He remained on the crest until late in the afternoon, watching the ship as she tacked with the varying winds, but, in the end, always bearing toward the island. He was quite sure now that her arrival would be after dark. She would come through the opening in the reefs that he and the slaver had made so hardly in the storm, but on the night bound to follow such a day it would be as easy as entering a drawing room, with the doors held open, and the guest made welcome. He would be there to give the welcome.

He was able to see more of the ship now. As he had surmised, she was a schooner, apparently very trim and handled well. Doubtless she was fast. The faster the better, because he was eager to get back to the province of New York.

Late in the afternoon, he left the hill and went swiftly back to his house, where he ate an early supper in order that he might be on the beach to give welcome to the guest, and perhaps lend some helpful advice about making port. There was none better fitted than he. He was the oldest resident of the island. Nobody could be jealous of his position as adviser to the arriving vessel.

This was to be a great event in his life, and it must be carried out in the proper manner with every attention to detail. He put on the uniform of an English naval officer that he had found on the ship, and then rifle on shoulder and small sword in belt went through the forest toward the inlet.

The night was bright and beautiful, just fitted for a rescue, and an escape from an island. All the stars had come out to see it, and, with his head very high, he trod lightly as he passed among the trees, approaching the quiet beach. Before he left the wood he saw the top of the schooner's mast showing over a fringe of bushes. Evidently she had anchored outside the reefs and was sending in a boat to look further. Well, that was fit and proper, and his advice and assistance would be most timely.

The wind rose a little and it sang a lilting melody among the leaves. His imagination, alive and leaping, turned it into the song of a troubadour, gay and welcoming. Tayoga's spirits were abroad again, filling the air in the dusk, their favorite time, and he rejoiced, until he suddenly heard once more that faint note of warning, buried under the volume of the other, but nevertheless there.

Alone, driven in upon himself for so many months, he was a creature of mysticism that night. What he imagined he believed, and, obedient to the warning, he drew back. All the caution of the northern wilderness returned suddenly to him. He was no longer rushing forward to make a welcome for guests awaited eagerly. He would see what manner of people came before he opened the door. Putting the rifle in the hollow of his arm he crept forward through the bushes.

A large boat was coming in from the schooner, and the bright moonlight enabled him to see at first glance that the six men who sat in it were not men of Boston. Nor were they men of England. They were too dark, and three of them had rings in their ears.

Perhaps the schooner was a French privateer, wishing to make a secret landing, and, if so, he had done well to hold back. He had no mind to be taken a prisoner to France. The French were brave, and he would not be ill-treated, but he had other things to do. He withdrew a little farther into the undergrowth. The door of welcome was open now only a few inches, and he was peering out at the crack, every faculty alive and ready to take the alarm.

The boat drew closer, grounded on the beach, and the men, leaping out, dragged it beyond the reach of the low waves that were coming in. Then, in a close group, they walked toward the forest, looking about curiously. They were armed heavily, and every one of them had a drawn weapon in his hand, sword or pistol. Their actions seemed to Robert those of men who expected a stranger, as a matter of course, to be an enemy. Hence, they were men whose hands were against other men, and so also against young Robert Lennox, who had been alone so long, and who craved so much the companionship of his kind.

He drew yet deeper into the undergrowth and taking the rifle out of the hollow of his arm held it in both hands, ready for instant use. The men came nearer, looking along the edge of the forest, perhaps for water, and, as he saw them better, he liked them less. The apparent leader was a short, broad fellow of middle years, and sinister face, with huge gold rings in his ears. All of them were seamed and scarred and to Robert their looks were distinctly evil.

The door of welcome suddenly shut with a snap, and he meant to bar it on the inside if he could. His instinct gave him an insistent warning. These men must not penetrate the forest. They must not find his house and treasures. Fortunately the dinghy was up the creek, hidden under overhanging boughs. But the event depended upon chance. If they found quickly the water for which they must be looking, they might take it and leave with the schooner before morning. He devoutly hoped that it would be so. The lad who had been so lonely and desolate an hour or two before, longing for the arrival of human beings, was equally eager, now that they had come, that they should go away.

The men began to talk in some foreign tongue, Spanish or Portuguese or a Levantine jargon, perhaps, and searched assiduously along the edges of the forest. Robert, lurking in the undergrowth, caught the word "aqua" or "agua," which he knew meant water, and so he was right in his surmise about their errand. There was a fine spring about two hundred yards farther on, and he hoped they would soon stumble upon it.

All his skill as a trailer, though disused now for many months, came back to him. He was able to steal through the grass and bushes without making any noise and to creep near enough to hear the words they said. They went half way to the spring, then stopped and began to talk. Robert was in fear lest they turn back, and a wider search elsewhere would surely take them to his house. But the men were now using English.

"There should be water ahead," said the swart leader. "We're going down into a dip, and that's just the place where springs are found."

Another man, also short and dark, urged that they turn back, but the leader prevailed.

"There must be water farther on," he said. "I was never on this island before, neither were you, Jose, but it's not likely the trees and bushes would grow so thick down there if plenty of water didn't soak their roots."

He had his way and they went on, with Robert stalking them on a parallel line in the undergrowth, and now he knew they would find the water. The spirit of the island was watching over its own, and, by giving them what they wanted at once, would send these evil characters away. The leader uttered a shout of triumph when he saw the water gleaming through the trees.

"I told you it was here, didn't I, Jose?" he said. "Trust me, a sailor though I am, to read the lay of the land."

The spring as it ran from under a rock formed a little pool, and all of the men knelt down, drinking with noise and gurglings. Then the leader walked back toward the beach, and fired both shots from a double-barreled pistol into the air. Robert judged that it was a signal, probably to indicate that they had found water. Presently a second and larger boat, containing at least a dozen men, put out from the schooner. A third soon followed and both brought casks which were filled at the spring and which they carried back to the ship.

Robert, still and well hidden, watched everything, and he was glad that he had obeyed his instinct not to trust them. He had never seen a crew more sinister in looks, not even on the slaver, and they were probably pirates. They were a jumble of all nations, and that increased his suspicion. So mixed a company, in a time of war, could be brought together only for evil purposes.

It was hard for him to tell who was the captain, but the leader who had first come ashore seemed to have the most authority, although nearly all did about as they pleased to the accompaniment of much talk and many oaths. Still they worked well at filling the water casks, and Robert hoped they would soon be gone. Near midnight, however, one of the boats came back, loaded with food, and kegs and bottles of spirits. His heart sank. They were going to have a feast or an orgie on the beach and the day would be sure to find them there. Then they might conclude to explore the island, or at least far enough to find his house.

They dragged up wood, lighted a fire, warmed their food and ate and drank, talking much, and now and then singing wild songs. Robert knew with absolute certainty that this was another pirate ship, a rover of the Gulf or the Caribbean, hiding among the islands and preying upon anything not strong enough to resist her.

The men filled him with horror and loathing. The light of the flames fell on their faces and heightened the evil in them, if that were possible. Several of them, drinking heavily of the spirits, were already in a bestial state, and were quarreling with one another. The others paid no attention to them. There was no discipline.

Apparently they were going to make a night of it, and Robert watched, fascinated by the first sight of his own kind in many months, but repelled by their savagery when they had come. Some of the men fell down before the fires and went to sleep. The others did not awaken them, which he took to be clear proof that they would remain until the next day.

A drop of water fell on his face and he looked up. He had been there so long, and he was so much absorbed in what was passing before his eyes that he had not noted the great change in the nature of the night. Moon and stars were gone. Heavy clouds were sailing low. Thunder muttered on the western horizon, and there were flashes of distant lightning.

Hope sprang up in Robert's heart. Perhaps the fear of a storm would drive them to the shelter of the ship, but they did not stir. Either they did not dread rain, or they were more weatherwise than he. The orgie deepened. Two of the men who were quarreling drew pistols, but the swart leader struck them aside, and spoke to them so fiercely that they put back their weapons, and, a minute later, Robert saw them drinking together in friendship.

The storm did not break. The wind blew, and, now and then, drops of rain fell, but it did not seem able to get beyond the stage of thunder and lightning. Yet it tried hard, and it became, even to Robert, used to the vagaries of nature, a grim and sinister night. The thunder, in its steady growling, was full of menace, and the lightning, reddish in color, smelled of sulphur. It pleased Robert to think that the island was resenting the evil presence of the men from the schooner.

