He carried no sign of the agitation and the significance of the interview just past when he returned to the prismatic tinted swirl of the dancing figures in the flaring light of the great fire, made more brilliant by the glow of the holly boughs and the flutter of banners and the flash of steel from the decorated walls about them. He, too, trod a gay measure with the fair Belinda Rush, and never looked more at ease and care-free and jovially imperious than in the character of gallant host. Even in the gray dawn as he stood at the sally-port of the fort and there took leave of the guests, as group by group departed, he was as debonair and smiling throughout the handshaking as though the revels were yet to begin.
FOOTNOTES:
[D] The Indians in North Carolina called the Christmas holidays Winick-kesbuse, or "the Englishman's God's moon."
[E] It is most true.
[F] Is it not so?
[G] It has been maintained that this exclamation constantly used by the Cherokees in solemn adjuration signified "Jehovah."
[H] Literally "the sun of the night."