"Never, never, Mr. Cardigan, had any one heard him speak with such eloquence. Sick unto death as he was, he stood there in the burning July sun, hour after hour, in the cause of peace. He spoke with all the fire and vivacity of youth; his words held the savages' grave and strained attention until the end."
Mr. Duncan paused, staring at space as though to fix that last scene in his mind forever.
"I was commanding the escort," he said. "My men saluted as the Indians left the congress. When the last chief had disappeared, I saw that Sir William was in distress, and ran to him. He lurched forward into my arms. I held him a moment. He tried to speak, but all he could say was, 'Tell Michael I am proud—of—him,' and then fell back full weight. We got him to the Hall and laid him on the library couch. A gillie rode breakneck for Sir John, who was at the old fort nine miles away. Mistress Molly had gone to Schenectady; there remained no one of his own kin here."
Mr. Duncan leaned forward, with his face in his hands.
"Sir John came too late," he said; "Sir William died utterly alone."
As I lay there I could hear the robins chirping outside, just as I had so often heard them from the school-room. Could this still be the same summer? Years and years seemed to have slipped away in these brief months between May and October.
"Where is he buried?" I asked.
"In the vault under the stone church he built in the village. When you can walk—we will go."
"I shall walk very soon now," said I.
After a moment I asked who had succeeded Sir William.