"Chut, lad!" said I. "Your quarrel's my quarrel, and the danger is not more for me than for you, as you won't be long away from me when the fight begins,—if it comes to a fight. And further, my plan is both an honest one and like to succeed. Come, let us be doing!"
Marc seized my hand, and gave me a look of pride and love which put a glow at my heart. "You know best, Father," said he. And turning away, he crept toward his post. For me, I made a circuit, in leisurely fashion, and came out upon the shore behind a point some rods below the spot where the savages lay. Then I walked boldly up along the water's edge.
The Indians heard me before I came in view, and were on their feet when I appeared around the point. They regarded me with black suspicion, but no hostile movement, as I strode straight up to them and greeted, fairly enough but coldly, a tall warrior, whom I knew to be one of the Black Abbé's lieutenants. He grunted, and asked me who I was.
"You know well enough who I am," said I, seating myself carelessly upon a rock, "seeing that you had a chief hand in the outrages put upon me the other day by that rascally priest of yours!"
At this the chief stepped up to me with an air of menace, his high-cheeked, coppery face scowling with wrath. But I eyed him steadily, and raised my hand with a little gesture of authority. "Wait!" said I; and he paused doubtfully. "I have no grudge against you for that," I went on. "You but obeyed your master's orders faithfully, as you will doubtless obey mine a few weeks hence, when I take command of your rabble and try to make you of some real service to the King. I am one of the King's captains."
At this the savage looked puzzled, while his fellows grunted in manifest uncertainty.
"What you want?" he asked bluntly.
I looked at him for some moments without replying. Then I glanced at the form of Mizpah Hanford, still unmoving, the face still hidden under that pathetic splendour of loosened hair. Prudence I could not catch view of, by reason of another tree which intervened. But the sound of her weeping had ceased.
"I am ready to ransom these prisoners of yours," said I.
The savages glanced furtively at each other, but the coppery masks of their features betrayed nothing.