“Time enough to tell my story when we are beyond danger,” I returned tartly, annoyed by his awkwardness.  “If you utter another word before we are around yonder headland, I will have De Noyan hoist you overboard.”

I saw him glance askance at the unconscious Chevalier as if mentally calculating his ability to perform the feat.  Then his glinting gray eyes swept the sodden shore as though vaguely wondering what it was we fled from in such unseemly haste.  Nor did I long withdraw my own anxious gaze from that north bank, until we rounded the bend in the stream, and were safely removed from view of any one below.  I was able to mark no sign of life along the ridge, my faith reviving that the Spanish sailors yet slept soundly, while as to their irate commander, I had trussed him with a thoroughness which left me confident.  Feeling reassured I finally yielded to Eloise’s entreaties, laying bare my breast and permitting Madame to wash away the clotted blood and apply such bandages as might easily be procured.  She was extremely gentle about it; but I marvelled somewhat at the trembling of her white fingers and the pallor of her face, for it was not a bad wound, De Noyan hesitating not to make light of it, although he acknowledged it was a strong wrist which drove the tuck in.  Anyway, what with the reaction and the loss of blood, I lay back quite spent, telling over briefly those incidents that had occurred to me while they slept.

“And now,” I said, addressing the Puritan, who was seated at the bow-oar, where I could see nothing of him except the bobbing of his red crop, “how do you know this stream makes a circuit and approaches the mouth of the Ohio?  It beareth a little to the west of north here.”

“It was the Spanish captain camping here as I passed down,” he answered, speaking abominably through his nose.  “They called him Castellane, a little fellow, with pop-eyes, who pretended to light his pipe from my hair.  He pointed it out upon a map some black-frocked papist had drawn.  It was plain enough to the eye, but ’tis likely they lied, for they were all spawns of Satan.”

“True or false,” I commented coolly, “we seem likely to find out.  I have also heard somewhere—­no doubt in the Illinois country—­about a northern trend to this stream, and one thing is certain, there is no hope for us otherwise; there can be no running those guard-lines back yonder.”

“Do you mean we push on up this river?” broke in De Noyan, who had managed to make something out of our conversation, especially as the Puritan illustrated his knowledge by rudely tracing with a stumped forefinger a map on the board where he sat. “Sacre! ’tis the dirtiest red slough ever I navigated.  Why not try the other thing?  A brush with those gentlemen below would be more to my taste.”

“Ay, Master Benteen,” boomed Cairnes with pious emphasis, reading the meaning of the other through his French gestures.  “Methinks the Lord of Hosts would assuredly strengthen the hearts of His servants for such a fray.  How many, friend, do you suppose they number, those unwashed sons of Belial?”