in bateaux, with
artillery and large provisions of warlike and other stores. Museau would
be superseded in his command by an officer of superior rank, who might
exchange me, or who might give me up to the Indians in reprisal for
cruelties practised by our own people on many and many an officer
and soldier of the enemy. The men of the fort were eager for the
reinforcements; they would advance into Pennsylvania and New York; they
would seize upon Albany and Philadelphia; they would drive the Rosbifs
into the sea, and all America should be theirs from the Mississippi to
Newfoundland.

"This was all very triumphant: but yet, somehow, the prospect of the
French conquest did not add to Mr. Museau's satisfaction.

"'Eh, commandant!' says I, ''tis fort bien, but meanwhile your farm in
Normandy, the pot of cider, and the trippes a la mode de Caen, where are
they?'

"'Yes; 'tis all very well, my garcon,' says he. 'But where will you
be when poor old Museau is superseded? Other officers are not good
companions like me. Very few men in the world have my humanity. When
there is a great garrison here, will my successors give thee the
indulgences which honest Museau has granted thee? Thou wilt be kept in
a sty like a pig ready for killing. As sure as one of our officers falls
into the hands of your brigands of frontier-men, and evil comes to him,
so surely wilt thou have to pay with thy skin for his. Thou wilt be
given up to our red allies--to the brethren of La Biche yonder. Didst
thou see, last year, what they did to thy countrymen whom we took in
the action with Braddock? Roasting was the very smallest punishment, ma
foi--was it not, La Biche?'

"And he entered into a variety of jocular descriptions of tortures
inflicted, eyes burned out of their sockets, teeth and nails wrenched
out, limbs and bodies gashed--You turn pale, dear Miss Theo! Well, I
will have pity, and will spare you the tortures which honest Museau
recounted in his pleasant way as likely to befall me.

"La Biche was by no means so affected as you seem to be, ladies, by the
recital of these horrors. She had witnessed them in her time. She came
from the Senecas, whose villages lie near the great cataract between
Ontario and Erie; her people made war for the English, and against them:
they had fought with other tribes; and, in the battles between us
and them, it is difficult to say whether whiteskin or redskin is most
savage.

"'They may chop me into cutlets a