his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his
ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here,
Haward, or shall we go into the hall?"

"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think,
Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and
Saunderson to bring their prisoners here."

As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the
brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as
he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard
Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment,
and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the
result of such an union."

"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but
'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of
infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing
missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan."

MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained rag,
came in first. "We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn of the
road," he said hastily. "The schoolmaster was more peaceably inclined than
any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. Can't you hang him
out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the chief does justice while the
king looks the other way!" He turned and beckoned. "Bring them in,
Saunderson."

There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in
his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to
the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful
blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that
this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road,
should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your
house as to a judgment bar?"

Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His gaze
was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had a subtle
power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in crowded rooms,
without undue utterance or moving from his place, he was apt to achieve
the centre of the stage, the head of the table. Now, the half-breed, by
very virtue of the passion which, false to his Indian blood, shook him
like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and transformed, reached at a
bound the Englishman's plane of distinction