The ruffians, however, seemed to take no notice of the change. It was likely that they had not been ashore for a long time before, and they were making the most of it. They continued to eat and the bottles of spirits were passed continuously from one to another. Robert had heard many a dark tale of piracy on the Spanish Main and among the islands, but he had never dreamed he would come into such close contact with it as he was now doing for the second time.

He knew it was lucky for the men that the storm did not break. The schooner in her position would be almost sure to drag her anchor and then would drive on the rocks, but they seemed to have no apprehensions, and, it was quite evident now, that they were not going back to the vessel until the next day. The ghastly quality of the night increased, however. The lightning flared so much and it was so red that it was uncanny, it even had a supernatural tinge, and the sullen rumbling of the distant thunder added to it.

The effect upon Robert, situated as he was and alone for many months, was very great. Something weird, something wild and in touch with the storm that threatened but did not break, crept into his own blood. He was filled with hatred and contempt of the men who caroused there. He wondered what crimes they had committed on those seas, and he had not the least doubt that the list was long and terrible. He ought to be an avenging spirit. He wished intensely that Tayoga was with him in the bush. The Onondaga would be sure to devise some plan to punish them or to fill them with fear. He felt at that moment as if he belonged to a superior race or order, and would like to stretch forth his hand and strike down those who disgraced their kind.

The swart leader at last took note of the skies and their sinister aspect. Robert saw him walking back and forth and looking up. More than half of his men were stretched full length, either asleep or in a stupor, but some of the others stood, and glanced at the skies. Robert thought he saw apprehension in their eyes, or at least his imagination put it there.

A wild and fantastic impulse seized him. These men were children of the sea, superstitious, firm believers in omens, and witchcraft, ready to see the ghosts of the slain, all the more so because they were stained with every crime, then committed so freely under the black flag. He had many advantages, too. He was a master of woodcraft, only their wilderness was that of the waters.

He gave forth the long, melancholy hoot of the owl, and he did it so well that he was surprised at his own skill. The note, full of desolation and menace, seemed to come back in many echoes. He saw the swart leader and the men with him start and look fearfully toward the forest that curved so near. Then he saw them talking together and gazing at the point from which the sound had come. Perhaps they were trying to persuade themselves the note was only fancy.

Robert laughed softly to himself. He was pleased, immensely pleased with his experiment. His fantastic mood grew. He was a spirit of the woods himself; one of those old fauns of the Greeks, and he was really there to punish the evil invaders of his island. His body seemed to grow light with his spirit and he slid away among the trees with astonishing ease, as sure of foot and as noiseless as Tayoga himself. Then the owl gave forth his long, lonely cry with increased volume and fervor. It was a note filled with complaint and mourning, and it told of the desolation that overspread a desolate world.

Robert knew now that the leader and his men were disturbed. He could tell it by the anxious way in which they watched the woods, and, gliding farther around the circle, he sent forth the cry a third time. He was quite sure that he had made a further increase in its desolation and menace, and he saw the swart leader and his men draw together as if they were afraid.

The owl was not the only trick in Robert's trade. His ambition took a wide sweep and fancy was fertile. He had aroused in these men the fear of the supernatural, a dread that the ghosts of those whom they had murdered had come back to haunt or punish them. He had been an apt pupil of Tayoga before the slaver came to Albany, and now he meant to show the ruffians that the owl was not the only spirit of fate hovering over them.

The deep growl of a bear came from the thicket, not the growl of an ordinary black bear, comedian of the forest, but the angry rumble of some great ursine beast of which the black bear was only a dwarf cousin. Then he moved swiftly to another point and repeated it.

He heard the leader cursing and trying to calm the fears of the men while it was evident that his own too were aroused. The fellow suddenly drew a pistol and fired a bullet into the forest. Robert heard it cutting the leaves near him. But he merely lay down and laughed. His fantastic impulse was succeeding in more brilliant fashion than he had hoped.

Imitating their leader, six or eight of the men snatched out pistols and fired at random into the woods. The cry of a panther, drawn out, long, full of ferocity and woe, plaintive on its last note, like the haunting lament of a woman, was their answer. He heard a gasp of fear from the men, but the leader, of stauncher stuff, cowed them with his curses.

Robert moved back on his course, and then gave forth the shrill, fierce yelp of the hungry wolf, dying into an angry snarl. It was, perhaps, a more menacing note than that of the larger animals, and he plainly saw the ruffians shiver. He was creating in them the state of mind that he wanted, and his spirits flamed yet higher. All things seemed possible to him in his present mood.

He moved once more and then lay flat in the dense bushes. He fancied that the pirates would presently fire another volley into the shadows, and, in a moment of desperate courage, might even come into the forest. His first thought was correct, as the leader told off the steadier men, and, walking up and down in front of the forest, they raked it for a considerable distance with pistol shots. All of them, of course, passed well over Robert's head, and as soon as they finished he went back to his beginnings, giving forth the owl's lament.

He heard the leader curse more fiercely than ever before, and he saw several of the men who had been pulling trigger retreat to the fire. It was evident to him that the terror of the thing was entering their souls. The night itself, as if admiring his plan, was lending him the greatest possible aid. The crimson lightning never ceased to quiver and the sullen rumble of the distant thunder was increasing. It was easy enough for men, a natural prey to superstition, and, with the memories of many crimes, to believe that the island was haunted, that the ghosts of those they had slain were riding the lightning, and that demons, taking the forms of animals, were waiting for them in the bushes.

But the swart leader was a man of courage and he still held his ruffians together. He cursed them fiercely, told them to stand firm, to reload their pistols and to be ready for any danger. Those who still slumbered by the fire were kicked until they awoke, and, with something of a commander's skill, the man drew up his besotted band against the mystic dangers that threatened so closely.

But Robert produced a new menace. He was like one inspired that night. The dramatic always appealed to him and his success stimulated him to new histrionic efforts. He had planted in their minds the terror of animals, now he would sow the yet greater terror of human beings, knowing well that man's worst and most dreaded enemy was man.

He uttered a deep groan, a penetrating, terrible groan, the wail of a soul condemned to wander between the here and the hereafter, a cry from one who had been murdered, a cry that would doubtless appeal to every one of the ruffians as the cry of his own particular victim. The effect was startling. The men uttered a yell of fright, and started in a panic run for the boats, but the leader threatened them with his leveled pistol and stopped them, although the frightful groan came a second time.

"There's nothing in the bush!" Robert heard him say. "There can't be! The place has no people and we know there are no big wild animals on the islands in these seas! It's some freak of the wind playing tricks with us!"

He held his men, though they were still frightened, and to encourage them and to prove that no enemy, natural or supernatural, was near, he plunged suddenly into the bushes to see the origin of the terrifying sounds. His action was wholly unexpected, and chance brought him to the very point where Robert was. The lad leaped to his feet and the pirate sprang back aghast, thinking perhaps that he had come face to face with a ghost. Then with a snarl of malignant anger he leveled the pistol that he held in his hand. But Robert struck instantly with his clubbed rifle, and his instinctive impulse was so great that he smote with tremendous force. The man was caught full and fair on the head, and, reeling back from the edge of the bushes in which they stood, fell dead in the open, where all his men could see.

It was enough. The demons, the ghosts that haunted them for their crimes, were not very vocal, but they struck with fearful power. They had smitten down the man who tried to keep them on their island, and they were not going to stay one second longer. There was a combined yell of horror, the rush of frightened feet, and, reaching their boats, they rowed with all speed for the schooner, leaving behind them the body of their dead comrade.

Robert, awed a little by his own success in demonology, watched until they climbed on board the ship, drawing the boats after them. Then they hoisted the anchor, made sail, and presently he saw the schooner tacking in the wind, obviously intending to leave in all haste that terrible place.

She became a ghost ship, a companion to the Flying Dutchman, outlined in red by the crimson lightning that still played at swift intervals. Now she turned to the color of blood, and the sea on which she swam was a sea of blood. Robert watched her until at last, a dim, red haze, she passed out of sight. Then he turned and looked at the body of the man whom he had slain.

