"Ay, that I do, and all here are of the same mind with me. It is better to die fighting than be put to the torture by your allies, whom, mayhap, you could not restrain." "My force is so large that you will be crushed in a twinkling, and, if you resist, no mercy may be expected. I have come in the effort to save your lives." "Why should it be necessary?" Mark asked. "What have we done that you strive to take possession of our homes?" "That is not a question to be discussed," the officer replied, impatiently. "It is my intention to clear this island of settlers, and I hope at such time to aid you." "It is a brave piece of business to wait until our fathers have gone away, and then come here to fight women and children!" Susan cried, sharply. "Are all French officers so valiant?" It was impossible for the visitor to see the speaker; but he knew from the voice that the words were uttered by a girl, and his face reddened, as he bit his lip to hold back a retort. "I offer you good quarter, and to that pledge my word, if you submit at once," he said, after a brief pause. "In case you are so foolish as to dream of holding out against us, much loss of blood must ensue." "That is bound to come," Mark replied, gravely. "We are resolved to hold this stockade as long as there is one left alive to fire a musket, and when you succeed in the noble work of murdering women and children, there will be none left alive for the savages, your very good friends, to torture." "And that is your last word?" the officer asked, half-turning on his heel. "The last," Mark replied. The Frenchman stood irresolutely while one might have counted ten, and then, wheeling about, he marched toward the shore, looking back from time to time as if believing the young defenders might repent of having given such an answer. "We have shut off all chance of making a bargain with them," Luke said, half to himself, and Susan replied, stoutly: "It would have shamed me had Mark treated with them! Why should they offer us quarter? We have done nothing to warrant their making an attack upon us, and it is well they should hear the truth--that it is nothing less than murder. People don't make war in such a fashion as this!" Mark gave no heed to what his companions were saying. His eyes were fixed on the canoe, in which the three men had embarked, and it was in his mind that when they regained the schooner there would be a decided change in the position of affairs. And in this he was not mistaken; within half an hour the boats belonging to the schooner, and the canoes of the Indians, were engaged in transporting the men to the shore of Mount Desert, half a mile or more north of the stockade.