Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/119

Rh Instantly a thousand confused voices cried out:

"Do you not see the English, who are landing?"

"Very well," replied the Huron, "they are a brave people; they never proposed making me a subdeacon; they never carried off my mistress."

The commander made him understand that they were coming to pillage the abbé of the mountain, drink his uncle's wine, and perhaps carry off Miss St. Yves; that the little vessel which set him on shore in Brittany had come only to reconnoitre the coast; that they were committing acts of hostility, without having declared war against France; and that the province was entirely exposed to them.

"If this be the case," said he, "they violate the law of nature: let me alone; I lived a long time among them; I am acquainted with their language, and I will speak to them. I cannot think they can have so wicked a design."

During this conversation the English fleet approached; the Huron ran toward it, and having jumped into a little boat, soon rowed to the admiral's ship, and having gone on board, asked whether it was true that they were come to ravage the coast, without having honestly declared war?

The admiral and all his crew burst out into laughter, made him drink some punch, and sent him back.

The ingenuous Hercules, piqued at this reception, thought of nothing else but beating his old friends for his countrymen and the prior. The gentlemen of the neighborhood ran from all quarters, and joined