I could not be certain, but it seemed to me that there was a light at the Point, which came through the crescents from behind closed shutters; but that was within reason, Sir John being at liberty to keep open the hunting lodge if he chose.
As for the Drowned Lands, as far as we could see through the night there was not a spark over that desolate wilderness.
The Mohawk fires on the hills, too, had died out. Fish House, if still burning candles, was too far away to see; we galloped through Varick's, past the mill where, from its rocky walls, Frenchman's Creek roared under the stars; then turned west along the Brent-Meester's trail toward Fonda's Bush and home.
"Those Iroquois fires trouble me mightily," quoth Nick, pushing his lank horse forward beside my mare.
"And me," said I.
"Why should they talk with fire on the night Hiakatoo comes to the Hall?"
"I do not know," said I. "But when I am home I shall write it in a letter to Albany that this night the Mohawks have talked among themselves with fire, and that a Seneca was present."
"And that mealy-mouthed Ensign, Moucher; and Hare and Steve Watts!"
"I shall so write it," said I, very seriously.
"Good!" cried he with a jolly slap on his horse's neck. "But the sweeter part of this night's frolic you and I shall carry locked in our breasts. Eh, John? By heaven, is she not fresh and pink as a dewy strawberry in June—my pretty little wench? Is she not apt as a school-learned lass with any new lesson a man chooses to teach?"