"Quiet, you fools!" We had helplessly tried to menace him with words.
He led Nanette from the room. The door closed upon us. We could hear Stuyvesant leaving. And then Turber taking Nanette away. His voice reached us:
"Don't be frightened, child."
There was silence.
Another interval passed. There were again guards in the room outside. I whispered: "Alan, it must be nearly dawn."
We had no idea. There were spaces in the outer log walls where the morticed filling had fallen away. But only blackness showed.
In the adjoining room there was candlelight, and the drowsy voices of the Dutchmen.
"Alan, what's that?"
A thud had sounded; something striking the roof over our heads. Then another. Off in the woods there was a shout. A war-whoop! And other thuds. A rain of arrows falling upon the roof and the side of the little fort.
An Indian attack! The Dutchmen in the adjoining room made short work of getting out of this isolated building. They did not come in even to look at us. They decamped into the woods, running for the village stockade.