We sat in silence for a time. Cadillac scowled and beat his palm upon his knee as a flail beats grain, and I knew he needed no words of mine. I thought that he was going over his defenses in his mind, and I began to calculate how many rounds of shot I had in my canoes, and to hope that my men would not prove cravens. I knew, without argument with myself, that the beaver lands did not need me half as much as I was needed here. At length Cadillac looked up. "Do you think the prisoner is a spy?" he asked. I had dreaded this question. "I am afraid so, but judge of him yourself. He speaks French." Cadillac half rose. "He speaks French? Yet he is an Englishman?" I nodded. "Undoubtedly an Englishman." "And you made nothing of him?" I could only shake my head. "Nothing. He tells the story that I should tell if I were lying,--yet he may be telling the truth. He is a bundle of inconsistencies; that may be nature or art. He may be a hot-headed youth, who knows nothing beyond his own bitterness over his capture, or he may be a clever actor. I do not know." Cadillac gave a long breath that was near a sigh. "Poor soul!" he said unexpectedly. "Well, spy or otherwise, it matters little for the few hours remaining." I caught his arm across the table. "Cadillac!" I cried, with an oath. "You would not do that!" He shook off my hand, and looked at me with more regret than anger. "I am the rat in the trap," he said simply. "What did you expect me to do?" I rose. "Do you mean," I cried, my voice rasping, "that you will not attempt a defense? that you will hand a man, a white man, over to those fiends of hell? Good God, man, you are worse than the Iroquois!" He came over, and seized my arm. "I could run you through for that speech," he said, his teeth grating. "Are you a child, that you cannot look beyond the moment? Suppose I defy the Ottawas. Then I must call on the Baron to help me, since it was his men who brought the prisoner to camp. Why, man, are you crazed? Look at the situation. Kondiaronk, the Huron, will reason as the Ottawas have done, and throw his forces on their side. I should be left with only the Baron to back me,--the Baron, who has been whetting his knife for my throat for the last year. Why, this is what he wants; this is why he brought the prisoner here! Would you have me walk into his trap? Would you have me sacrifice my men, this garrison, why, this country even, to save the life of one puny Englishman, who is probably himself a spy?" He stopped a moment. "Why, man, you sicken me!" he cried, and he slashed at me with his sword as if I were a reptile. I took my own sword, and laid it on the table. "I am a fool," I said, not for the first time that day. "But how will Frontenac look at your handing a white man over to torture?"