Alvarez has promised to lead them to great spoil and
plunder. He is the buccaneer chief now and they will follow him. At
night-fall they surprised a French trading schooner tied to the shore for
safety, slaughtered those on board, and have now drawn the schooner
across the mouth of the bayou to shut you in. The vessel also carries four
bronze nine pounders which they will use against you. Outside in the
Mississippi is a great fleet of Indian war-canoes which has been above you
in the stream."
Adam Colfax paled a little.
"It seems," he said, "that when we thought we were pulling to safety we
were merely entering a trap."
"It was a trap," said Henry with energy, "but we're strong enough to break
any trap into which we may fall."
"That's so," said Adam Colfax.
"You may ask me how I knew all this," continued the priest. "I tell you
not what I have heard, but what I have seen. I was with the Choctaws, and
I sought to dissuade them from this campaign upon which they were
marching. I told them that Alvarez was mad with ambition and
disappointment, that he had rebelled against lawful authority, that he was
an outlaw and buccaneer, and that he could not keep his promises. My words
availed nothing. I continued with them, hoping still to dissuade them and
the other bands that met them, but still I failed.
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