“What! without a sound!”

“I have not lived among the Indians for nothing.”

“And then?”

“I pulled him down into the ditch, and I got into his coat and his hat.  I did not scalp him.”

“Scalp him?  Great heavens!  Such things are only done among savages.”

“Ah!  I thought that maybe it was not the custom of the country.  I am glad now that I did not do it.  I had hardly got the reins before they were all back and bundled you into the coach.  I was not afraid of their seeing me, but I was scared lest I should not know which road to take, and so set them on the trail.  But they made it easy to me by sending some of their riders in front, so I did well until I saw that by-track and made a run for it.  We’d have got away, too, if that rogue hadn’t shot the horse, and if the beasts had faced the water.”

The guardsman again pressed his comrade’s hands.  “You have been as true to me as hilt to blade,” said he.  “It was a bold thought and a bold deed.”

“And what now?” asked the American.

“I do not know who these men are, and I do not know whither they are taking us.”

“To their villages, likely, to burn us.”

De Catinat laughed in spite of his anxiety.  “You will have it that we are back in America again,” said he.  “They don’t do things in that way in France.”

“They seem free enough with hanging in France.  I tell you, I felt like a smoked-out ’coon when that trace was round my neck.”

“I fancy that they are taking us to some place where they can shut us up until this business blows over.”

“Well, they’ll need to be smart about it.”

“Why?”

“Else maybe they won’t find us when they want us.”

“What do you mean?”

For answer, the American, with a twist and a wriggle, drew his two hands apart, and held them in front of his comrade’s face.

“Bless you, it is the first thing they teach the papooses in an Indian wigwam.  I’ve got out of a Huron’s thongs of raw hide before now, and it ain’t very likely that a stiff stirrup leather will hold me.  Put your hands out.”  With a few dexterous twists he loosened De Catinat’s bonds, until he also was able to slip his hands free.  “Now for your feet, if you’ll put them up.  They’ll find that we are easier to catch than to hold.”

But at that moment the carriage began to slow down, and the clank of the hoofs of the riders in front of them died suddenly away.  Peeping through the windows, the prisoners saw a huge dark building stretching in front of them, so high and so broad that the night shrouded it in upon every side.  A great archway hung above them, and the lamps shone on the rude wooden gate, studded with ponderous clamps and nails.  In the upper part of the door was a small square iron grating, and through this they could catch a glimpse of the gleam of a lantern and of a bearded face which looked out at them.