He shuddered. He had never intended to take the leader's life. Five minutes before it occurred he would have said such a thing was impossible. It was merely the powerful impulse of self-protection that had caused him to strike with such deadly effect, and he was sorry. The man, beyond all doubt, was a robber and murderer who had forfeited his life a dozen times, and still he was sorry. It was a tragedy to him to take the life of any one, no matter how evil the fallen might be.

He went back to the house, brought a shovel, one of the numerous ship's stores, and buried the body at once high up the beach where the greatest waves could not reach it and wash it away. He did his task to the rumble of thunder and the flash of lightning, but, when he finished it, dawn came and then the storm that had threatened but that had never burst passed away. He felt, though, that it had not menaced him. To him it was a good storm, kindly and protecting, and giving sufficient help in his purpose that had succeeded so well.

It was a beautiful day, the air crisp with as much winter as the island ever knew, and shot with the beams from a brilliant sun, but Robert was exhausted. He had passed through a night of intense emotions, various, every one of them poignant, and he had made physical and mental efforts of his own that fairly consumed the nerves. He felt as if he could lie down and sleep for a year, that it would take at least that long to build up his body and mind as they were yesterday.

He dragged himself through the woods, forced his unwilling muscles to cook a breakfast which he ate. Then he laid himself down on his bed, his nerves now quiet, and fell asleep at once. When he awoke it was night and he lay giving thanks for his great escape until he slept again. When he awoke a second time day had returned, and, rising, he went about his usual tasks with a light heart.



CHAPTER X

THE SLOOP OF WAR

Robert ate a light breakfast and went out to look at his domain, now unsullied. What a fine, trim, clean island it was! And how desirable to be alone on it, when the Gulf and the Caribbean produced only such visitors as those who had come two nights before! He looked toward the little bay, fearing to see the topmast of the schooner showing its tip over the trees, but the sky there, an unbroken blue, was fouled by no such presence. He was rid of the pirates—and forever he hoped.

It seemed to him that he had passed through an epic time, one of the great periods of his life. He wondered now how he had been able to carry out such a plan, how he had managed to summon up courage and resources enough, and he felt that the good spirits of earth and air and water must have been on his side. They had fought for him and they had won for him the victory.

He shouldered his rifle and strolled through the woods toward the beach. He had never noticed before what a fine forest it was. The trees were not as magnificent as those of the northern wilderness, but they had a beauty very peculiarly their own, and they were his. There was not a single other claimant to them anywhere in the world.

It was a noble beach too, smooth, sloping, piled with white sand, gleaming now in the sun, and the little frothy waves that ran up it and lapped at his feet, like puppies nibbling, were just the friendliest frothy little waves in the world. But there were the remains of the fire left by the ruffians to defile it, and broken bottles and broken food were scattered about. The litter hurt his eyes so much that he gathered up every fragment, one by one, and threw them into the sea. When the last vestige of the foul invasion was cleared away he felt that he had his lonely, clean island back again, and he was happy.

He strolled up and down the glistening beach, feeling a great content. After a while, he threw off his clothes and swam in the invigorating sea, keeping well inside the white line of the breakers, in those waters into which the sharks did not come. When he had sunned himself again on the sand he went to the creek, took his dinghy from the bushes, where it had been so well hidden, and rowed out to sea, partly to feel the spring of the muscles in his arms, and partly to sit off at a distance and look at his island. Surely if one had to be cast away that was the very island on which he would choose to be cast! Not too big! Not too hot! And not too cold! Without savage man or savage beasts, but with plenty of wild cattle for the taking, and good fish in the lakes, and in the seas about it. Plenty of stores of all kinds from the slaver's schooner, even books to read. So far from being unfortunate he was one of the lucky. A period of retirement from the companionship of his own kind might be trying on the spirit, but it also meant meditation and mental growth.

His joy over the departure of the pirates was so great and his temperament was such that he felt a mighty revulsion of the spirits. He had a period of extravagant elation. He took off his cap and saluted his island. He made little speeches of glowing compliment to it, he called it the pearl of its kind, the choicest gem of the Gulf or the Caribbean, and, if pirates came again while he was there, he would drive them away once more with the aid of the good spirits.

He rowed back, hid his boat in the old covert among the bushes at the edge of the creek, and, rifle on shoulder, started through the forest toward his peak of observation. On the way, he passed the lake and saw the herd of wild cattle grazing there, the old bull at its head. The big fellow, assured now by use and long immunity, cocked his head on one side and regarded him with a friendly eye. But the bull had a terrible surprise. He heard the sharp ping of a rifle and a fearful yell. Then he saw a figure capering in wild gyrations, and thinking that this human being whom he had learned to trust must have gone mad, he forgot to be angry, but was very much frightened. Enemies he could fight, but mad creatures he dreaded, and, bellowing hoarsely to his convoy, as a signal, he took flight, all of them following him, their tails streaming straight out behind them, so fast they ran.

Robert leaped and danced as long as one of them was in sight. When the last streaming tail had disappeared in the bushes he sobered down. He realized that he had given his friend, the bull, a great shock. In a way, he had been guilty of a breach of faith, and he resolved to apologize to him in some fashion the next time they met. Yet he had been so exultant that it was impossible not to show it, and he was only a lad in years.

When he reached the crest of his peak he scanned the sea on all sides. Eagerly as he had looked before for a sail he now looked to see that there was none. Around and around the circle of the horizon his eyes traveled, and when he assured himself that no blur broke the bright line of sea and sky his heart swelled with relief.

In a day or so, his mind became calm and his thoughts grew sober. Then he settled down to his studies. The battle of life occupied only a small portion of his time, and he resolved to put the hours to the best use. He pored much over Shakespeare, the other Elizabethans and the King James Bible, a copy of which was among the books. It was his intention to become a lawyer, an orator, and if possible a statesman. He knew that he had the gift of speech. His mind was full of thoughts and words always crowded to his lips. It was easy enough for him to speak, but he must speak right. The thoughts he wished to utter must be clothed in the right kind of words arranged in the right way, and he resolved that it should be so.

The way in which men thought and the way in which their thoughts were put in the Bible and the great Elizabethans fascinated him. That was the way in which he would try to think, and the way in which he would try to put his thoughts. So he recited the noble passages over and over again, he memorized many of them, and he listened carefully to himself as he spoke them, alike for the sense and the music and power of the words.

It was then perhaps that he formed the great style for which he was so famous in after years. His vocabulary became remarkable for its range, flexibility and power, and he developed the art of selection. His rivals even were used to say of him that he always chose the best word. He learned there on the island that language was not given to man merely that he might make a noise, but that he might use it as a great marksman uses a rifle.

Work and study together filled his days. They kept far from him also any feeling of despair. He had an abiding faith that a ship of the right kind would come in time and take him away. He must not worry about it. It was his task now to fit himself for the return, to prove to his friends when he saw them once more that all the splendid opportunities offered to him on the island had not been wasted.

Almost unconsciously, he began to reason more deeply, to look further into the causes of things, and his mind turned particularly to the present war. The more he thought about it the greater became his conviction that England and the colonies were bound to win. Courage and numbers, resources and tenacity must prevail even over great initial mistakes. Duquesne and Ticonderoga would be brushed away as mere events that had no control over destiny.

He remembered Bigot's ball in Quebec that Willet and Tayoga and he had attended. It came before him again almost as vivid as reality. He realized now in the light of greater age and experience how it typified decadence. A power that was rotten at the top, where the brain should be, could never defeat one that was full of youthful ardor and strength, sound through and through, awkward and ill directed though that strength might be. The young French leaders and their soldiers were valiant, skillful and enduring—they had proved it again and again on sanguinary fields—but they could not prevail when they had to receive orders from a corrupt and reckless court at Versailles, and, above all when they had to look to that court for help that never came.

His reading of the books in the slaver's chest told him that folly and crime invariably paid the penalty, if not in one way then in another, and he remembered too some of the ancient Greek plays, over which he had toiled under the stern guidance of Master Alexander McLean. Their burden was the certainty of fate. You could never escape, no matter how you writhed, from what you did, and those old writers must have told the truth, else men would not be reading and studying them two thousand years after they were dead. Only truth could last twenty centuries. Bigot, Cadet, Pean, and the others, stealing from France and Canada and spending the money in debauchery, could not be victorious, despite all the valor of Montcalm and St. Luc and De Levis and their comrades.

