"Oh, Madam, all they say of our misery is true. We are indeed desolate and afflicted. We have been harried by the sword; we have perished by cold and starvation. Your enemies the French are our enemies. At the hands of our own princes we have perished for conscience' sake. We are of your faith, O Queen!—those of us that are left. The good God in heaven does not send his creatures into the world to be thus destroyed. We seek not idleness and repose for our bodies, but labor for our bodies and repose for our souls. We long as the hart pants after water brooks for this new country. You have brought us thus far out of our wilderness; send us now into this new land where there is peace! We have nothing, nothing. We cannot pay except by our labor in a new country. We ask bounty as we ask the bounty of Heaven, because we are helpless. You have already marvelously befriended us. But for you we should not be living at this day."
The Queen turned to the gentleman who sat nearest to her.
"He speaks well, my lord."
"He speaks from the soul, Madam."
Now the Queen conversed rapidly and in a low tone with Peter Schuyler—too rapidly for the Weisers to understand. She mentioned one Hunter of whom they knew nothing, and they waited uneasily, afraid that their audience was at an end and that nothing had been accomplished. When the doorkeeper came forward and led them away, leaving their Indian friends behind, their hearts sank. They made obeisance to the Queen and went slowly toward the door, not daring to speak. Then they saw that Colonel Schuyler followed them.
"This day one week at this hour the Queen will see you again. Can you find your way thither?"
"Oh, yes, my lord!" answered John Conrad.
Outside the two met again curious glances, heard again amused comment. But they regarded neither, scarcely indeed saw the smiles or heard the laughter. Hope had once more taken up an abode in their weary hearts.
Daily in the week which followed, Conrad made his way from Blackheath to St. James's Palace, where he gazed at the stone archway and then wandered farther hoping to see again the Indians. To the other Germans the Weisers said nothing of their hopes. The Indians had led them into the city and had there held conversation with them through an interpreter,—beyond that fact they did not go. Their fellow countrymen had been too often cruelly disappointed; until the blessed possibilities of which the Weisers dreamed had become certainties, they would say nothing.