When he saw me he came and squatted at my feet.
"Sleep you, also, brother," said I. "Day dawns and the sunset is far away."
But the last time I looked before I slept I saw him still squatting at my feet like a fierce, lean dog, and staring straight before him.
And I remember that the fresh, joyous chorus of waking birds was like the loud singing of spirit-children. And to the sweet sound of that blessed choir I surrendered mind and body, and so was borne on wings of song into the halls of slumber-land.
The sun was high when our sentinel hailed a detail from Fish House, bringing us a sheep, three sacks of corn, and a keg of fresh milk.
I had bathed me in the Vlaie Water, had eaten soupaan, turned over my command to Nick, and now was ready to report in person to the Commandant at Summer House Point.
My Saguenay had slain a gorgeous wood-duck with his arrows; and now, brave in fresh paint and brilliant plumage, he sat awaiting me in the patched canoe which had belonged, no doubt, to John Howell.
I went down among the pinxter bushes and tall reeds to the shore; and so we paddled away on the calm, deep current which makes a hundred snake-like curls and bends to every mile, so that the mile itself becomes doubled,—nay, tripled!—ere one attains his destination.
It was strange how I was not yet rid of that vague sense of impending trouble, nor could account for the foreboding in any manner, being full of health and now rested.