He remembered, too, the great contrast between Quebec and New York that had struck him when he arrived at the port at the mouth of the Hudson with the hunter and the Onondaga. The French capital in Canada was all of the state; it was its creature. If the state declined, it declined, there was little strength at the roots, little that sprang from the soil, but in New York, which men already forecast as the metropolis of the New World, there was strength everywhere. It might be a sprawling town. There might be no courtliness to equal the courtliness at the heart of Quebec, but there was vigor, vigor everywhere. The people were eager, restless, curious, always they worked and looked ahead.

He saw all these things very clearly. Silence, loneliness and distance gave a magnificent perspective. Facts that were obscured when he was near at hand, now stood out sharp and true. His thoughts in this period were often those of a man double his age. His iron health too remained. His was most emphatically the sound mind in the sound body, each helping the other, each stimulating the other to greater growth.

It was a fact, however, that the Onondaga belief, peopling the air and all sorts of inanimate objects with spirits, grew upon him; perhaps it is better to say that it was a feeling rather than a belief. According to Tayoga the good spirits fought with the bad, and on his island the good had prevailed. They had told him that a ship was coming, and then they had warned him that it would be a ship of pirates. They had shown him how to drive away the ruffians. His inspiration had not been his own, it had come from them and he thankfully acknowledged it.

He told himself now as he went about his island that he heard the good spirits singing among the leaves and he told it to himself so often that he ended by believing it. It was such a pleasant and consoling belief too. He listened to hear them say that he would leave the island when the time was ripe and his imagination was now so extraordinarily vivid that what he expected to hear he heard. The spirits assured him that when the time came to go he would go. They did not tell him exactly when he would go, but that could not be asked. No one must anticipate a complete unveiling of the future. It was sufficient that intimations came out of it now and then.

It was this feeling, amounting to a conviction, that bore him up on a shield of steel. It soothed the natural impatience of his youth and temperament. Why grieve over not going when he knew that he would go? Yet, a long time passed and there was no sail upon the sea, though the fact failed to shake his faith. Often he climbed his peak of observation and studied the circling horizon through the glasses, only to find nothing, but he was never discouraged. There was never any fall of the spirits. No ship showed, but the ship that was coming might even then be on the way. She had left some port, probably one in England, not dreaming that it was a most important destiny and duty of hers to pick up a lone lad cast away on an island in the Gulf or the Caribbean—at least it was most important to him.

Now came a time of storms that seemed to him to portend a change in the seasons. The island was swept by wind and rain, but he liked to be lashed by both. He even went out in the dinghy in storms, though he kept inside the reefs, and fought with wave and undertow and swell, until, pleasantly exhausted, he retreated to the beach, drawing his little boat after him, where he watched the sea, vainly struggling to reach the one who had defied it. It was after such contests that he felt strongest of the spirit, ready to challenge anything.

He plunged deeper and deeper into his studies, striving to understand everything. The intensity of his application was possible only because he was alone. Forced to probe, to examine and to ponder, his mind acquired new strength. Many things which otherwise would have been obscure to him became plain. Looking back upon his own eventful life since that meeting with St. Luc and Tandakora in the forest, he was better able to read motives and to understand men. The reason why Adrian Van Zoon wished him to vanish must be money, because only money could be powerful enough to make such a man risk a terrible crime. Well, he would have a great score to settle with Van Zoon. He did not yet know just how he would settle it, but he did not doubt that the day of reckoning would come.

A cask of oil and several lanterns were among his treasures from the ship, and, making use of them, he frequently read late at night, often with the rain beating hard on walls and roof. Then it seemed to him that his mind was clearest, and he resolved again and again that when he returned to his own he would make full use of what he learned on the island. It seemed to him sometimes that his being cast away was a piece of luck and not a misfortune.

A clear day came, and, taking his rifle, he strolled toward his peak of observation, passing on the way the herd of wild cattle with the old bull at its head. The big fellow looked at him suspiciously, as if fearing that his friend might be suffering from one of his mad spells again. But Robert's conduct was quite correct. He walked by in a quiet and dignified manner, and, reassured, the bull went back to his task of reducing the visible grass supply.

He saw nothing from the peak except the green island and the blue sea all about it, but there was a singing wind among the leaves and it was easy for him to sit down on a rock and fall into a dreaming state. The good spirits were abroad, and it was their voices that he heard among the leaves. Their chant too was full of courage, hope and promise, and his spirits lifted as he listened. They were watching over him, guarding him from evil, and he felt, at last, that they were telling him something.

It is not always easy to know the exact burden of a song, even if it is uplifting, and Robert listened a long time, trying to decipher exactly what the good spirits were saying to him. It was just such a song as they sang to him before the pirate ship came, saving one strain and that was most important. There was no underlying note of warning. Hunt for it as he would, with his fullest power of hearing, he could detect no trace of it. Then he became convinced. Another ship was coming, and this time it was no pirate craft.

He roused himself from his dreaming state and shook his head, but the vision did not depart. The ship was coming and it was for him to receive it. The news of it had been written too deeply upon the sensitive plate of his brain to be effaced, and, as he walked back toward the house, it seemed to grow more vivid. He was too much excited to study that day, and he spent the time building a great heap of wood upon the beach. Even if one were helped by good spirits he must do his own part. They might bring the ship to the horizon's rim, but it was for him to summon it from there, and he would have a great bonfire ready.

The brilliance of the day departed in the afternoon, and it became apparent that the season of rain and storm was not yet over. Clouds marched up in grim battalions from the south and west, rain came in swift puffs and then in long, heavy showers, the sea heaved, breaking into great waves and the surf dashed fiercely on the sharp teeth of the rocks.

Robert's spirits fell. This was not the way in which a rescuing ship should come, under a somber sky and before driving winds. Perhaps he had read the voices of the spirits wrong, or at least the ship, instead of coming now, was coming at some later time, a month or two months away maybe. He watched through the rest of the afternoon, hoping that the clouds would leave, but they only thickened, and, long before the time of sunset, it was almost as dark as night. He was compelled to remain in the shelter of the house, and, in a state of deep depression, he ate his supper without appetite.

The storm was one of the fiercest he had seen while on the island. The rain drove in sheets, beating upon the walls and roof of the house like hail, and the wind kept up a continuous whistling and screaming. All the while the house trembled over him. Nor was there any human voice in the wind. The good spirits, if such existed, would not dare the storm, but had retreated to cover. All the illusion was gone, he was just a lonely boy on a lonely island, listening to the wrath of a hurricane, a ship might or might not come, most probably never, or if it did it would be another pirate.

The storm did not seem to abate as the evening went on, perhaps it was the climax of the season. Tired of hearing its noise he lay down on his couch and at last fell asleep. He was awakened from slumber by an impact upon the drum of his ear like a light blow, but, sitting up, he realized that it was a sound. The storm had not abated. He heard the beat of wind and rain as before, but he knew it was something else that had aroused him. The noise of the storm was regular, it was going on when he fell asleep, and it had never ceased while he slept. This was something irregular, something out of tune with it, and rising above it. He listened intently, every nerve and pulse alive, body and mind at the high pitch of excitement, and then the sound came again, low but distinct, and rising above the steady crash of the storm.

He knew the note. He had heard it often, too often on that terrible day at Ticonderoga. It could be but one thing. It was the boom of a cannon, and it could come only from a ship, a ship in danger, a ship driven by the storm, knowing nothing of either sea or island, sending forth her signal of distress which was also a cry for help.

It was his ship! The ship of rescue! But he must first rescue it! Now he heard the voices of the good spirits, the voices that had been silent all through the afternoon and evening, singing through the storm, calling to him, summoning him to action. He had not taken off his clothes and he leaped from the couch, snatched up a lighted lantern, stuffed flint and steel in his pocket, and ran out into the wind and rain, of which he was now scarcely conscious.

The boom came to his ears a second time, off to the east, and now distinctly the report of a cannon. He waited a little, watching, and, when the report came a third time, he saw dimly the flash of the gun, but it was too dark for him to see anything of the ship. She was outside the reefs, how far he could not tell, but he knew by the difference in the three reports that she was driving toward the island.

