wished to carry out. This Natel did at length, when the pilot said to him:
"My friend, you have done well to disclose such a malicious design, and you
show that you are an upright man, and under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit. But these things cannot be passed by without bringing them to the
knowledge of Sieur de Champlain, that he may make provision against them;
and I promise you that I will prevail upon him to pardon you and the rest.
And I will at once," said the pilot, "go to him without exciting any
suspicion; and do you go about your business, listening to all they may
say, and not troubling yourself about the rest."

The pilot came at once to me, in a garden which I was having prepared, and
said that he wished to speak to me in a private place, where we could be
alone. I readily assented, and we went into the wood, where he related to
me the whole affair. I asked who had told it to him. He begged me to pardon
him who had made the disclosure, which I consented to do, although he ought
to have addressed himself to me. He was afraid, he replied, that you would
become angry, and harm him. I told him that I was able to govern myself
better than that, in such a matter; and desired him to have the man come to
me, that I might hear his statement. He went, and brought him all trembling
with fear lest I should do him some harm. I reassured him, telling him not
to be afraid; that he was in a place of safety, and that I should pardon
him for all that he had done, together with the others, provided he would
tell me in full the truth in regard to the whole matter, and the motive
which had impelled them to it. "Nothing," he said, "had impelled them,
except that they had imagined that, by giving up the place into the hands
of the Basques or Spaniards, they might all become rich, and that they did
not want to go back to France." He also related to me the remaining
particulars in regard to their conspiracy.

After having heard and questioned him, I directed him to go about his