The fidelity which Guernache had shown in the recent difficulty with the Indians, did not appear to lessen in any degree the unfavorable impressions which Capt. Albert had received of that worthy fellow. Indeed, the recent and remarkable service which he had rendered, by which, in all probability, the whole party had been preserved from massacre, rather increased, if any thing, the hostile temper of his superior. The evil spirit still raged within the bosom of Capt. Albert, utterly baffling a judgment at no period of particular excellence, and blinding every honorable sentiment which might have distinguished him under other influences. He was now doubly mortified, that he should be supposed to owe his present safety to the person he had wronged--a mortification which found due increase as he remembered how much greater had been the respect and deference of the savages for his drummer than for himself. This recollection was a perpetual goad to that working malice in his heart, which was already busied in devising schemes of revenge, which were to salve his hurts of pride and vanity, by the sufferings as well as humiliation of his subordinate. It will scarcely be believed that, when fairly out of sight of the village of Audusta, he rebuked Guernache sharply, for leaving the pinnace against his orders, and even spoke of punishing him for this disobedience.[12] But the murmurs of some of his officers, and, perhaps, a little lurking sentiment of shame in his own bosom, prevented him from attempting any such disgraceful proceeding. But the feeling of hostility only rankled the more because of its suppression, and he soon contrived to show Guernache and, indeed, everybody besides, that from that hour he was his most bitter and unforgiving enemy, with a little and malignant spirit, he employed various petty arts, which a superior of a base nature may readily command on all occasions, by which to make the poor fellow feel how completely he was at his mercy; and each day exposed him to some little snare, or some stern caprice, by which Guernache became involuntarily an offender. His tyrant subjected him to duties the most troublesome and humiliating, while denying, or stinting him of all those privileges which were yet commonly accorded to his comrades. But all this would have been as nothing to Guernache, if he had not been denied permission to visit, as before, the hamlet of Audusta, where his princess dwelt. On the miserable pretext that the priesthood might revenge upon him the misconduct of Renaud, Albert insisted upon his abstaining wholly from the Indian territories. But this pretence deceived nobody, and nobody less than Guernache. Little did the petty tyrant of Fort Charles imagine that the object of his malice enjoyed a peculiar source of consolation for all these privations. His comrades were his friends. They treated him with a warmth and kindness, studiously proportioned to the ill-treatment of his superior.