I was leaning on the fence to get my breath.
“You were there, Nicole, when I was looking for a friend?” said I, eying him with sharp question and reproach as he came up.
“You did not seem to need any one just then, Master Paul; leastwise, no one that was thereabouts,” he answered, with a sheepish mixture of bantering and apology.
I ignored both. I knew him to be true.
“Will you come with me, right now, Nicole Brun?” I asked, starting off again toward the river.
“You know I will, Master Paul,” said he, close at my side. “But where? What are we up to?”
“The boat!” said I. “The wind serves. I’m going to the Kenneticook to warn Anderson that the Black Abbé is to cut his throat this night!”
I turned and looked him in the eyes as I spoke.
His long, determined upper lip drew down at my words, but his little grey eyes flashed upon mine a half-resigned, half-humorous acquiescence.
“It’s risky, Master Paul. And no good, like as not,” he answered. “We’ll be just about in time to get our own throats slit, I’m thinking,—to say nothing of the hair,” he added, rubbing his crown with rueful apprehension.