It was for him to save the unknown vessel that was to save him, and in the darkness and storm he felt equal to the task. His soul leaped within him. His whole body seemed to expand. He knew what to do, and, quick as lightning, he did it. He ran at full speed through the woods, his lighted lantern swinging on his arm, and twice on the way he heard the boom of the cannon, each time a little nearer. The reports merely made him run faster. Time was precious, and in the moment of utmost need he was not willing to lose a second.

He reached the great heap of wood that he had built up on the beach, worked frantically with flint and steel, shielding the shavings at the bottom with his body, and quickly set fire to them. The blaze crackled, leaped and grew. He had built his pyramid so well, and he had selected such inflammable material, that he knew, if the flames once took hold, the wind would fan them so fiercely the rain could not put them out.

Higher sprang the blaze, running to the crest of the pyramid, roaring in the wind and then sending out defiant hissing tongues at the rain. The boom of the cannon came once more, and, then by the light of his splendid bonfire, he looked. There was the ship outside the reefs which his great pyramid of flame now enabled her to see. He shouted in his joy, and threw on more wood. If he could only build that pyramid high enough they would see the opening too and make for it.

He worked frantically, throwing on driftwood, the accumulation of many years, and the flames biting into every fresh log, roared and leaped higher. The ship ceased to fire her signal guns, and now he saw, with a great surge of joy, that she was beating up in the storm and trying for the opening in the reef, her only chance, the chance that he had given her. He had done his part and he could do no more but feed the fire.

As he threw on wood he watched. His pyramid of flame roared and threw out sparks in myriads. The ship, a sloop, was having a desperate struggle with wind and wave, but his beacon was always there, showing her the way, and he never doubted for a moment that she would make the haven. He was sure of it. It was a terrible storm, and there was a fierce sea beating on the reefs, but a master mind was on the sloop, the mind of a great sailor, and that mind, responding to his signal of the fire, the only one that could have been made, was steering the ship straight for the opening in the reef.

His glasses were always in his pocket, and, remembering them now for the first time, he clapped them to his eyes. The sloop and her tracery of mast and spars became distinct. He saw guns on the deck and men, men in uniform, and he could see well enough, a moment or two later, to tell that they wore the uniform of Britain. His heart gave a wild throb. The spirits in the air were good spirits, and the storm had never been able to drive them away. They had been calling to him when he thought they were silent, only he had not been able to hear them.

He gave a wild shout of joy that could be heard above the crash of the storm. Triumph was assured. He was rescuing, and he would be rescued. He did not realize until that instant how eager he was to be taken from the island, how he longed, with all his soul, to rejoin his own kind, to see his friends again and to take a part in the great events that were shaking the world. He uttered his wild shout over and over, and, in between, he laughed, laughed with a joy that he could not control.

The sloop entered the opening. It seemed to him that the rocks, those fearful sharks' teeth, almost grazed her on either side, and his heart stood still, but she went safely past them, drew into the little harbor where she was safe from the wildest storm that ever blew, dropped anchor, and was at rest.

Robert in his exultation had never permitted his fire to die down an inch. Rather he had made it grow higher and higher until it was a vast core of light, throwing a red glare over the beach and the adjacent waves, and sending off vast showers of sparks. But when the ship cast anchor in her port he stood still before it, a dark figure, a perfect silhouette outlined against a blazing background, and watched, while a boat was launched from the sloop.

He saw five figures descend into the boat. Four were sailors and one an officer in uniform, and he knew well that they were coming to see him, the human being by the fire who had saved them. Pride was mingled with his joy. If he had not been there the sloop and probably all on board of her would have perished. It was touch and go, only a brief opportunity to save had been allowed him, but he had used it. So he raised himself to his full height, straightened his clothes, for which he always had respect despite the storm, and waited on. He had a full sense of drama, and he felt that this was one of the most dramatic moments of his life.

The boat came up the beach on a wave, the men sprang out, held it as the wave retreated, and then dragged it after them until it was beyond the reach of invading water. Robert meanwhile never stirred, and the great fire behind him enlarged his figure to heroic proportions.

The officer, young, handsome, in the British naval uniform, walked forward, with the four sailors following in a close group behind, but he stopped again, and looked at the strange figure before him. Evidently something in its pose, in its whole appearance, in truth, made an extraordinary impression upon him. He passed his hands before his eyes as if to make sure that it was no blur of the vision, and then he went forward again, the sailors keeping close behind, as if they were in fear lest the figure prove to be supernatural.

"Who are you?" called the young officer.

"Robert Lennox, of Albany, the Province of New York, and the wilderness," replied Robert. "Welcome to my island."

His sense of drama was still strong upon him, and he replied in his fullest and clearest voice. The officer stared, and then said:

"You've saved the ship and all our lives."

"I think that's what I was here for, though it's likely that you've saved me, too. What ship it that?"

"His Majesty's sloop of war, Hawk, Captain Stuart Whyte, from Bridgetown in the Barbadoes, for Boston."

Robert thrilled when he heard the word "Boston." It was not New York, but it was a port for home, nevertheless.

"Who are you?" continued the officer, on fire with curiosity. "You've told me your name, but what are you? and where are the other people of the island?"

"There are no other people. It's my island. I'm sole lord of the isle, and you're most welcome."

"You heard our signal guns?"

"Aye, I heard 'em, but I knew before you fired a shot that you were coming."

"'Tis impossible!"

"It's not! I knew it, though I can't explain how to you. Behold my bonfire! Do you think I could have built such a pyramid of wood between the firing of your first shot and your coming into my harbor? No, I was ready and waiting for you."

"That's convincing."

"I repeat that I welcome you to Lennox Island. My house is but a short distance inland in a beautiful forest. I should like to receive Captain Whyte there as an honored guest, and you, too."

"Your house?"

"Aye, my house. And it's well built and well furnished. You'd be surprised to know how much comfort it can offer."

The officer—a lieutenant—and the men, coming closer, inspected Robert with the most minute curiosity. Lone men on desert islands were likely to go insane, and it was a momentary thought of the officer that he was dealing with some such unhappy creature, but Robert's sentences were too crisp, and his figure too erect and trim for the thought to endure more than a few seconds.

"It's raining heavily," he said, "and Captain Whyte will be glad to be a guest at your home later. I'll admit that for a moment I doubted the existence of your house, but I don't now. Are you willing to go on board the Hawk with us and meet Captain Whyte?"

"Gladly," replied Robert, who felt that his dramatic moment was being prolonged. "The storm is dying now. Having done its worst against you, and, having failed, it seems willing to pass away."

"But we don't forget that you saved us," said the officer. "My name is Lanham, John Lanham, and I'm a lieutenant on the Hawk."

The storm was, in truth, whistling away to the westward and its rage, so far as Robert's island was concerned, was fully spent. The waves were sinking and the night was lightening fast. The sloop of war, heaving at her anchorage, stood up sharp and clear, and it seemed to Robert that there was something familiar in her lines. As he looked he was sure. Coincidence now and then stretches forth her long arm, and she had stretched it now.

The sailors, when the sea died yet more, relaunched the boat. Lanham and Robert sprang in, and the men bent to the oars.



CHAPTER XI

BACK TO THE WORLD

Captain Stuart Whyte of His Majesty's gallant sloop of war, the Hawk, was standing on his own quarterdeck, looking curiously at the scene about him, and, taking it in, as well as he could, by the light of a great bonfire blazing on the beach some distance away. He was a young officer and his immense relief predominated over his curiosity. The Hawk was a fine sloop, and he loved her, but there had been a terrible time that night when he thought she was lost and her crew and himself with her.

He had seen more than one storm in these sudden seas, but this was perhaps the worst. All bearings were gone, and then the signs showed breakers. He was a brave man and he had brave officers, but every one of them had despaired, until suddenly a light, a pillar of fire, rose in the darkness and the storm, almost from the heart of the ocean, as if it had been evoked by his own signal guns. Then, by this marvelous beacon, they had scraped between the rocks and into safety. Clearly it was a miracle, and young Captain Whyte felt a deep and devout gratitude. He had then sent one of his best officers ashore to see the man who had saved them, and, meanwhile, he had stood by, watching through his glasses.

He saw the man of the island get into the boat with Lanham and approach the sloop. The storm had now sunk much, and it was not difficult to come aboard, but Captain Whyte, still intensely curious, but with a proper sense of his own dignity, withdrew to his cabin where he might receive the lord of the isle in state.

