It was a hard silence to me to get through calmly,
for I knew that my men were not so numerous as they appeared, and I
feared to be taken at my word. Pemaou glided up and spoke to his
father. I had not seen him since the night in the Seneca camp, and I
argued with myself to keep my head cool so that I should not spring on
him. His body was blackened with charcoal, and he wore a girdle of
otter skin with the body of a crow hanging from it. I had sometimes
been called the crow because of my many tongues, and I understood his
meaning. But I could only stand waiting, and the moments went on and
on.
It was a small thing that determined the issue. In the distance Pierre
began to whistle,--Pierre, the bridegroom of the morrow, the merry
bully of the night. He had a whistle in keeping with his breadth of
shoulder, and he used it like a mating cock. He whistled my tune, the
signal. It was not accident, I think, neither was it design. It was
his unconscious, blundering black art, his intuition that was
witchcraft.
The Baron drew himself up. He put out a protesting hand, and his
dignity of gesture would have shamed an Israelitish patriarch.
"We called our brother to council. What does our brother mean? He is
moon-mad when he talks of war in the house of his friends, the Hurons.
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