“Still,” said the mariner, his mouth serious but his eyes smiling, “still, that bald crown may be a great temptation to the hatchet.  The scalping-knife or the hatchet, one or the other, it is all the same.”

“Eye of the bull! does he carry his hatchet?” gasped the host, cherishing with renewed tenderness the subject of their jests.  “And an Iroquois, too, the most terrible of them all, they say.  What shall I do to protect my guests?”

Du Puys and Bouchard laughed boisterously, for the host’s face, on which was a mixture of fear and doubt, was as comical as a gargoyle.

“Why not lure him into the cellar and lock him there?” suggested Bouchard.

“But my wines?”

“True.  He would drink them.  He would also eat your finest sausages.  And, once good and drunk, he would burn down the inn about your ears.”  Bouchard shook his head.

“Our Lady!”

“Or give him a bed,” suggested Du Pays.

“What! a bed?”

“Surely, since he must sleep like other human beings.”

“With an eye open,” supplemented Bouchard.  “I would not trust an Iroquois, saving he was dead and buried in consecrated ground.”  And he wagged his head as if to express his inability to pronounce in words his suspicions and distrust.

“And his yell will congeal the blood in thy veins,” said Du Puys; “for beside him the Turk doth but whisper.  I know; I have seen and fought them both.”

Maitre le Borgne began to perspire.  “I am lost!  But you, Messieurs, you will defend yourselves?”

“To the death!” both tormentors cried; then burst into laughter.

This laughter did not reassure Maitre le Borgne, who had seen Huguenots and Catholics laughing and dying in the streets.

“Ho, Maitre, but you are a droll fellow!” Bouchard exclaimed.  “This Indian is accompanied by Fathers Chaumonot and Jacques.  It is not impossible that they have relieved La Chaudiere Noire of his tomahawk and scalping-knife.  And besides, this is France; even a Turk is harmless here.  Monsieur the Black Kettle speaks French and is a devout Catholic.”

“A Catholic?” incredulously.

“Aye, pious and abstemious,” with a sly glance at the innkeeper, who was known to love his wines in proportion to his praise of them.

“The patience of these Jesuits!” the host murmured, breathing a long sigh, such as one does from whose shoulders a weight has been suddenly lifted.  “Ah, Messieurs, but your joke frightened me cruelly.  And they call him the Black Kettle?  But perhaps they will stay at the episcopal palace, that is, if the host from Dieppe arrives to-night.  And who taught him French?”

“Father Chaumonot, who knows his Indian as a Turk knows his Koran.”

“And does his Majesty intend to make Frenchmen of these savages?”

“They are already Frenchmen,” was the answer.  “There remains only to teach them how to speak and pray like Frenchmen.”