At length, Captain Campbell, conscious, no doubt, of the danger in which he was placed, resolved fully to ascertain his true position, and, rising to his feet, declared his intention of returning to the fort. Pontiac made a sign that he should resume his seat. “My father,” he said, “will sleep to-night in the lodges of his red children.” The gray-haired soldier and his companion were betrayed into the hands of their enemies. Many of the Indians were eager to kill the captives on the spot, but Pontiac would not carry his treachery so far. He protected them from injury and insult, and conducted them to the house of M. Meloche, near Parent’s Creek, where good quarters were assigned them, and as much liberty allowed as was consistent with safe custody.[195] The peril of their situation was diminished by the circumstance that two Indians, who, several days before, had been detained at the fort for some slight offence, still remained prisoners in the power of the commandant.[196] Late in the evening, La Butte, the interpreter, returned to the fort. His face wore a sad and downcast look, which sufficiently expressed the melancholy tidings that he brought. On hearing his account, some of the officers suspected, though probably without ground, that he was privy to the detention of the two ambassadors; and La Butte, feeling himself an object of distrust, lingered about the streets, sullen and silent, like the Indians among whom his rough life had been spent. CHAPTER XII. 1763. PONTIAC AT THE SIEGE OF DETROIT. On the morning after the detention of the officers, Pontiac crossed over, with several of his chiefs, to the Wyandot village. A part of this tribe, influenced by Father Pothier, their Jesuit priest, had refused to take up arms against the English; but, being now threatened with destruction if they should longer remain neutral, they were forced to join the rest. They stipulated, however, that they should be allowed time to hear mass, before dancing the war-dance.[197] To this condition Pontiac readily agreed, “although,” observes the chronicler in the fulness of his horror and detestation, “he himself had no manner of worship, and cared not for festivals or Sundays.” These nominal Christians of Father Pothier’s flock, together with the other Wyandots, soon distinguished themselves in the war; fighting better, it was said, than all the other Indians,——an instance of the marked superiority of the Iroquois over the Algonquin stock.