"I will do what I may," I promised, rising.
"'Tis well. And be not reluctant to accept advice from Corlaer and the Indians. They are schooled in the forest's craft. Here, too, is a letter to Master Livingston, the Mayor of Fort Orange, and Peter Schuyler, a gentleman of that place who acts upon occasion as my deputy in frontier affairs. You may talk freely with them concerning your mission. Good-by, sir, and be vigilant."
He gave me a hearty clasp of the hand and bowed me out.
In the street Corlaer awaited me.
"Der tide is flooding," he said, and without another word set off at a good round pace.
We came presently to a wharf at the foot of Deye Street, where lay the sloop Betsy, her sails unstopped, land-lines slack. She cast off as we stepped aboard, and presently I was looking back over her stern at the dwindling skyline of the quaint little city. As I looked I recognized the masts of the New Venture amongst the shipping in the East River anchorage, and a pang smote me with the realization that she was my last tie with the England which would have none of me and for which I hungered with the perverse appetite of one who is denied his greatest wish.
The masts and their tracery of rigging soon merged in the blue of the afternoon sky; the woods closed down around the scattered buildings of the Out Ward; and we sailed a broad channel which ran between lofty heights of land, reaching hundreds of feet above us like the walls of some gigantic city of the future, fairer and more stupendous than the mind of man had ever dreamed on.
All that afternoon we sailed with a quartering wind, but in the night it shifted and we were compelled to anchor. In the morning we proceeded, but our progress was slow, and with darkness we must anchor again. So likewise on the next day a storm beat down upon us from the hulking mountains which rimmed the wide expanse of the river called by the old Dutch settlers the Tappan Zee; and with only a rag of sail we sped for shelter under the lee of an island.
On the fourth day the river bore us through a country of low, rolling hills and plains that lifted to mountainous heights in the distance. There were farms by the water's edge, and sometimes the imposing mansion of a patroon with its attendant groups of buildings occupied by servants, slaves and tenants. Several times we passed villages, and occasionally a sloop similar to our own hailed us and exchanged the latest news of the river.
On the fifth day toward sunset we sighted in the distance the stockades of Fort Orange, which the English were beginning to call Albany, nestling close to the river-bank under the shelter of a steep hillock. We made the tottery pier after darkness had fallen, and hastened up into the town, delegating to the master of the sloop and his boy the task of conveying our baggage to the tavern kept by Humphrey Taylor.