"Why, what is the matter, Xavier?" I asked. He had said his name was Xavier.
"I know," he answered, in a low voice. "It was some of my own people did it."
"What do you know? Tell us, oh, tell us everything! Oh, we helped you! You will surely help us find him!" pleaded Mizpah, breathlessly.
"By all the blessed saints," he cried, with an earnestness that I felt to be sincere, "I will try to help you. I will risk anything. I will disobey the Abbé. I will—"
"Where is the child? Do you know that?" I interrupted.
"Yes, truly," he replied. "They have taken him north to Gaspé, and to the St. Lawrence. My uncle, Etienne le Batard, was in canoe that brought him to mouth of the Pictook. Then other canoe took him north, where a French family will keep him. The Abbé says he shall grow up a monk. But he is not starved or beaten, I swear truly."
"How do you know all this?" I asked, looking at him piercingly. But his eye was clear and met mine right honestly.
"My uncle came to Malpic straight," said he, "where the warriors had a council. Then I was sent with word to my father, Big Etienne, who is on the Shubenacadie."
"What word?" I asked.
But the boy shook his head. "It does not touch the little boy. It does not touch my kind friends. I may not tell it," he said, with a brave dignity. I loved him for this, and trusted him the more.