"Yes, free, but I do not need your word for it. I go when the Word calls me, and I come when It calls me—and none stays me."
He raised a crucifix on high as he spoke. His eye chanced to fall upon the bodies scattered on the verge of the swamp.
"Do these poor souls require Christian burial!" he asked.
"They were devil-worshipers, father," I said.
He hesitated, then muttered several prayers in Latin and made the sign of the cross in the air. Without another word he turned on his heel and disappeared into the woods, following the route around the swamp which Ta-wan-ne-ars had taken.
XXIII
GOVERNOR BURNET IS DEFIED
'Twas early Autumn when we returned to Albany. The leaves were coloring, and there was a nip of frost in the air. The flag over the battlements of Fort Orange stood out straight from its staff. The citizens who thronged the street leading up to the fort gate must needs hold on to their hat-brims.
"Are the streets usually so crowded?" I asked Peter.
He shook his head, and I accosted a tavernkeeper who stood in his doorway, regarding the passers-by with anticipation of the harvest he would reap later.