He rose politely, and then stared at the tall youth who came in with Lieutenant Lanham, the water running from his clothes. Yet the stranger had a dignity fully equal to his own, and there was also something very uncommon about him, a look of strength and confidence extraordinary in one so young.

"Won't you sit down?" said Captain Whyte.

Robert glanced at his clothes.

"I bring the storm with me," he said—he often spoke in the language that he had unconsciously imbibed in much reading of the Elizabethans.

"Never mind that. Water won't hurt my cabin, and if it did you're welcome just the same. I suppose you represent the people of the island, to whom my crew and I owe so much."

"I am the people of the island."

"You mean that you're here alone?"

"Exactly that. But tell me, before we go any further, Captain, what month this is."

"May."

"And the year?"

"1759."

"I wanted to be sure. I see that I've been on the island eight or nine months, but I lost all count of time, and, now and then it seemed like eight or nine years. As I've already told Lieutenant Lanham, I'm Robert Lennox, of Albany, the Province of New York, and the wilderness. I was kidnapped at Albany and carried down the Hudson and out to sea by a slaver and pirate."

"'Tis an extraordinary tale, Mr. Lennox."

"But a true one, Captain Whyte."

"I meant no insinuation that it wasn't. Extraordinary things happen in the world, and have been happening in these seas, ever since Columbus first came into them."

"Still mine is such an unusual story that it needs proof, and I give it. Did you not last autumn pretend that yours was a merchant ship, have a sailor play the violin on deck while others danced about, and lure under your guns a pirate with the black flag at her masthead?"

Captain Whyte stared in astonishment.

"How do you know that?" he exclaimed.

"Did you not shatter the pirate ship with your broadsides but lose her afterwards in a great storm that came up suddenly?"

"Aye, so I did, and I've been looking for her many a time since then."

"You'll never find her, Captain. Your guns were aimed well enough, and they took the life out of her. She couldn't weather the storm. Of all the people who were aboard her then I'm the only survivor. Her captain escaped with me to this island, but he died of wounds and I buried him. I can show you his grave."

"How do I know that you, too, are not one of the pirates?"

"By taking me back on your ship to the colonies, and proving my tale. If you don't find that every word I tell you is true you can hang me to your own yardarm."

Captain Whyte laughed. It was a fair and frank offer, but he was a reader of men, and he felt quite sure that the strange youth was telling the absolute truth.

"He's given me, sir, quite correct accounts of events that happened in the colonies last year," said Lanham. "He was at Ticonderoga and his narrative of the battle agrees fully with the accounts that we received."

And just at that moment coincidence stretched out her long arm again, as she does so often.

"I had a cousin at Ticonderoga," said Captain Whyte. "A splendid young fellow, name of Grosvenor. I've seen a letter from him in which he says 'twas a terrible fight, but that we threw away our chances before we went upon the field."

"Grosvenor! Grosvenor!" exclaimed Robert eagerly. "Why, I knew him! He was a friend of mine! We were in the forest together, in combat and escape. His first name was Alfred. Did he say nothing in his letter of Robert Lennox?"

"Of course he did! I was so much interested in you that I paid little attention to your name, and it glided past me as if I'd not heard it. He told of a friend of his, name of yours, who had been lost, murdered they all believed by some spy."

"And did he say nothing also of Tayoga, a wonderful Onondaga Indian, and of David Willet, a great hunter?"

"Aye, so he did. I recall those names too. Said the Indian was the most marvelous trailer the world had ever known, could trace the flight of a bird through the air, and a lot more that must have been pure romance."

"It's all true! every word of it. I'll see that you meet Tayoga, and then you'll believe, and you must know Willet, too, one of the grandest men that ever lived, soul of honor, true as steel, all those things."

"I believe you! Every word you say! But I can't keep you talking here with the water dripping from you. We really couldn't question your truth, either, after you'd saved our ship and all our lives. I see you have a naval uniform of ours. Well, we'll give you a dry one in its place. See that the best the Hawk has is his, Lanham."

Robert was taken to a small cabin that was vacant and he exchanged into dry clothing. He went back a little later to the captain's room with Lanham, where they insisted upon his taking refreshment, and then Captain Whyte sent him to bed.

"I've a million questions to ask you, Mr. Lennox," he said, "but I won't ask 'em until to-morrow. You must sleep."

Robert's manner had been calm, but he found when he lay down that he was surcharged with excitement. It was inside him and wanted to get it out, but he kept it bottled up, and after an hour spent in quieting his nerves he fell asleep. When he awoke, dressed and went on deck, all trace of the storm had gone. The Hawk swung quietly at anchor and to him she seemed the very finest ship that had ever sailed on any sea from the day of the galley to the day of the three-decker. He noticed with pleasure how trim everything was, how clean was the wood, how polished the brass, and how the flag of Britain snapped in the breeze overhead. He noticed too the eighteen pounders and he knew these were what had done the business for the slaver and pirate. Lanham gave him a hearty welcome.

"It's half way to noon," he said, "and you slept long and well, as you had a right to do, after saving His Majesty's twenty-two gun sloop, Hawk, from the rocks. We had a boat's crew ashore this morning, not because we doubted your word, but to see that everything was trim and snug on your island, and they found your house. On my word, quite a little castle, and well furnished. We didn't disturb a thing. It's yours, you know."

"I merely inherited it," said Robert. "The slaver and pirate who kidnapped me built it as a place for a refuge or a holiday, and he came back here to die. He furnished it partly, and the rest came from his wrecked ship."

After breakfast Robert went ashore also with the captain and Lanham, and he showed them about the island. They even saw the old bull at the head of his herd, and Robert waved him a friendly farewell. The house and its contents they decided to leave exactly as they were.

"They may shelter some other castaway," said Robert.

"We'll even leave the guns and ammunition," said Captain Whyte. "We don't need 'em. You rescued 'em from the ship and they belong to you. The Hawk has no claim on 'em."

"I'd like for 'em to stay here," said Robert. "Nobody may ever be cast away on this island again, and on the other hand it might happen next week. You can't tell. But it's been a good island to me, and, though I say farewell, I won't forget it."

"You take the right view of it," said Captain Whyte, "and even if I didn't feel your way about it, although I do, I'd be bound to give you your wish since you saved us. You've also taken quite a burden off my mind. It's always been a source of grief to me that the pirate eluded us in the storm, but since you've shown me that we were really responsible for her sinking I feel a lot better about it."

On the Hawk Lanham told him what had been passing in the world.

"There's a great expedition out from England under that young general, Wolfe, who distinguished himself at Louisbourg," he said. "It aims at the taking of Quebec, and we're very hopeful. The rendezvous is Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island and army and navy, I suppose, are already there. Your own Royal Americans will be in it, and what we lost at Ticonderoga we propose to regain—and more—before Quebec. The Hawk is bound for Louisbourg to join the fleet, but she puts in at Boston first. If you choose to go on to Louisbourg with us you won't fare ill, because the captain has taken a great fancy for you."

"I thank you much," said Robert, gratefully. "I'm almost tempted to join the great expedition from Louisbourg into the St. Lawrence, but I feel that I must leave the ship at Boston. I'm bound to hunt up Willet and Tayoga, and we'll come by land. We'll meet you before the heights of Quebec."

Everything seemed to favor the northward voyage of the Hawk. Good winds drove her on, and Robert's heart leaped within him at the thought that he would soon be back in his own country. Yet he made little outward show of it. The gravity of mind and manner that he had acquired on the island remained with him. Habits that he had formed there were still very powerful. It was difficult for him to grow used to the presence of other people, and at times he longed to go out on his peak of observation, where he might sit alone for hours, with only the rustling of the wind among the leaves in his ears. The sound of the human voice was often strange and harsh, and now and then only his will kept him from starting when he heard it, as one jumps at the snarl of a wild animal in the bush.

But the friendship between him, Captain Whyte, Lieutenant Lanham and the other young officers grew. People instinctively liked Robert Lennox. Whether in his gay mood or his grave he had a charm of manner that few could resist, and his story was so strange, so picturesque that it invested him with compelling romance. He told all about his kidnapping and his life upon the island, but he said nothing of Adrian Van Zoon. He let it be thought that the motive of the slaver in seizing him was merely to get a likely lad for sale on a West India plantation. But his anger against Van Zoon grew. He was not one to cherish wrath, but on this point it was concentrated, and he intended to have a settlement. It was not meant that he should be lost, it was not meant that Adrian Van Zoon should triumph. He had been seized and carried away twice, and each time, when escape seemed impossible, a hand mightier than that of man had intervened in his favor.

