Montlivet | Page 3

they are followers of the Baron. They returned this morning, and are in camp on the island. Their sending a messenger in advance looks as if they had a prisoner, and so desired to be welcomed in state. If the prisoner should be an Iroquois"----
Now certain tales were fresh in my ears, and so I did not like the implication of the unfinished sentence, and hastened to cover it. "It is a favorable sign, monsieur, that the messenger came to you first."
"How do I know that he came to me first? He came to me--yes. But because a snake slips out of one hole, can you swear that he has not been in another? Will you go to him now?"
There was no door open for escape, and the matter was not important enough for me to be willing to force one. "If you wish," I agreed.
Cadillac looked relieved. "Good! You will find the messenger at my quarters. I shall let you go alone, for I can make nothing of the man's speech, and he smells somewhat rancid for a close acquaintance. When you are through, you will find me here."
I bowed, and made my way to his quarters. I knew as I opened his door that I might be entering more than appeared upon the surface, but the excitement of the game was worth the hazard,--even the hazard of a possible delay,--and I pushed the door wide, and went in.
The Huron was sitting in the middle of the floor, handling his calumet with some ostentation. The Hurons were but the remnant of a race, for Iroquois butchery had reduced them in numbers and in spirit, but even in their exile they preserved a splendor of carriage that made the Ottawas, who camped beside them here, seem but a poor and shuffling people. This man was a comely specimen, and he was decked to do honor to the moment. His blanket was clean, and his head freshly shaved except for a bristling ridge that ran, like a cock's comb, across his crown, and that dripped sunflower oil over his shoulders.
He handed me his calumet, and we smoked for the time required by ceremony, then he rose, and drew two beaver skins from the folds of his blanket.
"The sun has smiled upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself, but seemed fitting enough in him. "I speak for my people who are in camp upon the island. We have been upon strange rivers, and over mountains where the very name of Frenchman is unknown. Yet we have returned, and we come to you at once, as the partridge to her young. We are glad to see a Frenchman's face again. We confirm what we have said by giving these beavers."
I smoked for a moment, then leaned over and kicked the skins into the corner. "Why these words?" I asked, with a slow shrug. "Does the leg thank the arm for its service? Does the mouth give flatteries and presents to the tongue? We of Michillimackinac are all of one body. My brother must be drunk with the bad rum of the English traders, that he should come to me in this way. No, if my brother has anything to say, let him think it aloud without ceremony, as if speaking to his own heart. Let him save his beavers till he goes to treat with strangers."
There was a long silence. The Huron wrapped his blanket closer, and looked at me, while I stared back as unwinkingly. His face was a mask, but I thought--as I have thought before and since when at the council fire--that there was amusement in the very blankness of his gaze, and that my effort to outdo him at his own mummery somewhat taxed his gravity. When he spoke at last he told his story concisely.
A half hour later, I went in search of Cadillac. He heard my step on the crunching gravel, and when I was still rods away, he laid his finger on his lips for silence. I went to him rather resentfully, for I had had no mind to shout my news in the street of the settlement, and I thought that he was acting like a child. But he took no notice of my pique, and clapped me on the shoulder as if we were pot-companions.
"Hush, man," he whispered fretfully. "Your look is fairly shouting the news abroad. No need to keep your tongue sealed, when you carry such a tell-tale face. So they have an Iroquois?"
I dropped my shoulder away from under his hand. "If that is the news that you say I shouted, no harm is done,--save to my honor. No, they have no Iroquois."
Cadillac stopped. "No Iroquois!"