"And you, Claudia, say to Sir Frederick Haldimand that he has lighted in Tryon a flame that shall utterly consume him though he hide behind the ramparts of Quebec itself! Say that to him!"
Then I stepped back and bade Colas drive on as fast as he dare. And when he cracked his long whip, I stood uncovered and looked upon the woman I once had loved, and upon the other woman who had been my childhood playmate; and saw her child at her breast, and her pale face bowed above it.
And so out of my life passed these two women forever, without any word or sign save for the white faces of them and the deadly fear in their eyes.
I stood there in the Oneida Road, watching their coach rolling and swaying until it was out of view, and even the noise of it had utterly died away.
Then I walked slowly back to the wood's edge; in silence my Oneidas rose from the weeds and stood around me where I halted, the sleeve of my buckskin shirt across my eyes.
Then, when I was ready, I turned and went forward, swiftly, in a southeasterly direction; and heard their padded footsteps falling lightly at my heels as I Hastened toward the Mohawk, a miserable, sad, yet angry man.
All that long, hot day we travelled; and in the afternoon black clouds hid the sun, and presently a most furious thunder storm burst on us in the woods, so that we were obliged to shelter us under the hemlocks and lie there while rain roared and lightning blinded, and deafening thunder shook the ground we lay on.
It was over in an hour. The forest dripped and steamed as we unwrapped our rifles and started on.
Twice, it seemed to me, far to the east I heard a duller, vaguer noise of thunder; and my Indians also noticed it.