It was the fellow who had run through the forest
with the torch.
"Who is that, Godefroy?"
"Le Borgne."
"Le Borgne need not laugh," retorted M. de Radisson sharply. "Le
Borgne knows the taste of fire-water! Le Borgne has been with the
white-man at the south, and knows what the white-man says is true."
But Le Borgne only laughed the harder, deep, guttural, contemptuous
"huh-huh's!"--a fitting rebuke, methought, for the ignoble deception
implied in M. Radisson's words.
Indeed, I would fain suppress this part of M. Radisson's record, for he
juggled with truth so oft, when he thought the end justified the means,
he finally got a knack of juggling so much with truth that the means
would never justify any end. I would fain repress the ignoble faults
of a noble leader, but I must even set down the facts as they are, so
you may see why a man who was the greatest leader and trader and
explorer of his times reaped only an aftermath of universal distrust.
He lied his way through thick and thin--as we traders used to say--till
that lying habit of his sewed him up in a net of his own weaving like a
grub in a cocoon.
Godefroy was giving a hand to bind up my gashed palm when something
grunted a "huff-huff" beside us. Le Borgne was there with a queer look
on his inscrutable face.
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