He spoke a little of his thought once or twice when he stood on the deck of the Hawk on moonlight nights with Captain Whyte and Lieutenant Lanham.

"You can't live with the Indians as much as I have," he said, "especially with such a high type of Indian as the Iroquois, without acquiring some of their beliefs which, after all, are about the same as our own Christian religion. The difference is only in name. They fill the air with spirits, good and evil, and have 'em contending for the mastery. Now, I felt when I was on the island and even before that I was protected by the good spirits of the Iroquois, and that they were always fighting for me with the bad."

"I take it," said Captain Whyte, "that the Indian beliefs, as you tell them, are more like the mythology of the old Greeks and Romans. I'm a little rusty on my classics, but they had spirits around everywhere, good and bad, always struggling with one another, and their gods themselves were mixtures of good and evil, just like human beings. But I'm not prepared to say, Mr. Lennox, that you weren't watched over. It seems strange that of all the human beings on the slaver you should have been the only one saved and you the only one not stained with crime. It's a fact I don't undertake to account for. And you never found out the name of the pirate captain?"

"Neither his nor that of his ship. It had been effaced carefully from the schooner and all her boats."

"I suppose it will remain one of the mysteries of the sea. But tell me more about my cousin, Grosvenor. He was really becoming a trailer, a forest runner?"

"He was making wonderful progress. I never saw anybody more keen or eager."

"A fine lad, one of our best. I'm glad that you two met. I'd like to meet too that Frenchman, St. Luc, of whom you've spoken so often. We Englishmen and Frenchmen have been fighting one another for a thousand years, and it seems odd, doesn't it, Mr. Lennox, that it should be so? Why, the two countries can see each other across the Channel on clear days, and neighbors ought to be the best of friends, instead of the most deadly enemies. It seems that the farther a nation is from another the better they get along together. What is there in propinquity, Mr. Lennox, to cause hostility?"

"I don't know, but I suppose it's rivalry, the idea that if your neighbor grows he grows at your expense. Your hostility carries over to us in America also. We're your children and we imitate our parents. The French in Canada hate the English in the Provinces and the English in the Provinces hate the French in Canada, when there's so much of the country of each that they're lost in it."

"It's a queer world, Mr. Lennox. In spite of what you say and which I endorse, I'm going with an eager heart in the great expedition against Quebec, and so will you. I'll be filled with joy if it succeeds and so will you."

Robert admitted the fact.

"And I'd be delighted if we could meet a French sloop of about our own size and armament," continued the captain. "Every man on board the Hawk would go into battle with her eagerly, and yet I don't hate the French individually. They're a brave and gallant nation, and this St. Luc, of whom you speak, seems to be the very flower of chivalry."

The captain's wish to meet a French sloop of war of his own size was not granted. He had high hopes the fourth day when they saw a sail, but it proved to be a schooner out of Newport returning from Jamaica with a cargo of sugar and molasses. The Hawk showed her heels in disgust, and pursued her way northward.

As the time to reach Boston drew near, Robert's heart filled again. He would be back in his own land, and his world would be before him once more. He had already decided that he would go at once to Albany and there pick up the thread of his old life. He was consumed, too, by curiosity. What had happened since he was gone? His feeling that he had been in the island eight or nine years instead of eight or nine months remained. While it was his own world to which he was returning, it was also a new world.

Came the day when the harbor lights of the port of Boston showed through a haze and Robert, standing on the deck of the Hawk, watched the city rise out of the sea. He was dressed in a good suit of civilian clothing that he had found on the island, and he had some money that had never been taken from him when he was kidnapped, enough to pay his way from Boston to Albany. His kindly English friends wanted to lend him more, but he declined it.

"You can pay us back in Quebec," said White.

"I don't need it," replied Robert, "but I'll keep the rendezvous there with you both."

As the Hawk was to stay two or three days in port in order to take on supplies, they went ashore together, and the three were full of curiosity when they entered, for the first time, the town of which they had heard so much. Boston had already made such impress upon the imagination that all the English colonists were generally known to the French in Canada as Bostonnais. In England it had a great name, and there were often apprehensions about it. It was the heart and soul of the expedition when the New Englanders surprised the world by taking the great French fortress of Louisbourg, and it had an individuality and a personality which it has never lost.

"I don't know how I'm going to like it," said Captain Whyte, as they left the sloop. "I hear that they're very superior here, and consider us English a rather backward lot. Don't you think you'd better reconsider, Lennox, and go on with us to Louisbourg?"

Robert laughed.

"I'm not afraid of the Bostonians," he said. "I met some very competent ones on the shores of Lake George. There was one Elihu Strong, a colonel of Massachusetts infantry, whom I like to remember. In truth, Captain, what I see here arouses my admiration. You noticed the amount of shipping in the port. The Bostonians are very keen traders, and they say there are sharp differences in character between them and the people of our southern provinces, but as I come from a middle province, New York, I am, in a sense, neutral. The New Englanders have a great stake in the present war. Their country has been ravaged for more than a century by French and Indians from Canada, and this province of Massachusetts is sending to it nearly every man, and nearly every dollar it has."

"We know of their valor and tenacity in England," said Captain Whyte, "but we know also that they're men of their own minds."

"Why shouldn't they be? That's why they're English."

"Since you put it that way, you're right. But here we are."

The town, about the size of New York, looked like a great city to Robert. He had come from a land that contained only one inhabitant, himself, and it was hard for him now to realize there were so many people in the world. The contrast put crowds everywhere, and, at times, it was very confusing, though it was always interesting. The men were mostly tall, thin, and with keen but composed eyes. They were of purer British blood than those in New York, but it seemed to Robert that they had departed something from type. They were more strenuous than the English of Old England, and the New Yorkers, in character if not in blood and appearance, were more nearly English than the Bostonians. He also thought, and he was not judging now so much from a glimpse of Boston as from the New England men whom he had met, that they were critical both of themselves and others, and that they were a people who meant to have their way at any cost.

But his attempts to estimate character and type were soon lost in his huge delight at being back in his own country. Robert's mind was a mirror. It always reflected his surroundings. Quickly adaptable, he usually perceived the best of everything, and now busy and prosperous Boston in its thin, crisp air, delighted him immeasurably. His feelings were much as they had been when he visited New York. Here was a great city, that is, great for his country and time, and it was destined to be much greater.

As usual with sailors Captain Whyte and Lieutenant Lanham wished to go to a coffee house, and Robert, nothing loath, accompanied them to one of good quality to which they were directed near the water front. Here they found numerous guests in the great common room and much talk going forward, mostly talk of the war, as was natural. There was much criticism of the British Government, not restrained at all, rather increased, by the uniforms of the two naval officers.

"'Tis reported that the new expedition gathered at Louisbourg will go the way of the one that was repulsed at Ticonderoga," said a thin, elderly man. "I hear 'tis commanded by young Wolfe, who is sickly and much given to complaint. Abercrombie, who led us at Ticonderoga, was fat, old and slothful, and now Wolfe, who leads the new force is young, sickly and fretful. It seems that England can't choose a middle course. Why doesn't she send us a man?"

"That I can't tell you, Master Carver," said the man whom he was addressing, "but I do know that if England would consult Massachusetts more we'd fare better in this war. We should have marched over the French army at Ticonderoga. I can't understand to this day how we lost that battle."

"It seems that in very truth we lacked something there."

Robert was sitting not ten feet from them and their tone being so very critical, he could not restrain a word or two.

"Your pardon, if I interrupt," he said, "but hearing you speak in a somewhat slighting manner of Ticonderoga I'm bound to advise you that you're wrong, since I was there. The English and Scotch troops, with our own Americans, showed the very greatest valor on that sad occasion. 'Twas no fault of theirs. Our defeat was due to the lack of artillery, the very skillful arrangements of the French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, and the extreme courage of the French army."

The two, who seemed to be merchants or shipping men, regarded him with interest but with no appearance of resentment because of his interference in their conversation. Apparently the criticism that they permitted so freely to themselves they were willing also to allow to others.

