For he had determined to restrain his Mohawks, and to maintain tranquillity among all the fierce warriors of the Six Nations, and so pledge the entire Iroquois Confederacy to an absolute neutrality in the imminence of this war betwixt King and Colony, which now seemed to be coming so rapidly upon us that already its furnace breath was heating restless savages to a fever.
All that hot June day, though physically ill and mentally unhappy,—and under a vertical sun and with head uncovered,—Sir William had spoken to the Iroquois with belts.
The day's labour of that accursed council-fire ended at sunset; sachem and chief departed—tall spectres in the flaming west; there was a clash of steel at the guard-house as the guard presented arms; Mr. Duncan saluted the Confederacy with lifted claymore.
Then an old man, bareheaded, alone, turned away from the covered council-fire; and an officer, seeing how feebly he moved, flung an arm about his shoulders.
So Sir William came slowly to his great Hall, and slowly entered. And laid him down in his library on a sofa.
And slowly died there while the sun was going down.
Then the first star came out where, in the ashes of the June sunset, a pale rose tint still lingered.
But Sir William lay dead in his great Hall, all alone.