CHAPTER IX
THE HONORS OF WAR
Gaspard Roussillon was thoroughly acquainted with savage warfare,
and he knew all the pacific means so successfully and so long used
by French missionaries and traders to control savage character;
but the emergency now upon him was startling. It confused him. The
fact that he had taken a solemn oath of allegiance to the American
government could have been pushed aside lightly enough upon
pressing occasion, but he knew that certain confidential agents
left in Vincennes by Governor Abbott had, upon the arrival of
Helm, gone to Detroit, and of course they had carried thither a
full report of all that happened in the church of St. Xavier, when
Father Gibault called the people together, and at the fort, when
the British flag was hauled down and la banniere d'Alice
Roussillon run up in its place. His expansive imagination did full
credit to itself in exaggerating the importance of his part in
handing the post over to the rebels. And what would Hamilton think
of this? Would he consider it treason? The question certainly bore
a tragic suggestion.
M. Roussillon lacked everything of being a coward, and treachery
had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the
habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that
he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment with a
normal vision.
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