"But you are English," said the first who had spoken, "and 'tis most natural for you to defend the generals who are sent out from the home country."

"I am not English. I am a native of the Province of New York, and being a colonial like yourselves, I think we allow too little credit to the old country in the war. I speak as one who through the force of circumstances has been an eye witness to many of the facts. My name is Robert Lennox, sir, and my companions are Captain Stuart Whyte and Lieutenant John Lanham of His Majesty's twenty-two gun sloop of war Hawk, now in Boston harbor."

"And I, sir," responded the thin man with much courtesy, "am Samuel Carver, wholesale dealer in cloth and leather, and my friend is Lemuel Mason, owner of shipping plying principally to the West Indies. We're pleased to meet His Majesty's officers and also you, Mr. Lennox, who we can see is very young to have had so much experience in the wars. We trust that all of you will pardon our freedom of criticism, but we're at the heart of affairs here, and we see very clearly. It's not a freedom that we'll give up."

Captain Whyte laughed easily.

"If what we hear in England of Boston is true," he said, "'tis a privilege that nothing can make you give up. Perhaps 'tis as well. I'm all for free speech myself. Through it affairs are well threshed out. But I assure you you're wrong about General Wolfe. 'Tis true that he's young and that he's sickly, but he's been chosen by Mr. Pitt for most solid reasons. He has a great gift for arms. I've been fortunate enough to meet him once or twice, and I can assure you that he makes a most favorable impression. Moreover, the fact that he's been chosen by Mr. Pitt is proof of his worth. Mr. Pitt is a very great man and he has that highest of all talents, the ability to know other men and to direct them."

Captain Whyte spoke with much warmth and his words carried conviction.

"I can well believe you, sir, when you speak so highly of Mr. Pitt," said Mr. Carver. "'Tis evident that he has the honor and glory of England at heart and 'tis evident, too, that he does not mean to neglect the interests of the colonies, a matter of the utmost importance. 'Tis only Mr. Pitt among the home statesmen who have recognized our greatness on this side of the ocean."

"Believe me, sir, I'm not blind to the growth and prosperity of the colonies," said Captain Whyte. "I've seen your cities and I know how much the Americans have done in the present war."

"Then 'tis a pity that England also doesn't know it," said Mr. Mason somewhat sharply.

But Captain Whyte refused to be either angry or disconcerted.

"The width of our ocean always promotes ignorance, and misunderstandings," he said. "And 'tis true too that the closest of kin will quarrel, but families usually unite against an alien foe."

"'Tis so," admitted Mr. Mason, "and 'tis the business of statesmanship to smooth down the quarrels that arise between the different parts of a great kingdom. I trust that ours will always be equal to the task."

"Do you know a merchant of this city, Elihu Strong, who is also a colonel of the Massachusetts infantry?" asked Robert. "I met him in a strenuous business before Ticonderoga, where he also had a gallant part."

"We could scarce be Bostonians and not know Elihu Strong," said Mr. Carver. "One of the most active of our merchants, he has ships of his own that ply between here and England, and he has also taken a very zealous part in the war. The regiment that he commanded was equipped partly at his expense."

"Commanded?" exclaimed Robert.

"I used the past tense, not because he has fallen, my young friend, but Elihu was unfortunate enough to receive a severe wound in the leg some months after Ticonderoga, and he is now recuperating at his own home here near the Common. 'Tis not dangerous. He will not lose the leg, but he will not be able to walk on it for some months yet. A great pity, say I, that Elihu Strong is out of active service for a while, as His Majesty's government might profit greatly by his advice and leadership in the field."

"I've no doubt of it," said Captain Whyte with the greatest sincerity. "I'm all for cooeperation with the experienced men of the colonies, and so is a far greater than I, the illustrious Mr. Pitt. They're on the ground, they've lived their lives here and they ought to know."

"Our hope is in Mr. Pitt," said Mr. Carver. "You speak well of him, Captain Whyte, and 'tis pleasing to our ears to hear you, because you cannot know how his name inspires confidence in the colonies. Why, sir, we look upon him as almost the half of England!"

It was so. And it was destined to remain so. Whatever happened between England and America, the name of the elder Pitt, the great Englishman, kept and keeps its place in the hearts of Americans, who in some respects are the most sentimental and idealistic of all peoples.

Robert saw that the two young English officers and the two middle aged Boston merchants were arriving at an understanding, that good relations were established already, and he thought it wise to leave them together.

"I think," he said, "that I will visit Colonel Strong at his house, and as my time in Boston must be short 'twill be best for me to go now."

Both Mr. Carver and Mr. Mason urged him to spend the night at their houses, and Captain Whyte and Lieutenant Lanham were zealous for his return with them to the Hawk, but he declined the offer, though saying he would certainly visit the sloop before he left Boston. He judged that it would be wise to leave the four together, in the coffee-house, and, after receiving careful instructions how to reach the mansion of that most respectable and worthy Bostonian, Colonel Elihu Strong, he went into the street.

He found the Strong home to be a goodly house, one of the best in the city, partly of brick and partly of wood, with columns in front, all very spacious and pleasing. He knocked with a heavy brass knocker and a trim colored maid responded.

"Is Colonel Strong at home?" he asked.

"He is, sir," she responded in English as good as his own, "though confined to his chair with a wound in the leg which makes his temper a trifle short at times."

"Naturally. So would mine be if I couldn't walk. I wish to see him."

"What name, sir, shall I say?"

"Tell him 'tis one who served with him in wilderness fighting, on the eve of Ticonderoga."

She looked at him doubtfully, but her face cleared in a moment. Robert's frank, open gaze invited everybody's confidence.

"Come into the hall, sir," she said, and then led the way from the hall into a large room opening upon a lawn, well-shaded by many fine, large trees. Elihu Strong sat in a chair before one of the windows, and his wounded leg, swathed heavily, reposed in another chair.

Robert paused, and his heart beat rather hard. This was the first friend of his old life that he had seen. Now, he was coming in reality back to his world. He stood a few moments, irresolute, and then advancing lightly he said:

"Good morning, Colonel Strong!"

The wounded man wheeled in his chair and looked at him, inquiry in his face. Robert did not know what changes his life on the island had made in his appearance, his expression rather, but he saw that Colonel Strong did not know him, and it pleased him to play for a minute or so with the fact.

"You did not receive this bullet, sir, when you saved us from St. Luc," he said. "It must have been much later, but I know it was a bad moment for the Province of Massachusetts when the hostile lead struck you."

Colonel Strong stared.

"Who are you?" he exclaimed.

"There was a battle on the shores of Lake George, at a point where our men had been building boats. They were besieged by a mixed force of French and Indians, commanded by the great French partisan leader, St. Luc. They beat off the attacks, but they would have been overcome in time, if you had not hurried to their relief, with a strong force and two brass cannon."

"That is true and if the Governor and Legislature of Massachusetts had done their full duty we'd have had twice as many men and four, six, or even eight cannon in place of two. But what do you know about those things?"

"There were two boys, one Indian and one white, who came on the lake, telling you of the plight of the boat builders. The Indian was Tayoga of the Clan of the Bear, of the Nation Onondaga, of the Great League of the Hodenosaunee, the finest trailer in the world. The white boy was Robert Lennox, of the Province of New York."

"Aye, you speak truly. Full well do I remember them. How could I forget them? Tayoga is back there now with the hunter Willet, doing some great service in the war, what I know not, but it is something surely great. The white boy, Robert Lennox, is dead. A great loss, too! A fine and gallant lad."

"How do you know he is dead?"

"I had it in a letter from Master Benjamin Hardy of New York, with whom I often transact affairs of business, and he, in turn, had it from one Jacobus Huysman, a burgher of Albany in most excellent standing. Parts of the matter are obscure, but the result is certain. It seems that the lad was stalked by a spy, one Garay, and was murdered by him. His body, they think, was thrown into the Hudson and was carried away. At least it was never found. A most tragic business. I could have loved that lad as if he had been my own son. It caused great grief to both Hardy and Huysman,—and to me, too."

A lump came into Robert's throat. He did have friends, many and powerful, and they mourned him. He seemed to have the faculty of inspiring liking wherever he went. He had been standing in the shadow, while the wounded man sat where the sunlight from the windows poured upon him. He moved a little nearer where he could be more clearly seen, and said: