I had been walking the floor, grinding my mailed heels into the pine wood.  “Escape!” I cried at him.  “Escape!  To starve or be eaten by wolves!  The torture of the Ottawas were kinder.  Now it is your turn to play the child.  Escape?  Yes, but not alone.  Go, go, monsieur!  Go and meet the Baron.  Go before I change my mind.  Tell the Baron he can have the prisoner.  Then go to Longuant, and make what terms you will with him.  Make any concessions.  Feather your nest while you can.  I want some one to win at this, since I must lose.  I will take the prisoner west with me.”

Cadillac seized me.  “Montlivet, you mean this?” he demanded.  His grip ate into my arm.

I reached up, and unclasped his fingers.  “Unhand me!” I grumbled.  “I must be on my way.”

But he paid no heed.  “You mean this?” he reiterated, taking a fresh grip.  “The prisoner will hamper you.”

I tore my arm away.  “Hamper me!” I jerked out.  “He will clog me, manacle me!  But it is the only thing to do.  Now go, while this mood holds with me.  Five minutes hence I may not see things in this way.  Go!  I will arrange the escape.  You, as commandant, must not connive with me at that.  Go to the Indians, and make your terms.  If you can hold them off till moonrise, I promise you the prisoner shall be gone.”

But Cadillac would not hasten.  He gave me the long estimating glance that I had seen him use once before.  “Montlivet,” he said, with his arm across my shoulder, “you are doing a great thing; a great thing for France.  No man could serve his country more fully than you are doing at this moment.  It is an obscure deed, but a momentous one.  No one can tell what you may be doing for the empire by helping us through this crisis.”

But I was in no mood for heroics.  “I am not doing this for France,” I cried irritably.  “I live to serve France, yes; but I want to serve her in my own way.  Not to have this millstone tied around my neck, whether I will or no.  Don’t think for a moment that I do this because I wish.”

Cadillac removed his arm and looked at me.  “Then you do it from liking for the Englishman?”

I should have had the grace to laugh at this, but now it was the torch to the magazine.  “Like him!  No!” I shouted, with an oath.  “He is bitter of tongue, and, I think, a spy.  He is obnoxious to me.  No, I am doing this because I am, what the Ottawas call us all,—­chicken-hearted!” and sick with myself and what I had undertaken, I flung out of the door.

CHAPTER VI

DAME OPPORTUNITY

The first thing to do was to see the Englishman.  For the third time in twenty-four hours I went to the commandant’s quarters.

The prisoner was at the window when I entered, and again I caught his look of keen intelligence; a look which he apparently tried to veil as his eyes met mine.  That bred suspicion in me.  Yet I could not mistake the welcome with which he greeted me.