too much in the attack it will be difficult to restrain them. I'm not
stating this as a threat--you know me too well for that--but to make
the facts plain, and to avoid something that I should regret as much
as you."

"I don't think it necessary to consult Captain Colden, and without
doing so I decline your offer. We have food to eat, water to drink
and bullets to shoot, and if you care to take us you must come and do
so."

"And that is the final answer? You're quite sure you don't wish to
consult your superior officer, Captain Colden?"

"Absolutely sure. It would waste the time of all of us."

"Then it seems there is nothing more to say, and to use your own
fanciful way of putting it, we must go back from the play of words to
the play of swords."

"I see no alternative."

"And yet I hope that you will survive the combat, Mr. Lennox."

"I've the same hope for you, Chevalier de St. Luc."

Each meant it, and, in the same high manner of the day, they saluted
and withdrew. Robert, as he walked back to the thickets in which the
defenders lay, felt that Indian eyes were upon him, and that perhaps
an Indian bullet would speed toward him, despite St. Luc. Tandakora
and the savages around him could not always be controlled by their