Chapter 27 - Page 2

towards the sex was a natural weakness, and he would have
married Mabel, or any one else who would accept his hand; but his
admiration of her was in a great degree feigned, in order that he
might have an excuse for accompanying the party without sharing in
the responsibility of its defeat, or incurring the risk of having
no other strong and seemingly sufficient motive. Much of this
was known to Captain Sanglier, particularly the part in connection
with Mabel, and he did not fail to let his auditors into the whole
secret, frequently laughing in a sarcastic manner, as he revealed
the different expedients of the luckless Quartermaster.

"_Touchez-la_," said the cold-blooded partisan, holding out his
sinewy hand to Pathfinder, when he ended his explanations; "you be
_honnete_, and dat is _beaucoup_. We tak' de spy as we tak' _la
medicine_, for de good; _mais, je les deteste! Touchez-la._"

"I'll shake your hand, Captain, I will; for you're a lawful and
nat'ral inimy," returned Pathfinder, "and a manful one; but the
body of the Quartermaster shall never disgrace English ground. I
did intend to carry it back to Lundie that he might play his bagpipes
over it, but now it shall lie here on the spot where he acted
his villainy, and have his own treason for a headstone. Captain
Flinty-heart, I suppose this consorting with traitors is a part of
a soldier's regular business; but, I tell you honestly, it is not
to my liking, and I'd rather it should be you than I who had this
affair on his conscience. What an awful sinner! To plot, right
and left, ag'in country, friends, and the Lord! Jasper, boy, a
word with you aside, for a single minute."

Pathfinder now led the young man apart; and, squeezing his hand,
with the tears in his own eyes, he continued:

"You know me, Eau-douce, and I know you," said he, "and this news
has not changed my opinion of you in any manner. I never believed their
tales, though it looked solemn at one minute, I will own; yes, it
did look solemn, and it made me feel solemn too. I never suspected
you for a minute, for I know your gifts don't lie that-a-way; but,
I must own, I didn't suspect the Quartermaster neither."

"And he holding his Majesty's commission, Pathfinder!"

"It isn't so much that, Jasper Western, it isn't so much that. He
held a commission from God to act right, and to deal fairly with
his fellow-creaturs, and he has failed awfully in his duty."

"To think of his pretending love for one like Mabel, too, when he
felt none."

"That was bad, sartainly; the fellow must have had Mingo blood in
his veins. The man that deals unfairly by a woman can be but a