"Yes. You will tell them that I am the daughter of one of the paleface chiefs, of one whom the great white chief calls 'brother,' and then they will not dare to harm me or to detain me. They will send me down the river to the nearest post, and the men there will bring me on to Jamestown, and so home."
"And why may not I bring you on to Jamestown—and so home?" demanded Landless with a smile.
"Because—because—you know that you are lost if you return to the Settlements."
"And nevertheless I shall return," he said with another smile.
She struck her hands together. "You will be mad—mad! If you had not been their leader!—but as it is, there is no hope. Leave me with the friendly Indians, then go yourself to the northward. Make for New Amsterdam. God will carry you through the Indians as he has done so far. I will pray to him that he do so. Ah, promise me that you will go!"
Landless took her hand and kissed it. "Were you in absolute safety, madam," he said gently, "and if it were not for one other thing, I would go, because you wish it, and because I would save you any pang, however slight, that you might feel for the fate of one who was, who is, your servant—your slave. I would go from you, and because it else might grieve you, I would strive to keep my life through the forest, through the winter—"
"Ah, the winter!" she cried. "I had forgotten that winter will come."
"But to do that which you propose," he continued, "to leave you to the mercy of fierce and treacherous Indians, but half subdued, friends to the whites only because they must—it is out of the question. To leave you at a frontier post among rude trappers and traders, or at some half savage pioneer's, is equally impossible. What tale would you have to tell Colonel Verney? 'The Ricahecrians carried me into the Blue Mountains. There your servant Landless found me and brought me a long distance towards my home. But at the last, to save his own neck, forfeit to the State, he left me, still in the wilderness and in danger, and went his way.' My honor, madam, is my own, and I choose not so to stain it. Again: I must be the witness to your story. You have wandered for many weeks in a wilderness, far beyond the ken of your friends. To your world, madam, I am a rebel, traitor and convict, a wretch capable of any baseness, of any crime. If I go back with you, throwing myself into the power of Governor and Council, at least I shall be credited with having so borne myself towards my master's daughter as to fear nothing from their hands on that score. The idle and censorious cannot choose but believe when you say, 'I am come scatheless through weeks of daily and hourly companionship with this man. Rebel and traitor and gaol-bird though he be, he never injured me in word, thought, or deed....' For all these reasons, madam, we must be companions still."
She had covered her face while he was speaking, and she kept it hidden when he had finished. The slowly lengthening shadows of the trees had barred the little glade with black when he spoke again. It was only to ask in his usual voice if she were rested and ready to continue their journey.
She raised her head and looked at him with swimming eyes, then held out two trembling hands. He took them, helped her to her feet, and before releasing them, bent and touched them with his lips. Then side by side and in silence they traveled on through the halcyon calm of the world around them.