“This was all very triumphant: but yet, somehow, the prospect of the French conquest did not add to Mr. Museau's satisfaction.
“'Eh, commandant!' says I, ''tis fort bien, but meanwhile your farm in Normandy, the pot of cider, and the trippes a la mode de Caen, where are they?'
“'Yes; 'tis all very well, my garcon,' says he. 'But where will you be when poor old Museau is superseded? Other officers are not good companions like me. Very few men in the world have my humanity. When there is a great garrison here, will my successors give thee the indulgences which honest Museau has granted thee? Thou wilt be kept in a sty like a pig ready for killing. As sure as one of our officers falls into the hands of your brigands of frontier-men, and evil comes to him, so surely wilt thou have to pay with thy skin for his. Thou wilt be given up to our red allies—to the brethren of La Biche yonder. Didst thou see, last year, what they did to thy countrymen whom we took in the action with Braddock? Roasting was the very smallest punishment, ma foi—was it not, La Biche?'
“And he entered into a variety of jocular descriptions of tortures inflicted, eyes burned out of their sockets, teeth and nails wrenched out, limbs and bodies gashed—You turn pale, dear Miss Theo! Well, I will have pity, and will spare you the tortures which honest Museau recounted in his pleasant way as likely to befall me.
“La Biche was by no means so affected as you seem to be, ladies, by the recital of these horrors. She had witnessed them in her time. She came from the Senecas, whose villages lie near the great cataract between Ontario and Erie; her people made war for the English, and against them: they had fought with other tribes; and, in the battles between us and them, it is difficult to say whether whiteskin or redskin is most savage.
“'They may chop me into cutlets and broil me, 'tis true, commandant,' says I, coolly. 'But again, I say, you will never have the farm in Normandy.'
“'Go get the whisky-bottle, La Biche,' says Museau.
“'And it is not too late, even now. I will give the guide who takes me home a large reward. And again I say, I promise, as a man of honour, ten thousand livres to—whom shall I say? to one who shall bring me any token—who shall bring me, say, my watch and seal with my grandfather's arms—which I have seen in a chest somewhere in this fort.'
“'Ah, scelerat!' roars out the commandant, with a hoarse yell of laughter. 'Thou hast eyes, thou! All is good prize in war.'
“'Think of a house in your village, of a fine field hard by with a half-dozen of cows—of a fine orchard all covered with fruit.'