e will talk of
it to-morrow," he said drowsily.

"Yes, indeed; for this is a thought of sickness, that a man should
choose to be a prisoner when by any means he may be free."

He found a tinder-box and lit the night-lamp--a wick floating in a
saucer of oil: then, having shaken up John's pillow and given him to
drink from a pannikin, went noiselessly back to his corner.

The light wavered on the dark panels of the _armoire_. While John
watched, it fell into tune with the music of the distant falls. . . .

He awoke, with the rhythm of dance-music in his brain. In his dream
the dawn was about him, and he stood on the lawn outside the
Schuylers' great house above Albany. From the ballroom came the
faint sound of violins, while he lingered to say good-bye to three
night-gowned little girls in the window over the porch; and some way
down the hill stood young Sagramore, of the Twenty-seventh, who was
saying, "It is a long way to go. Do you think he is strong enough?"

Still in his dream John turned on him indignantly. And behold!
it was not young Sagramore, but Dominique, standing by the bed and
talking with Menehwehna.

"We are to start for the Fort, it appears," said Menehwehna to John.

"Let us first make sure," said Dominique, "that he is strong enough
to dress." He thrust his hand within the _armoire_ and unhitched the
white tunic from its peg.

John shrank back into his corner.

"Not that!" he stammered.

Across the lamp smoking in the dawn, Dominique stared at him.

CHAPTER XIII.

FORT AMITIE.

The Fort stood high on a wooded slope around which the river swept
through narrows to spread itself below in a lake three miles wide and
almost thirty long. In shape it was quadrilateral with a frontage of
fifty toises and a depth of thirty, and from each angle of its stone
walls abutted a flanking tower, the one at the western angle taller
than the others by a good twenty feet and surmounted by a flagstaff.

East, west, and south, the ground fell gently to the water's edge,
entirely clear of trees: even their stumps had been uprooted to
make room for small gardens in which the garrison grew its cabbages
and pot-herbs; and below these gardens the Commandant's cows roamed
in a green riverside meadow. At the back a rougher clearing, two
cannon-shots in width, divided the northern wall from the dark tangle
of the forest.

The canoe had been sighted far down the lake, and the Commandant
himself, wit