They see that yours is a lost cause, and they've deserted you.

Now, isn't that so ?" The young Frenchman was silent, but it was the turn of his face to flush.
"I didn't expect you to answer me in words," continued Robert, triumphantly, "but I can see.

The Indians never fight in a battle that they consider lost before it's joined, and you know as well as I do, Captain de Galissonniere, that if the Marquis de Montcalm awaits our attack his army will be destroyed." "I do not know it at all." Then Robert felt ashamed because he had been led away by his enthusiasm, and apologized for a speech that might have seemed boastful to the young Frenchman, who had been so kind to him.

But De Galissonniere, with his accustomed courtesy, said it was nothing, and when he left, presently, both were in the best of humors.
Robert, convinced that he had been right about the Indians, watched for them as the morning went on, but he never saw a single warrior.
There could be no doubt now that they had gone, and while he could not consider them chivalric they were at least wise.
The next familiar face that he beheld was one far from welcome to him.
It was that of a man who happened to pass near the enclosure and who stopped suddenly when he caught sight of Robert.

He was in civilian dress, but he was none other than Achille Garay, that spy whose secret message had been wrested from him in the forest by Robert and Tayoga.
The gaze that Garay bent upon Robert was baleful.