From the road came a rumble of oaths. Sailors, sweating and straining,
were rolling a very great cask of tobacco from a neighboring warehouse
down to the landing and some expectant sloop. Haward, lying at ease,
smiled at their weary task, their grunting and swearing; when they were
gone, smiled at the blankness of the road. All things pleased. There was
food for mirth in the call of a partridge, in the inquisitive gaze of a
squirrel, in the web of a spider gaoler to a gilded fly. There was food
for greater mirth in the appearance on the road of a solitary figure in a
wine-colored coat and bushy black peruke.
Haward sat up. "Ha, Monacan!" he cried, with a laugh, and threw a stick to
attract the man's attention.
Hugon turned, stood astare, then left the road and came down into the
dell.
"What fortune, trader?" smiled Haward. "Did your traps hold in the great
forest? Were your people easy to fool, giving twelve deerskins for an old
match-coat? There is charm in a woodsman life. Come, tell me of your
journeys, dangers, and escapes."
The half-breed looked down upon him with a twitching face. "What hinders
me from killing you now?" he demanded, with a backward look at the road.
"None may pass for many minutes."
Haward lay back upon the moss, with his hands locked beneath his head.
"What indeed?" he answered calmly. "Come, here is a velvet log, fit seat
for an emperor--or a sachem; sit and tell me of your life in the woods.
For peace pipe let me offer my snuffbox." In his mad humor he sat up
again, drew from his pocket, and presented with the most approved
flourish, his box of chased gold. "Monsieur, c'est le tabac pour le nez
d'un inonarque," he said lazily.
Hugon sat down upon the log, helped himself to the mixture with a grand
air, and shook the yellow dust from his ruffles. The action, meant to be
airy, only achieved fierceness. From some hidden sheath he drew a knife,
and began to strip from the log a piece of bark. "Tell me, you," he said.
"Have you been to France? What manner of land is it?"
"A gay country," answered Haward; "a land where the men are all white, and
where at present, periwigs are worn much shorter than the one monsieur
affects."
"He is a great brave, a French gentleman? Always he kills the man he
hates?"
"Not always," said the other. "Sometimes the man he hates kills him."
By now one end of the piece of bark in the trader's hands was shredded to
tinder. He drew from his pocket his flint and steel, and struck a spark
into the frayed mass. It flared up, and he held first the tips of his
fingers, then the palm of his hand, then his bared forearm, in the flame
that licked and scorched the flesh. His face was perfectly unmoved, his
eyes unchanged in their expression of hatred. "Can he do this?" he asked.