I bowed.  “You are a logician,” I said bitterly.  “Father, I can hear the tom-toms.  It is a miracle that we have escaped undetected so long.  Our respite cannot last many minutes longer.  May we go?”

My tone seemed to reach him, and he wavered a moment.  “Perhaps,” he began haltingly; then he backed several paces.  “No!” he cried, all his small wiry figure suddenly tense.  “No!  You are a dangerous man.  You carry brandy, and no one knows your errand.  If I let you go, I may save one man from torture,—­which, after all, is but an open door to the blessed after life,—­but I shall be letting you carry brandy and perdition on to scores of souls.  No.”  And he opened his mouth to call for help.

But I was on him before his shout could frame itself to sound.  I drew my handkerchief, and tied it, bandage-firm, across his mouth.  Then I called to Pierre, and bidding him bring me thongs from our store in the canoe, I proceeded to bind the priest firmly.  He was slight as a woman in my hands.  I could feel the sharpness and brittleness of his old bones through his wrinkled skin, and I was sick at myself.  “I am sorry.  I am sorry.  I am sorry,” I heard myself repeating, explaining to him, and to myself, and, mostly, to the God who judges us.  I looked at the wonderful mobile old face, with all its weakness, and all its wonderful white goodness, and hated myself for laying hands of violence on such a man.  “I am sorry,” I cried again.  I looked at the spit of land that separated us from the camp, and the light from the fires glowed red above it.  The din of dogs and men swelled high.  Something was happening.  I glanced down at the priest, but turned away quickly, for I had no stomach for what I had done.

“They will find you soon,” I said, with my throat tightening.  “God knows I’m sorry.”

Then I dashed to the canoes.  “Quickly!” I cried, and I shoved the Englishman down behind me, that I might not have to see even the glint of his red blanket to anger me by thought of what I had sacrificed.

In a moment, our paddles were dipping.  I looked back at the settlement.  “It is done!” I cried under my breath, and I could not forbid a moment of exultation.  I glanced at the Englishman.

But I met no exultation there.  The man’s strange eyes were still grave.  “No, monsieur, it is just begun,” he corrected, and I thought, as I saw his look at the retreating shore, that he shrunk from the uncertainties ahead more than from the death behind.  Was there a coward streak in him, after all?  I turned my back, and did not speak again.

CHAPTER VIII

PARTNERS

To paddle by day, to work in sun and breeze, is a pastime, but to paddle by night drains a man’s endurance.  For long hours our canoes nosed their way around headland after headland and along wild shores peopled by beasts and shadows.  The black water was a threat and a mystery, and the moonlight was chill, so that our limbs, which should have bounded with red blood, were aching and leaden with the cold.  I stretched myself with relief when the red-streaked horizon told me it was time to land and make camp.