Prisoners of Chance

"He does not."

"That is bad," her brows contracting. "Still he must be used, as no other among you will answer my purpose. Bid him advance to my side on the platform; bid him pretend to hold converse with me, and, above all else, have him attend my every gesture and obey. Will he do your bidding?"

"I know not," I replied honestly. "He is of a bull-headed breed, yet I may be able to drive into him a moment of sense."

"Do your part thoroughly, nor be too long about it. The chiefs grow restless at our talk, and may yet take affairs into their own hands."

I turned doubtfully toward the Puritan, who was glaring up at the woman from beneath his shaggy brows, much as he might have looked upon some wild animal seen for the first time. I presume the fiery red drapery caused him to deem her that veritable scarlet woman about whom he prated so much. He appeared far from being a promising subject for my overtures, especially as his great head must have ached still from contact with the club, which had alone beaten him into sullen silence. Yet she commanding the attempt was so desperately in earnest that I determined to do my part.

"Watch carefully my words," I said sternly in English, "and bear in mind the preservation of all our lives depends on the part you play. The woman chief has made choice of you to help in winning mercy from these savages. I know not why you are the one thus chosen, yet I suspect that fiery crop of hair may have something to do with the honor. The main point is, are you in a humor to do her bidding?"

"Nay!" he replied, gazing at me stubbornly.

"You refuse to assist in saving your own life, and the lives of your comrades?"

"I touch not the accursed abominations of this place," he answered, hoarse with anger, "nor will I have aught to do with yonder shameless creature."

"Sirrah!" I cried, thoroughly aroused by his mulishness, "do you deliberately choose to sacrifice the life of this lady to your bull-headed fanaticism? Do you refuse to unbend your miserable Connecticut sectarianism, your Puritan cant, although by so doing you might keep your comrades from the horrors of the stake? If this is what you mean, I denounce you as unworthy to be called a man, and I name your loud protestations of religion no more than a hissing and a byword before the ungodly you profess to despise. You are no better than a Pharisee, full of loud-mouthed prayers and vain conceit of righteousness, a false prophet, haggling over formalism when the slightest sacrifice of what you hold the letter of the law would result in the salvation of human life. You call yourself a Christian, a follower of that Nazarene who died for sinners on the cross, deeming yourself better than those who cling to other creed. You sneer at that rosary in Madame's fingers, yet do you suppose it possible she would not endeavor to pluck your life from the jaws of death if it lay in her power? Ay! and never waste speech about abominations in the path."