“There is a little mist in the southwest,” he said, after a long time, to Tayoga.  “Do you think it possible that Areskoui will change his mind and cease to flood the world with beams?”

“I see the vapor,” replied Tayoga, looking keenly.  “It is just a wisp, no larger than a feather from the wing of an eagle, but it seems to grow.  Areskoui changes his mind as he pleases.  Who are we to question the purposes of the Sun God?  Yet I take it, Dagaeoga, that the chance of a night favorable to our purpose has increased.”

“I begin to think, Tayoga, that Areskoui does, in truth, favor us, through no merit of ours, but perhaps because of a lack of merit in Tandakora and De Courcelles.  Yet, as I live, you’re right when you say the cloud of mist or vapor is growing.  Far in the southwest, so it seems to me, the air becomes dim.  I know it, because I can’t see the forests there as distinctly as I did a half hour ago, and I hold that the change in Areskoui’s heart is propitious to our plan.”

“A long speech, but your tongue always moves easily, Dagaeoga, and what you say is true.  The mist increases fast, and before he goes down on the other side of the world the Sun God will be veiled in it.  Then the night will come full of clouds, and dark.  Look at Andiatarocte, and you will see that it is so.”

The far shores of the lake were almost lost in the vapors, only spots of forest green appearing now and then, a veil of silver being over the eastern waters.  The island on which St. Luc lay encamped was growing indistinct, and the fires there shone through a white mist.

Tayoga stood up and gazed intently at the sun, before which a veil had been drawn, permitting his eyes to dwell on its splendors, now coming in a softened and subdued light.

“All the omens are favorable,” he said.  “The heart of Areskoui has softened toward us, knowing that we are about to go on a great and perilous venture.  Tonight Tododaho on his star will also look down kindly on us.  He will be beyond the curtain of the clouds, and we will not see him, but I know that it will be so, because I feel in my heart that it must be so.  You and I, Dagaeoga, are only two, and among the many on this earth two can count for little, but the air is full of spirits, and it may be that they have heard our prayers.  With the unseen powers the prayers of the humble and the lowly avail as much as those of the great and mighty.”

His eyes bore the rapt and distant expression of the seer, as he continued to gaze steadily at the great silver robe that hung before the face of Areskoui’s golden home.  Splendid young warrior that he was, always valiant and skillful in battle, there was a spiritual quality in Tayoga that often showed.  The Onondagas were the priestly nation of the Hodenosaunee and upon him had descended a mantle that was, in a way, the mantle of a prophet.  Robert, so strongly permeated by Indian lore and faith, really believed, for a moment, that his comrade saw into the future.