The August night came down thick and dark. A few lights shone in the Chateau de Chatillard, but Willet and his rangers stood in black gloom. Almost at their feet the great St. Lawrence flowed in its mighty channel, a dim blue under the dusky sky. Nothing was visible there save the slow stream, majestic, an incalculable weight of water. Nothing appeared upon its surface, and the far shore was lost in the night. It seemed to Robert, despite the stone walls of the chateau by their side, that they were back in the wilderness. It was a northern wilderness too. The light wind off the river made him shiver. The front door of the house opened and a figure outlined against the light appeared. It was an old man in a black robe, tall, thin and ascetic, and Robert seeing him so clearly in the light of a lamp that he held in his hand recognized him at once. It was Father Philibert Drouillard, the same whom he had defeated in the test of oratory in the vale of Onondaga before the wise sachems, when so much depended on victory. "Father Drouillard!" he exclaimed impulsively, stepping forward out of the shadows. "Who is it who speaks?" asked the priest, holding the lamp a little higher. "Father Drouillard, don't you know me?" exclaimed Robert, advancing within the circle of light. "Ah, it is young Lennox!" said the priest. "What a meeting! And under what circumstances!" "And there are others here whom you know," said Robert. "Look, this is David Willet who commands us, and here also is Tayoga, whom you remember in the vale of Onondaga." Father Drouillard saluted them gravely. "You are the enemies of my country," he said, "but I will not deny that I am glad to see you here. I understand that the savage, Tandakora, means to attack this house to-night, thinking that it holds a British garrison. Well, it seems that he will not be far wrong in his thought." A ghost of a smile flickered over the priest's pale face. "A garrison but not the garrison that he expects to destroy," said Willet. "Tandakora fights nominally under the flag of France, but as you know, Father, he fights chiefly to gratify his own cruel desires." "I know it too well. Come inside. M. de Chatillard wishes to see you." Willet, Robert, Tayoga and Zeb Crane went in, and were shown into the bedroom where the Seigneur Louis Henri Anatole de Chatillard, past ninety years of age, lay upon his last bed. He was a large, handsome old man, fair like so many of the Northern French, and his dying eyes were full of fire. Two women of middle years, his granddaughters, knelt weeping by each side of his bed, and two servants, tears on their faces, stood at the foot. Willet and his comrades halted respectfully at the door. "Step closer," said the old man, "that I may see you well." The four entered and stood within the light shed by two tall candles. The old man gazed at them a long time in silence, but finally he said: "And so the English have come at last."