ped into the landlord; but not
even this aroused him. His gaze wandered from the right-hand bench to
the left-hand bench, and back again, from the nut-brown military
countenance of Captain Zachary du Puys, soldier of fortune, to the
sea-withered countenance of Joseph Bouchard, master of the good ship
Saint Laurent, which lay in the harbor.

"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."

Maitre 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 Maitre le Borgne, who had seen Huguenots
and Catholics laughing and dying in the streets.

"Ho, Maitre, 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 Chaudiere Noire of his tomahawk
and scalping-knife. And besides, this is France; even a Turk is
harmless here. Monsieur th