Fully impressed with the difficulties attendant on a
scheme that offered so few feasible chances of success,
Colonel de Haldimar for a period denied his concurrence;
but when at length the excited young man dwelt on the
horrors that would inevitably await his sister and
betrothed cousin, were they to fall into the hands of
the savages, these considerations were found to be
effective. An after-arrangement included Sir Everard
Valletort, who had expressed a strong desire to share
his danger in the enterprise; and the services of the
Canadian, who had been brought back a prisoner to the
fort, and on whom promises and threats were bestowed in
an equally lavish manner, were rendered available. In
fact, without the assistance of Francois, there was little
chance of their effecting in safety the navigation of
the waters through which they were to pass to arrive at
the fort. He it was, who, when summoned to attend a
conference among the officers, bearing on the means to
be adopted, suggested the propriety of their disguising
themselves as Canadian duck hunters; in which character
they might expect to pass unmolested, even if encountered
by any outlying parties of the savages.
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