“Those were Ben Gillam’s cut-throats trying to do for him!  When they saw us on the walls, they knew their mistake,” says M. de Radisson as he re-entered the gate.  “There’s only one way to find those pirates out, Ramsay.  Nurse these wounded Indians back to life, visit the tribe, and watch!  After Chouart’s re-enforcements come, I’ll send you and Jack Battle, with Godefroy for interpreter!”

To Governor Brigdar and his four refugees M. de Radisson was all courtesy.

“And how comes Your Excellency to be out so late with ten men?” he asked, as we supped that night.

“We heard that you were here.  We were coming to visit you,” stammered Governor Brigdar, growing red.

“Then let us make you so welcome that you will not hasten away!  Here, Jack Battle, here, fellow, stack these gentlemen’s swords and pistols where they’ll come to no harm!  Ah!  No?  But I must relieve you, gentlemen!  Your coming was a miracle.  I thank you for it.  It has saved us much trouble.  A pledge to the pleasure—­and the length—­of your stay, gentlemen,” and they stand to the toast, M. de Radisson smiling at the lights in his wine.

But we all knew very well what such welcome meant.  ’Twas Radisson’s humour to play the host that night, but the runaway lieutenant was a prisoner in our guard-house.

CHAPTER XVI

WE SEEK THE INLANDERS

In the matter of fighting, I find small difference between white-men and red.  Let the lust of conquest but burn, the justice of the quarrel receives small thought.  Your fire-eating prophet cares little for the right of the cause, provided the fighter come out conqueror; and many a poet praises only that right which is might over-trampling weakness.  I have heard the withered hag of an Indian camp chant as spirited war-song as your minstrels of butchery; but the strange thing of it is, that the people, who have taken the sword in a wantonness of conquest, are the races that have been swept from the face of the earth like dead leaves before the winter blast; but the people, who have held immutably by the power of right, which our Lord Christ set up, the meek and the peace-makers and the children of God, these are they that inherit the earth.

Where are the tribes with whom Godefroy and Jack Battle and I wandered in nomadic life over the northern wastes?  Buried in oblivion black as night, but for the lurid memories flashed down to you of later generations.  Where are the Puritan folk, with their cast-iron, narrow creeds damning all creation but themselves, with their foibles of snivelling to attest sanctity, with such a wolfish zeal to hound down devils that they hounded innocents for witchcraft?  Spreading over the face of the New World, making the desert to bloom and the waste places fruitful gardens?  And the reason for it all is simply this:  Your butchering Indian, like your swashing cavalier, founded his right upon might; your Puritan, grim but faithful, to the outermost bounds of his tragic errors, founded his might upon right.