprise, until he was hustled to the nearest canoe and ordered to take a paddle. He looked back and saw four warriors lift Menard, still bound hand and foot, and carry him to the other canoe, laying him in the bottom beneath the bracing-strips. Father Claude, too, was given a paddle. Then they glided away over the still water, into a mysterious channel that wound from one shadow-bound stretch to another, past islands that developed faintly from the blackness ahead and faded into the blackness behind. The lean arms of the Indians swung with a tireless rhythm, and their paddles slipped to and fro in the water with never a sound, save now and then a low splash.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MAID MAKES NEW FRIENDS.
The prisoners were allowed some freedom in the Onondaga village. They were not bound, and they could wander about within call of the low hut which had been assigned to them. This laxity misled Danton into supposing that escape was practicable.
“See,” he said to Menard, “no one is watching. Once the dark has come we can slip away, all of us.”
Menard shook his head.
“Do you see the two warriors sitting by the hut yonder,––and the group playing platter among the trees behind us? Did you suppose they were idling?”