Meanwhile Baptiste had been standing in the same attitude. I sharply bade him close the door, and he did so. Then he stepped forward, tossed the reeking scalps on the table, and with a shaking hand helped himself, unbidden, to a stiff glass of rum.
“You need not have brought those hideous things here,” said I.
“I did not come for that alone, Monsieur Carew,” he replied. “I was sent with a message. The Indians intend shortly to attack. It will be well to prepare.”
“We are all ready,” exclaimed Griffith Hawke, roused from his dejection by this intelligence. “But what do you mean, my man? Why do the sentries look for an attack?”
“Sir, the Indians have been making strange signals,” Baptiste answered, “and they were seen from the loopholes and the tower creeping along the edge of the timber in force.”
“The warning is timely,” said Captain Rudstone. “If the savages are prowling about it means mischief, otherwise they would be rigging up a camp against this bitter weather. And no doubt they reckon the storm will be to their advantage, since the driving snow thickens the air.”
The rest of us were of the same mind, and to a man we thirsted for a chance to avenge the foul murder of the two voyageurs. We eagerly donned our fur coats and caps, and began to examine our weapons.
“Mr. Menzies, will you speak to the women before you go,” said the factor. “Tell them not to be alarmed if they hear firing—that there is no danger.”
“And perhaps they will take consolation from your company, Father Cleary,” he added, when Menzies had left the room.
The priest was wrapping himself in furs, and before replying he took his musket from a rack over the fireplace.