"A savage!" said the host.
The soldier lowered his pipe and laughed. "Put your fears aside, good
landlord. You are bald; it will be your salvation."
"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."
Maître 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 Maître le Borgne, who had seen Huguenots
and Catholics laughing and dying in the streets.
"Ho, Maître, 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 Chaudière 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?"