I have not often felt too secure while in any position of danger, but this feeble old savage rested so helplessly back against the base of the altar, I lost all thought of him as an enemy against whom I needed to guard.  Sunk in contemplation of his story, I sat carelessly, my head somewhat lowered as I mentally viewed the picture drawn.  Cairnes moved uneasily in his sleep, muttering something indistinctly, and I turned partially so that I might look at him.  Instantly, with the leap of a tiger, the priest hurled himself upon me.  I flung up one arm, barely in time to intercept a jagged stone aimed full at my head.  As we clinched and went down, the incarnate fiend buried his yellow teeth in my hand, and, in spite of his weight of years, I found myself hard pressed in a death struggle.  A very demon seemed to possess him; his grip was satanic in its hate.  In truth it was Cairnes who seized him by the throat, dragging him off me.  He struggled insanely against the two of us, until we bound him so securely that nothing except his eyes could move.

CHAPTER XXXIII

PERE ANDRE LAFOSSIER

“You treacherous, white-headed old villain,” I exclaimed angrily, “I am half inclined to kill you for so savage a trick.  Odds! but my arm feels as if it were broken.”

The fellow grinned at me, showing his yellow fangs.

“I care not if you kill,” he answered, with true Indian stoicism.  “I am old, and have served the Sun long.  Kill, but I will not be unavenged of my people; for, whether I live or die, it matters not—­there is no escape for you.”

He spoke with such confidence as to stun me.

“No escape?  Why?”

His lips curled with undisguised contempt.

“So my words sting.  Well, they are true, nor am I unwilling to tell you.  You are trapped here.  There is no path you can travel, either by night or day, unseen of our people.  You have already climbed along the only passage leading here, and you dare not go back.  This way you have reached the end.  Behind is the village; here the altar of sacrifice—­choose either, and you die like the Francais dogs you are.”

“Who is here to touch us?” I asked derisively.  “There is food in plenty; we can wait our chance.”

“Ay, you have grace of this day in which to make ready,” his wrinkled face lighting maliciously.  “When yonder moon becomes round it will be the night of sacrifice.  Know you what will happen then?” he licked his thin lips greedily.  “I may not be here to see, but it will be the same.  Up that path of rocks will swarm all of my race, and what then can save you from the altar?  How they will welcome the victims waiting their pleasure—­white-faced Francais.”

His old, deeply sunken eyes gleamed so with hatred, I drew involuntarily back, my blood chilled with a conviction that he did not lie.