Ben glanced questioningly to his second officer.

“Bid that fellow draw off!” ordered M. Radisson.

Dazed like a man struck between the eyes, Ben did as he was commanded.

“I told you that I came in friendship,” began Radisson.

Gillam waited.

“Have you lost a man, Ben?”

“No,” boldly lied Gillam.

“Has one run away from the island against orders?”

“No, devil take me, if I’ve lost a hand but the supercargo that I killed.”

“I had thought that was yours,” said Radisson, with contempt for the ruffian’s boast; and he handed out the paper taken from Jack.

Ben staggered back with a great oath, vowing he would have the scalp of the traitor who lost that letter.  Both stood silent, each contemplating the other.  Then M. Radisson spoke.

“Ben,” said he, never taking his glance from the young fellow’s face, “what will you give me if I guide you to your father this afternoon?  I have just come from Captain Gillam.  He and his crew are ill of the scurvy.  Dress as a coureur and I pass you for a Frenchman.”

“My father!” cried Ben with his jaws agape and his wits at sea.

“Pardieu—­yes, I said your father!”

“What do you want in return?” stammered Ben.

Radisson uttered a laugh that had the sound of sword-play.

“Egad, ’tis a hot supper I’d like better than anything else just now!  If you feed us well and disguise yourself as a coureur, I’ll take you at sundown!”

And in spite of his second officer’s signals, Ben Gillam hailed us forthwith to the fort, where M. Radisson’s keen eyes took in every feature of door and gate and sally-port and gun.  While the cook was preparing our supper and Ben disguising as a French wood-runner, we wandered at will, M. Radisson all the while uttering low laughs and words as of thoughts.

It was—­“Caught—­neat as a mouse in a trap!  Don’t let him spill the canoe when we’re running the traverse, Ramsay!  May the fiends blast La Chesnaye if he opens his foolish mouth in Gillam’s hearing!  Where, think you, may we best secure him?  Are the timbers of your room sound?”

Or else—­“Faith, a stout timber would hold those main gates open!  Egad, now, an a man were standing in this doorway, he might jam a musket in the hinge so the thing would keep open!  Those guns in the bastions though—­think you those cannon are not pushed too far through the windows to be slued round quickly?”

And much more to the same purpose, which told why M. Radisson stooped to beg supper from rivals.

At sundown all was ready for departure.  La Chesnaye and the marquis had come back with the partridges that were to make pretence for our quick return to the Prince Rupert.  Ben Gillam had disguised as a bush-runner, and the canoe lay ready to launch.  Fools and children unconsciously do wise things by mistake, as you know; and ’twas such an unwitting act sprung M. Radisson’s plans and let the prize out of the trap.