Neither the noise of the storm nor the frequent clatter
of a dish as it fell to the floor disturbed him. A potboy, rushing
past with his arms full of tankards, bumped into the landlord; but not
even this aroused him. His gaze wandered from the right-hand bench to
the left-hand bench, and back again, from the nut-brown military
countenance of Captain Zachary du Puys, soldier of fortune, to the
sea-withered countenance of Joseph Bouchard, master of the good ship
Saint Laurent, which lay in the harbor.
"A savage!" said the host.
The soldier lowered his pipe and laughed. "Put your fears aside, good
landlord. You are bald; it will be your salvation."
"Still," said the mariner, his mouth serious but his eyes smiling,
"still, that bald crown may be a great temptation to the hatchet. The
scalping-knife or the hatchet, one or the other, it is all the same."
"Eye of the bull! does he carry his hatchet?" gasped the host,
cherishing with renewed tenderness the subject of their jests. "And an
Iroquois, too, the most terrible of them all, they say. What shall I
do to protect my guests?"
Du Puys and Bouchard laughed boisterously, for the host's face, on
which was a mixture of fear and doubt, was as comical as a gargoyle.
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