"How could we any longer refuse to believe," she urged, "when the good priest confessed to us plainly, after much questioning, that it was Monsieur Marc de Mer who had sent the savages to steal us, and had told them just the place to find us, and the hour? The savages had told us the same thing at first, taunting us with it when we threatened them with Marc's vengeance. You see, Monsieur, they had plainly been informed by some one of our little retreat at the riverside, and of the hour at which we were wont to frequent it. Yet we repudiated the tale with horror. Then yesterday, when the good priest told us the same thing, with a reluctance which showed his horror of it, what _could_ we do but believe? Though it did seem to us that if Marc were false there could be no one true. The priest believed it. He was kind and pitiful, and tried to get the savages to set us free. He talked most earnestly, most vehemently to them; but it was in their own barbarous language, and of course we could not understand. He told us at last that he could do nothing at the time, but that he would exert himself to the utmost to get us out of their hands by and by. Then he went away. And then--" "And then, Madame," said I, "your little one was taken from you at his orders!" "Why, what do you mean, Monsieur?" she gasped, her great sea-coloured eyes opening wide with fresh terror. "At his orders? By the orders of that kind priest?" "Of what appearance was he?" I inquired, in return. "Oh," she cried breathlessly, "he was square yet spare of figure, dark-skinned almost as Marc, with a very wide lower face, thin, thin lips, and remarkably light eyes set close together,--a strange, strong face that might look very cruel if he were angry. He looked angry once when he was arguing with the Indians." "You have excellently described our bitterest foe, and yours, Madame," said I, smiling. "The wicked Abbe La Garne, the pastor and master of these poor tools of his whom I would fain have spared, but could not." And I pointed to the bodies of the three dead savages, where they lay sprawling in various pathetic awkwardnesses of posture. She looked, seemed to think of them for the first time, shivered, and turned away her pitiful eyes. "Those poor wretches," I continued, "were sent by this kind priest to capture you. He knew when and where to find you, because he had played the eavesdropper when Marc and I were talking of you." "Oh," she cried, clenching her white hands desperately, "can there be a priest so vile?" "Ay, and this which you have heard is but a part of his villany. We have but lately baulked him in a plot whereby he had nearly got Marc hanged. This, Madame, I promise myself the honour of relating to you by and by; but now we must get the poor lad removed to some sort of house and comfort."