He
wants the Tidewater to be his castle, with porters and guards to hound
away strangers. Man alive, if you had tried to put reason into some of
their heads, you would despair of human nature. Let them get a hint of
our preparations, and there will be petitions to Council and a howling
about treason, and in a week you will be in gaol, Mr. Garvald. So we
must move cannily, as you Scots say."
That conversation made me wary, and I got Faulkner to keep a special
guard on the place when I was absent. At the worst, he could summon
Mercer, who would bring a rough crew from the water-side to his aid.
Then once more I disappeared into the woods.
In these days a new Shalah revealed himself. I think he had been
watching me closely for the past months, and slowly I had won his
approval. He showed it by beginning to talk as he loped by my side in
our forest wanderings. The man was like no Indian I have ever seen. He
was a Senecan, and so should have been on the side of the Long House;
but it was plain that he was an outcast from his tribe, and, indeed,
from the whole Indian brotherhood. I could not fathom him, for he
seemed among savages to be held in deep respect, and yet here he was,
the ally of the white man against his race.
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