Then he shifted his position, and stared again. It beat
into my brain that he had lived thirty years among the Indians, and
that his eyes were trained. He could see meanings, where I saw a blank
wall.
"This is no Indian woman," he said slowly, with a wagging forefinger
that beat off his words like the minute hand of Fate. "This is--this
is--why, this is the English prisoner!"
He brought out the last words in a crescendo, and again my hand clapped
tight against his mouth.
"Be still! Be still!" I spluttered wildly, and I threw a disordered
glance at the horizon, and at my astonished crew. I had not meant that
the men, except Pierre, should be taken into the secret until we were
well afloat. Here was another contretemps.
"Are you mad, Father Carheil!" I began, with a sorry show of dignity,
while my palm stuck like a leech against his lips. "This is not"----
"Not any one but the prisoner himself," interrupted the Englishman's
voice. He dropped his blanket, and sprang to the sand. "Do not lie
for me, monsieur," he went on in his indolent, drawling French that
already had come to have a pleasant quaintness in my ears. "Monsieur,
let me speak to the father."
If Nature had given me a third hand, I should have used it to throttle
the Englishman.
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