As Sonnlein and I hastened out of the corridor and the low doorway for Brother Beissel's cabin, the rest of the anxious brothers trooping after us, we saw our prioress and a number of the Sisters gathered about our leader in front of his cabin, the changing light from the fat lamps showing clearly enough the fear and consternation oppressing us.
As our leader saw me, he called me to him and said, his voice trembling in spite of him: "Our Sister Genoveva cannot be found; no one hath seen her since sunset."
I could feel Sonnlein's grip on my arm like the hold of a drowning man, but he said nothing.
"I myself saw her then in the Sisters' close, sitting at the foot of a large chestnut tree," said I slowly, for I could not help thinking of that evil face I now felt certain I had really seen peering at our sister from behind the thicket.
"She may have gone to some of the neighbors to attend some sick one," suggested Brother Beissel, but saying it as against his own belief.
"But first she would have left word with us," the prioress reminded him, "for such is our rule."
"Still, there may have been sudden illness that left no time for word to us," persisted our leader.
So far, no one had said a word as to the great fear that I knew was clutching the hearts of my Brothers and Sisters, which was that the Indians had either killed or carried away our Genoveva; for over a year had gone by since the French and Indians had taken up musket and tomahawk against the English settlements, and though we had thus far been spared the horrors of this savage war, yet we heard now and then of awful massacres of the whites by the Indians not many miles to the north and west, among the outlying settlements off our province, so that the whole country, by reason of these barbarous deeds and the want of proper defense, was in a great state of excitement and apprehension.
Calling Brother Alburtus to me, I asked him slowly and distinctly, for he seemed oft not to understand one: "Thou wast in the Brother woods and the Sister woods at sunset. Didst see signs of Indians, the red men?"
But he only shook his head with his accustomed vacant air, so that Brother Beissel exclaimed impatiently: "'Tis waste of time to question him; he never seeth aught."