“Her heart is white!”

And not one hand would have been raised to prevent the sacrificial test which must follow and end inevitably in a dreadful death.

* * * * *

Mount and Elerson, moved by a rare delicacy, turned and walked noiselessly away towards the hill-top.

“Wake her,” I said to Sir George.

He knelt beside her, looking long into her face; then touched her lightly on the hand.  She opened her eyes, looked up at him gravely, then rose to her feet, steadying herself on his bent arm.

“Where have you been?” she asked, glancing anxiously from him to me.  There was the faintest ring of alarm in her voice, a tint of color on cheek and temple.  And Sir George, lying like a gentleman, answered:  “We have searched the trails in vain for you.  Where have you lain hidden, child?”

Her lips parted in an imperceptible sigh of relief; the pallor of weariness returned.

“I have been upon your business, Sir George,” she said, looking down at her mud-stained garments.  Her arms fell to her side; she made a little gesture with one limp hand.  “You see,” she said, “I promised you.”  Then she turned, mounting the steps, pensively; and, in the doorway, paused an instant, looking back at him over her shoulder.

* * * * *

And all that night, lying close to the verge of slumber, I heard Sir George pacing the stony yard under the great stars; while the riflemen, stretched beside the hearth, snored heavily, and the death-watch ticked in the wall.

At dawn we three were afield, nosing the Sacandaga trail to count the tracks leading to the north—­the dread footprints of light, swift feet which must return one day bringing to the Mohawk Valley an awful reckoning.

At noon we returned.  I wrote out my report and gave it to Sir George.  We spoke little together.  I did not see Magdalen Brant again until they bade me adieu.

And now it was two o’clock in the afternoon; Sir George had already set out with Magdalen Brant to Varicks’ by way of Stoner’s; Elerson and Mount stood by the door, waiting to pilot me towards Gansevoort’s distant outposts; the noon sunshine filled the deserted house and fell across the table where I sat, reading over my instructions from Schuyler ere I committed the paper to the flames.

So far, no thanks to myself, I had carried out my orders in all save the apprehension of Walter Butler.  And now I was uncertain whether to remain and hang around the council-fire waiting for an opportunity to seize Butler, or whether to push on at once, warn Gansevoort at Stanwix that St. Leger’s motley army had set out from Oswego, and then return to trap Butler at my leisure.

I crumpled the despatch into a ball and tossed it onto the live coals in the fireplace; the paper smoked, caught fire, and in a moment more the black flakes sank into the ashes.