"I have not known whether to tell all," said Father Claude, after the silence. "And yet it would seem that Mademoiselle may as well know the truth now as later." "You have not told me?" she said, with reproach in her voice. "Must I always be a child to you, Father? If God has seen it best to place me here, am I not to help bear the burden?" "Mademoiselle is right, Father. Hold nothing back. Three stout hearts are better than two." The priest looked gravely at the fire. "The word has gone out," he said. "The Long Arrow, by his energy and his eloquence, but most of all because he had the courage to capture the Big Buffalo in the enemy's country with but a score of braves, now controls the village. To-morrow night the great council will begin. The war chiefs of all the Cayuga and Onondaga and Oneida and Mohawk villages will meet here and decide whether to take up the hatchet against the white men. The Long Arrow well knows that his power will last only until the greater chiefs come, and he will have his revenge before his day wanes." "When?" asked the Captain. "To-morrow morning, M'sieu. The feasting and dancing will begin to-night." The maid was looking at the priest. "I do not understand," she said. "What will he do?" "He means me, Mademoiselle," said the Captain, quietly. "Not--" she said, "not--" "Yes," he replied. "They will bring us no food to-night. In the morning they will come for me." "Oh, M'sieu, they cannot! They--" She gazed at him, not heeding the tears that suddenly came to her eyes and fell down upon her cheeks; and, as she looked, she understood what was in his mind. "Why do you not escape, M'sieu? There is yet time,--to-night! You are thinking of me, and I--I--Oh, I have been selfish--I did not know! We will stay here, Father Claude and I. You need not think of us; they will not harm us--you told me that yourself, M'sieu. I should be in your way, but alone--it is so easy." She would have gone on, but Menard held up his hand. "No," he said, shaking his head, "no." Her lips moved, but she saw the expression in his eyes, and the words died. She turned to Father Claude, but he did not look up. "I do not know," said Menard, slowly, "whether the heart of the Big Throat is still warm toward me. He was once as my father." "He will not be here in time," Father Claude said. "He does not start from his village until the sun is dropping on the morrow." The maid could not take her eyes from Menard's face. Now that the final word had come, now that all the doubts of the unsettled day, now only half gone, had settled into a fact to be faced, he was himself again, the quiet, resolute soldier. Only the set, almost hard lines about the mouth told of his suffering. "If we had a friend here," he was saying, quietly enough, "it may be that Tegakwita--But no, of course not. I had forgotten about Danton--"