Spring was now far advanced. Robert had never seen the forest in deeper green and he had never looked up to a bluer sky than the one that bent over them, as they walked toward the council grove. His heart was beating hard, but it was with excitement, not with fear. He knew that a great test was before him, but his mind responded to it, in truth sprang forward to meet it. The breeze that came down from the hills seemed to whisper encouragement in his ears, and the words that he would speak were already leaping to his lips. A great crowd, men, women and children, was gathered about the grove, and like the sachems they were clothed in their best. Brilliant red, blue or yellow blankets gleamed in the sun's rays, and the beads on leggings and moccasins of the softest tanned deerskin, flashed and glittered. Robert, with his memories of the Albany school still fresh, thought once more of the great Greek and Roman assemblies, where all the people came to hear their orators discuss the causes that meant most. And then his pulse leaped again and his confidence grew. Tododaho spoke first, and when he rose there was a respectful silence broken only by the murmurs of the wind or the heavy breathing of the multitude. In a spirit of love and exhortation he addressed his people, all of the six great nations. He told them that the mighty powers beyond the sea, England and France, who with their children divided nearly the whole world between them, were about to begin war with each other. The lands occupied by both bordered upon the lands of the Hodenosaunee, and the storm of battle would hover over all their castles and over the vale of Onondaga. It was well for them to take long and anxious thought, and to listen with attention to what the orators of the English and the French would have to say. Then Father Drouillard spoke for France. He made an impressive figure, wrapped in his black robe, his eyes burning like coals of fire in his thin, dead white face. Near him on the right, his Onondaga converts were gathered, and he frequently looked at them as he told the fifty sachems that France, the greatest and strongest son of Holy Church, was their best friend, and their fitting ally. Such was the thread of his discourse. He struck throughout the priestly note. He appealed not alone to their sense of right in this world, but to the deeds they must do to insure their entrance into the world to come. France alone could lead them in the right path, she alone thought of their souls.