"Get back in the canoe!" I stormed.
He motioned me away. Standing slim and tall in Singing Arrow's dress,
he put me--such creatures of outward seeming are we--absurdly in the
wrong, as if I had been rude to a woman.
"Father Carheil," he began, "your ears at least are not fettered.
Listen, if you will. This man is not to blame. I was thrown in his
way, and he took me from pity, to save my life. Now that I am
discovered, I will go back to prison with you. Let this man go west.
Whatever his business, it is pressing."
With two mad men on my hands, I had to choose between them. I dropped
the priest, and gripped the Englishman.
"If you go back, I go with you!" I raged in his ear. Then I turned to
Father Carheil. "Are you going to report this, father? It is as the
Englishman says. I take him as the only way to save him from torture.
May we go?"
The father thought a moment. "No," he said.
I gripped my sword. "You have seen torture, Father Carheil. Would you
hand this man over to it?"
The father looked at me as if I were print for his reading. "I am
piecing facts together," he said, with unmoved slowness. "Singing
Arrow is in league with you, for the prisoner is wearing her clothes.
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