"Monsieur Miko!" interrupted the pirate, threateningly.
"He would not have taken him for his friend. Tokeah," continued the Indian with dignity, "lifted the tomahawk against the palefaces as the Miko of his people, but the chief of the Salt Lake has made him a robber. What shall he, the chief of the Oconees, say to the Yengheese warriors when he falls into their snares? They will hang him on a tree."
The truth, thus fearlessly and decidedly spoken, made an impression upon the pirate. He walked several times hastily up and down the room, and then again stopped opposite to the old man.
"We'll say no more about that, friend Tokeah," said he. "I do not count the scalps that you have stripped from the skulls of the Yankees, and you must not reckon too severely with me. What is done is done; but the future will be very different. I am fully decided to abandon my wild course of life, and then we'll sit down quietly, and live together in a little paradise, half à l'Indienne, half à la Francçaise. Jovial and joyous."
"The Miko of the Oconees," replied Tokeah, "has never stained his hand with the blood of his friends. He is poor, but his hand has never touched what belonged not to him. His fathers would look down on him with grief, if he lived in friendship with a thief; the Great Spirit would hide his face, if he disgraced his people by an alliance with the robber."
The Frenchman had listened to these words more tranquilly than might have been expected, but with a slight twitching of his features, that showed they touched him to the quick. Suddenly he turned away.
"Is that your way of thinking?" said he. "You fancy you can get on better without Lafitte? I've no objection. If I had known it sooner, I would have spared myself the trouble of listening to your insolence, and you that of uttering it. Adieu! Monsieur Miko."
"My brother is hungry," said the Indian, starting up, and greatly shocked. "He must eat. Canondah has prepared his favourite repast."
"And after he has eaten, he may make himself scarce?" said the pirate, surlily.
"My brother is welcome in the wigwam of the Miko. His hand never closes when it has once been opened," said the old nan, soothingly.