"It was in '57, Loskiel, when I first laid eyes on you."
"What!"
"I am more than twice your age. You were then three years old."
In my astonishment it occurred to me that instead of twenty-two I was now twenty-five years of age, if what the Mohican said were true.
"Listen, Loskiel, blood-brother of mine, for you shall hear the truth now—the truth which Guy Johnson never told you.
"It was in '57; Munro lay at Fort William Henry; Webb at Fort Edward; and Montcalm came down from the lakes with his white-coats and Hurons and shook his sword at Munro and spat upon Webb.
"Then came Sir William Johnson to Webb with half a thousand Iroquois. And because Sir William was the only white man we Delawares trusted, and in spite of his Iroquois, three Mohicans offered their services—the Great Serpent, young Uncas, and I, Mayaro, Sagamore of the Siwanois."
He paused, then with infinite contempt:
"Webb was a coward. Nor could Sir William kick him forward. He lay shivering behind the guns at Edward; and Fort William Henry fell. And the white-coats could do nothing with their Hurons; the prisoners fell under their knives and hatchets—soldiers, women, little children.
"When Montcalm had gone, Webb let us loose. And, following the trail of murder, in a thicket among the rocks we came upon a young woman with a child, very weak from privation. Guy Johnson and I discovered them—he a mere youth at that time.