"I merely agreed to his proposition at your expressed desire that I should, and because I believed you had framed some plan of escape.

Have you such small respect for me, Mademoiselle, as to think I could consent to leave you here alone and at the mercy of these red fiends?
Have I risked my life in coming here for no other end than this ?" I felt her reach her arm across the pile of skins lying between us, and grasp my hand within her own.
"But, dear friend, you must!" she said, pleadingly, her softly modulated voice dwelling upon the words as if they came hard.

"Truly you must, John Wayland, and for my sake as well as your own.

I am comparatively safe here,--safe at least from actual physical harm, so long as the savages dream that the sparing of my life will yield them profit.

You have no right to remain in such peril as surrounds you here, when by so doing you benefit no one.