"Listen," said the Indian, leaning his back against a great oak. "I will tell my brother who I am.... Many years ago the Conestogas, they whom the palefaces call the Susquehannocks, came down the great bay and fought with the palefaces. Monakatocka was then but a lad on his first war-path. Agreskoi was angry: he hid his face behind a cloud. With their guns the palefaces beat the Conestogas like fleeing women back to their village on the banks of a great river, and themselves returned in triumph to their board wigwams, bearing with them many captives. Monakatocka, son to a great chief, was one. The palefaces made him to work like a squaw in their fields of tobacco and maize. When he ran away they put forth a long arm and plucked him back and beat him. Agreskoi was angry, for Monakatocka had not any offering to make him. One by one his fellow captives have dropped away like the leaves that fall in the moon of Taquetock, until, behold! he is left alone. The palefaces are his enemies. He thinks of the village beside the pleasant stream, and he hates them. A warrior of the long house takes no friend from the wigwam of an Algonquin. Monakatocka is alone." He spoke with a wild pathos, his high, stern features working in the moonlight, and his bold glance softened into an exquisite melancholy. "I too am friendless," said Landless, "and bound to a far more degrading captivity than that you suffer. Our fate is the same." The Indian took his hand in his, and raising it, pressed the forefinger against a certain spot upon his shoulder. "You have a friend," he said. "You make too much of a very slight service," said Landless. "But I embrace your offer of friendship—there ’s my hand upon it. And now I must be going upon my way. Good-night!" The Indian gave a guttural "Good-night," and Landless strode on through the thinning woods. Shortly he emerged from the forest and saw before him tobacco fields and a house, and beyond the house the vast sheet of the Chesapeake slumbering beneath the moon. There was a beaten path leading to the house. Landless struck into it and followed it until it led him beneath a window which (having been once sent with a message to the Surveyor-General), he knew to belong to the sleeping-chamber of Major Carrington. Stopping beneath this window he listened for any sound that might warn him of aught stirring within or without the mansion,—all was silent, the house and its inmates locked in slumber. He took a handful of pebbles from the path and threw them, one by one, against the wooden shutter, the thud of the last pebble being answered by a slight noise from within the room. Presently the shutter was opened and an authoritative voice demanded:— "Who is it? What do you want?" Landless came closer beneath the window. "Major Carrington," he said in a low voice, "It is I, Godfrey Landless. I must have speech with you."