Then he remembers that the Ojibway chief is mine.

It is for me to settle with him, in the last reckoning." "Aye, lad, you're right.

Either reason is good enough.

We'll let him pass, if pass he means, and I hope devoutly that he does." The fleet preserving its formation was now almost abreast of the island, and once Robert thought it was going to turn in toward them.
The long boat of Tandakora wavered and the red giant looked at the island curiously, but, at the last moment the empty canoe, far ahead and dim in the dark, beckoned them on more insistently than ever.
"Now the die is cast," whispered the Onondaga tensely.

"In twenty seconds we shall know our fate, and I think the good spirit that has gone into our canoe means to save us." Tandakora said something to the French officers, and they too looked at the island, but the fleeing canoe danced on the crest of a high wave and its call was potent in the souls of white men and red alike.
It was still too far away for them to tell that it was empty.