For some time there was silence between the two.  Obadiah Price now walked with extreme slowness and along paths which seemed to bring him no nearer to the town below.  Nathaniel could see that he was absorbed in thoughts of his own, and held his peace.  Was it possible that he had spoiled his chances with the councilor because of a pretty face and a bunch of lilacs?  The thought tickled Captain Plum despite the delicacy of his situation and he broke into an involuntary laugh.  The laugh brought Obadiah to a halt as suddenly as though some one had thrust a bayonet against his breast.

“Nat, you’ve got good red blood in you,” he cried, whirling about.  “D’ye suppose you can hate as well as love?”

“Lord deliver us!” exclaimed the astonished Captain Plum.  “Hate—­love—­what the—­”

“Yes, hate,” repeated the old man with fierce emphasis, so close that his breath struck Nathaniel’s face.  “You can love a pretty face—­and you can hate.  I know you can.  If you couldn’t I would send you back to your sloop with the package to-night.  But as it is I am going to relieve you of your oath.  Yes, Nat, I give you back your oath—­for a time.”

Nathaniel stepped a pace back and put his hands on his pockets as if to protect the gold there.

“You mean that you want to call off our bargain?” he asked.

The councilor rubbed his hands until the friction of them sent a shiver up Nathaniel’s back.  “Not that, Nat—­O, no, not that!  The bargain is good.  The gold is yours.  You must deliver the package.  But you need not do it immediately.  Understand?  I am lonely back there in my shack.  I want company.  You must stay with me a week.  Eh?  Lilacs and pretty faces, Nat!  Ho, ho!—­You will stay a week, won’t you, Nat?”

He spoke so rapidly and his face underwent so many changes, now betraying the keenest excitement, now wrinkled in an ogreish, bantering grin, now almost pleading in its earnestness, that Nathaniel knew not what to make of him.  He looked into the beady eyes, sparkling with passion, and the cat-like glitter of them set his blood tingling.  What strange adventure was this old man dragging him into?  What were the motives, the reasoning, the plot that lay behind this mysterious creature’s apparent faith in him?  He tried to answer these things in the passing of a moment before he replied.  The councilor saw his hesitancy and smiled.

“I will show you many things of interest, Nat,” he said.  “I will show you just one to-night.  Then you will make up your mind, eh?  You need not tell me until then.”

He took the lead again and this time struck straight down for the town.  They passed a number of houses built of logs and Nathaniel caught narrow gleams of light from between close-drawn curtains.  In one of these houses he heard the crying of children, and with a return of his grisly humor Obadiah Price prodded him in the ribs and said,