"By God!" I stammered. "By the blood of man!—this is too much—this is too—"
Crash! went Mount's tankard on the table; and, turning to the young stranger with a bow, "I bring you a new recruit, Colonel Cresap," he said, quietly; "will you administer the oath, sir?"
Thunderstruck, I stared at the silent young man in his gray woollen hunting-shirt and cloth gaiters who stood there, grave eyes bent on me, tearing at the edge of his paper with his white teeth.
"Pray, be seated, Mr. Cardigan," he said, smiling. "I know you have a message for me from Sir William Johnson. I hold it an honour to receive commands from such an honourable and upright gentleman."
He drew up a heavy buckeye chair, motioning Mount and me to be seated; the tap-boy brought his tankard; he tasted it sparingly, and leaned back, waiting for me to speak.
If my speech was halting or ill-considered, my astonishment at the identity of the stranger was to blame; but I spoke earnestly and without reserve, and my very inexperience must have pleaded with him, for he listened patiently and kindly, even when I told him, with some heat, that the whole land would hold him responsible for an outbreak on the frontier.
When I had finished, he thanked me for coming, and begged me to convey his cordial gratitude to Sir William. Then he began his defence, very modestly and with frankest confession that he had been trapped by Dunmore into a pitfall, the existence of which he had never dreamed of.
"I am to-day," he said, "the Moses of these people, inasmuch as I have, at Lord Dunmore's command, led them into this promised land. God knows it was the blind who led the blind. And now, for months, I have been aware that Dunmore wishes a clash with the Cayugas yonder; but, until Sir William Johnson opened my eyes, I have never understood why Lord Dunmore desired war."
He looked at Mount as though to ask whether that notorious forest-runner had suspected Dunmore; and Mount shook his head with a sneer.
"He is a witless ass," he muttered. "I see nothing in Mr. Cardigan's fears that Dunmore means trouble here."