ce as that same Count Jean de
Mezy who had passed them in the flying carriage. Behind came two
officers of about the same age, but of lower rank, seeking his favor and
giving him adulation.

His roving eye traveled around the room, and, resting upon the three
guests, became inflamed.

"Ah, Nemours, and you, Le Moyne," he said, "look there and behold the
two Bostonnais and the Iroquois of whom we have heard, sitting here in
our own Inn of the Eagle!"

"But there is no war, not as yet," said Nemours, although he spoke in an
obsequious tone.

"But it will come," said de Mezy loudly, "and then, gentlemen, this
lordly Quebec of ours, which has known many English captives, will hold
multitudes of them."

There were cries of "Silence!" "Not so loud!"

"Don't insult guests!" but de Mezy merely laughed and said: "They don't
understand! The slow-witted English never know any tongue but their
own."

The red flush in Robert's face deepened and he moved angrily.

"Quiet, boy! Quiet!" whispered the hunter. "He wants a quarrel, and he
is surrounded by his friends, while we're strangers in a strange land
and a hostile city. Take a trifle of the light white wine that Monsieur
Berryer is pouring for you. It won't hurt you."

Robert steadied himself and sipped a little. De Mezy and his satellites,
Nemours and Le Moyne, sat down noisily at a table and ordered claret. De
Mezy gave the cue. They talked of the Bostonnais, not only of the two
Bostonnais who were present, but of the Bostonnais in all the English
colonies, applying the word to them whether they came from Massachusetts
or New York or Virginia. Robert felt his pulses leaping and the hunter
whispered his warning once more.

De Mezy evidently was sincere in his belief that the three understood no
French, as he continued to talk freely about the English colonies, the
prospect of war, and the superiority of French troops to British or
American. Meanwhile he and his two satellites drank freely of the claret
and their faces grew more flushed. Robert could stand it no longer.

"Tayoga," he said clearly and in perfect French, "it seems that in
Quebec there are people of loose speech, even as there are in Albany and
New York."

"Our sachems tell us that such is the way of man," said the Onondaga,
also in pure French. "Vain boasters dwell too in our own villages. For
reasons that I do not know, Manitou has put the foolish as well as the
wise into the world."

"To travel, T