“What is that, Bigot? I could fire the Château rather than be tracked out by La Corne and Philibert,” said Cadet, sitting upright in his chair.
“What, burn the Château!” answered Bigot. “You are mad, Cadet! No; but it were well to kindle such a smoke about the eyes of La Corne and Philibert that they will need to rub them to ease their own pain instead of looking for poor Caroline.”
“How, Bigot? Will you challenge and fight them? That will not avert suspicion, but increase it,” remarked Cadet.
“Well, you will see! A man will need as many eyes as Argus to discover our hands in this business.”
Cadet started, without conjecturing what the Intendant contemplated. “You will kill the bird that tells tales on us, Bigot,—is that it?” added he.
“I mean to kill two birds with one stone, Cadet! Hark you; I will tell you a scheme that will put a stop to these perquisitions by La Corne and Philibert—the only two men I fear in the Colony—and at the same time deliver me from the everlasting bark and bite of the Golden Dog!”
Bigot led Cadet to the window, and poured in his ear the burning passions which were fermenting in his own breast. He propounded a scheme of deliverance for himself and of crafty vengeance upon the Philiberts which would turn the thoughts of every one away from the Château of Beaumanoir and the missing Caroline into a new stream of public and private troubles, amid the confusion of which he would escape, and his present dangers be overlooked and forgotten in a great catastrophe that might upset the Colony, but at any rate it would free Bigot from his embarrassments and perhaps inaugurate a new reign of public plunder and the suppression of the whole party of the Honnêtes Gens.
CHAPTER XLV. “I WILL FEED FAT THE ANCIENT GRUDGE I BEAR HIM.”
The Treaty of Aix La Chapelle, so long tossed about on the waves of war, was finally signed in the beginning of October. A swift-sailing goelette of Dieppe brought the tidings to New France, and in the early nights of November, from Quebec to Montreal. Bonfires on every headland blazed over the broad river; churches were decorated with evergreens, and Te Deums sung in gratitude for the return of peace and security to the Colony.