Proctor sprang to his feet. He was shaking from head to foot, but whether from anger or from fear Jack could not tell. Several times he tried to speak and each time his voice failed. At last the words came. “Does not my red brother know why we retreated?” he cried. “Does he not know that it was because our red allies melted away from us, leaving us outnumbered by the men of the Seventeen Fires. Even while I speak other warriors are slipping away in the night to make peace with the Americans. The servants of the great king are brave and strong. But they are too few to fight alone. If my red brother can hold his men, we need not retreat farther. We will meet the Americans and drive them back as we have driven them so often before. Let my brother speak.” Tecumseh bowed. “My brother is wrong,” he declared. “The red men have not deserted. Nearly all of them are here, ready to fight. It is the white men who would retreat. If my brother will fight, the red men will do their part. I offer him my hand upon it.” He stepped forward and held out his hand. General Proctor took it. “It is well,” he said. “Tomorrow we will fight. Now break up the council.” Tecumseh waved his hand. The warrior at the witch-drum began to beat, tump-a-tump, tump-a-tump. From the crowding braves rose a chant, low at first, but swiftly gaining volume. Look down, oh! gods, look upon us! We gaze afar on your dwelling. Look down while here we are standing, look down upon us, ye mighty! Ye thunder gods, now behold us! Ye lightning gods, now behold us! Ye that bring life, now behold us! Ye that bring death, now behold us! Aid us and help us. For we fight for thee. Loud and wild swelled the chant, the ritual of the tribesmen. Then it slowly died away. The ranks of standing warriors dissolved and vanished. The white men marched away, General Proctor at their head. Jack rose to follow, but as he did so his arms were grasped on either side and he was held powerless. “White man stop,” muttered a gutteral voice in his ear. “Tecumseh speak with him.” CHAPTER XXIII THE council had sat long. When it rose the sky was pink with dawn, and the velvety black pall that had edged the clearing had changed into ranked trees and underbrush. The swampy floor beneath lay dull, save where some lost pool gleamed suddenly silver. Azure mists curled softly upward. To the east, beyond the edge of the woods, the broad meadow glittered with the sparkling dew-jewels left by the parting night. Far to the left a gleam of broken silver showed where the Thames river rolled. The spot, as Tecumseh had said, was between the Indian and the British lines. It lay just behind the apex of an obtuse angle, one leg of which ran along the edge of a fringe of beech trees wherein the British were entrenched. The other leg bordered the narrow marsh where the Indians waited. Neither woods nor swamp were deep nor dense. Behind them the light gleamed through glades that gave upon the open country.