I waved my pipe at him.  I had the upper hand, and I felt cruelly jovial.  “It was haste to meet you,” I assured him.  “I missed you in the fog, and feared you would reach camp before me.”

“You feared me, monsieur?”

I felt an unreasoning impulse to be candid with him.  The strange, choking terror had swept back at that instant, and again it had me by the throat.  Yet here sat the cause of my terror before me, and he was in my power.

“I feared your Indians.”  I spoke gravely.  “Handle those Hurons carefully, monsieur.  It is a tricky breed.”

“But I have no”——­ He stopped, and looked at me strangely.  “What made you think that I was near?”

“For one thing I heard your axe yesterday.”

“But yesterday I was five leagues from here.”

I whistled through my teeth.  I hate a useless lie.  “I heard your axe,” I reiterated.  “This morning you and your men passed me in the fog.”

He stared at me, then at the forest.  “Monsieur, I have no men!”

“What?”

“I came alone.”

“Monsieur, you are lying.”

“It is you who are mad.  Take your hands away!”

“I will let you go when you tell me the truth.  Remember, your men passed me this morning.”

“I tell you, I came alone.”

“Where are your Indians that Cadillac sent with you?”

“I sprained my ankle and they left me.”

“Where did they go?”

“How should I know?  I tell you they left me.”

“Was Pemaou, the Huron, one of them?”

“He was guide.  Monsieur, what do you mean?”

I could not answer.  My throat was dry as if I breathed a furnace blast.  I looked at the canoe under my hands.  It was not seaworthy.  “Will your canoe carry two?” I cried.

He nodded.  His great rough face was sickly with suspense.  “Monsieur, what does this mean?”

I swore at him and at the hour he had made me lose.  “Men passed me in a fog.  They have been hiding here for a day at least.  Show me your canoe.  We must get to camp.  Yes, come with me.  Come, show me your canoe.”

CHAPTER XX

WHAT I FOUND

Once in the canoe I bade Lord Starling crouch low, and I paddled fiercely.  I breathed hard not from exertion, but like a swimmer fighting for his breath.  I was submerged in waves of terror, yet I had no name for what I feared.  I learned then that there is but one real terror in the world,—­fear of the unseen.  The man who feels terror of an open foe must be a strange craven.

Lord Starling respected my mood and was silent.  He sat warily, shifting his weight to suit the plunging canoe.

“The fog chokes me,” he said at length.  “How large a camp have you?  Whom did you leave on guard?”

I told him.

“That should be sufficient.”