"If you take him, you betray me," she said; "and what would Jean
say, if he knew?"
"Gabord," said I, "I come not as a spy; I come to seek my wife,
and she counts you as her friend. Do harm to me, and you do harm to
her. Serve me, and you serve her. Gabord, you said to her once that
I was an honourable man."
He put up his pistol. "Aho, you've put your head in the trap.
Stir, and click goes the spring."
"I must have my wife," I continued. "Shall the nest you helped
to make go empty?"
I worked upon him to such purpose that, all bristling with war
at first, he was shortly won over to my scheme, which I disclosed
to him while the wife made us a cup of coffee. Through all our talk
Voban had sat eying us with a covert interest, yet showing no
excitement. He had been unable to reach Alixe. She had been taken
to the convent, and immediately afterwards her father and brother
had gone their ways--Juste to General Montcalm, and the Seigneur
to the French camp. Thus Alixe did not know that I was in Quebec.
An hour after this I was marching, with two other men and Gabord,
to the Convent of the Ursulines, dressed in the ordinary costume
of a French soldier, got from the wife of Jean Labrouk. In manner
and speech though I was somewhat dull, my fellows thought, I was
enough like a peasant soldier to deceive them, and my French was
more fluent than their own.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31