"I appeal to any white man if he ever entered Logan's lodge hungry and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not!"
The visage of the Earl of Dunmore seemed to be growing smaller and more corpse-like. Not a feature on his ghastly mask moved, yet the face was dwindling.
Logan's voice grew gentler.
"Such was my love," he said, slowly. "Such was my great love for the white men! My brothers pointed at me as they passed, and said, 'He is the friend of white men.' And I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of my brothers, the white men.
"Unprovoked, in cold blood, they have slain my kin—all!—all!—not sparing woman or child. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature!
"Hearken, Brothers! I have withstood the storms of many winters. Leaves and branches have been stripped from me. My eyes are dim, my limbs totter, I must soon fall. I, who could make the dry leaf turn green again; I, who could take the rattlesnake in my palm; I, who had communion with the dead, dreaming and waking; I am powerless. The wind blows hard! The old tree trembles! Its branches are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace! Peace!
"Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!"
The old man bent his withered head and covered his face with his blanket. Through the frightful stillness the painful breathing of the people swept like a smothered cry; women in the balcony were sobbing; somewhere a child wept uncomforted.
Patrick Henry leaned across to me; his eyes were dim, his voice choked in his throat.
"The great orator!" he whispered. "Oh, the great man!—greatest of all! The last word has been said for Logan! I shall not speak, Mr. Cardigan—it were sacrilege—now."