human
Dominique, said he at length,
gpt
It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau came running to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man--an Indian--was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with his arms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trick of the Iroquois--not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood: and Chretien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemed to show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, which might be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launched a boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail: and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready to fire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me--for I have been as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of the Ojibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called back to him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue.
human
Yes, yes--he is an Ojibway beyond doubt.
gpt
Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushed forward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly. He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian had wrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and past speaking, when at length we took him off.
human
And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?
gpt
So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore.
human
The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through the wilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed a canoe to launch on the Great River here.
gpt
Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party of Iroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessed themselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped.
human
Yes, mused the priest,
gpt
Father Launoy fell to musing again.
human
What puzzles me is that he carries no message, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings him across the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded and prisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will be travelling up the Great River to Montreal--that is, if they have not already arrived. Now why should this one boat have turned aside? That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: the way he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal, or up-stream to Fort Amitie or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, this man apparently carries no message. Also he started from Fort Carillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to a wounded man?
gpt
Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drew off his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and he has a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from which he suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian.
human
A bad blow--and yet he escaped.
gpt
A bad blow. Either from that or from the drenching, towards morning his head wandered and he talked at full speed for an hour.
human
Of what did he talk?
gpt
That I cannot tell, since he chattered in English.
human
English? How do you know that it was English?
gpt
Why, since it was not French, nor like any kind of Indian! Moreover, I have heard the English talk. They were prisoners brought down from Oswego, twelve bateaux in all, and I took them through the falls. When they talked, it was just as this man chattered last night.
human
Then you, too, Dominique, find your guest a strange fellow?
gpt
Oh, as for that! He is a sergeant, and of the regiment of Bearn. Your reverence saw his coat hanging by the bed.
human
Even in that there is something strange. For Bearn lies in the Midi, close to the Pyrenees; and, as I understand, the regiment of Bearn was recruited and officered almost entirely from its own province. But this Sergeant a Clive comes from the north; his speech has no taste of the south in it, and indeed he owns to me that he is a northerner. He says further that he comes from my own seminary of Douai. And this again is correct; for I cross-questioned him on the seminary, and he knows it as a hand knows its glove--the customs of the place, the lectures, the books in use there. He has told me, moreover, why he left it. . . . Dominique, you do right in misliking your guest.
gpt
I do not say, Father, that I mislike him. I fear him a little--I cannot tell why.
human
You do right, then, to fear him; and I will tell you why. He is an atheist.
gpt
An atheist? O--oh!
human
He has been of the true Faith. But he rejected me; he would make no confession, but turned himself to the wall when I exhorted him. _Voyons_--here is a Frenchman who talks English in his delirium; a northerner serving in a regiment of the south; an infidel, from Douai. Dominique, I do not like your guest.
gpt
Nor I, Father, since you tell me that he is an atheist.