“And here comes our supreme test,” said Willet gravely.  “If they turn in toward the island then we are lost, and we’ll know in five minutes.”

Robert’s heart missed a beat or two, and then settled back steadily.  It was one thing to be captured by the French, and another to be taken by Tandakora.  He resolved to fight to the last, rather than fall into the hands of the Ojibway chief who knew no mercy.  Neither of the three spoke, not even in whispers, as they watched almost with suspended breath the progress of the fleet.  The bonfires had never ceased to rise and expand.  For a long distance the surface of the lake was lighted up brilliantly.  The crests of the waves near them were tipped with red, as if with blood, and the strong wind moaned like the voice of evil.  Robert felt a chill in his blood.  He knew that the fate of his comrades and himself hung on a hair.

Nearer came the canoes, and, in the glare of the fires, they saw the occupants distinctly.  In the first boat, a large one for those waters, containing six paddles, sat no less a person than the great Ojibway chief himself, bare as usual to the waist and painted in many a hideous design.  Gigantic in reality, the gray night and the lurid light of the fires made him look larger, accentuating every wicked feature.

He seemed to Robert to be, in both spirit and body, the prince of darkness himself.

Just behind Tandakora sat two white men whom the three recognized as Auguste de Courcelles and Francois de Jumonville, the French officers with whom they had been compelled to reckon on other fields of battle and intrigue.  There was no longer any doubt that the French were present in this great encircling movement, and Robert was stronger than ever in his belief that St. Luc had the supreme command.

“I could reach Tandakora from here with a bullet,” whispered Willet, “and almost I am tempted to do it.”

“But the Great Bear will not yield to his temptation,” Tayoga whispered back.  “There are two reasons.  He knows that he could slay Tandakora, but it would mean the death of us all, and the price is too great.  Then he remembers that the Ojibway chief is mine.  It is for me to settle with him, in the last reckoning.”

“Aye, lad, you’re right.  Either reason is good enough.  We’ll let him pass, if pass he means, and I hope devoutly that he does.”

The fleet preserving its formation was now almost abreast of the island, and once Robert thought it was going to turn in toward them.  The long boat of Tandakora wavered and the red giant looked at the island curiously, but, at the last moment the empty canoe, far ahead and dim in the dark, beckoned them on more insistently than ever.

“Now the die is cast,” whispered the Onondaga tensely.  “In twenty seconds we shall know our fate, and I think the good spirit that has gone into our canoe means to save us.”