'Tis a sure mark of healthful sleep that it never makes account of time. No odds¹ how long the night, 'tis but a moment from the lapse² of consciousness to its recovery in the morning. But this deep sleep that crept upon me as I lay in the pirogue, listening to the tinkling³ drip from Jennifer's paddle, was not of healthful weariness; and when I came awake from it there was a dim and troubled vista⁴ of vague and broken dreams to measure off the longest night I could ever remember.  
The place of this awakening⁶ was a burrow⁷ in the earth. My bed of bearskins over fragrant⁸ pine-tufts was spread upon the ground, and by the flickering⁹ light of a handful of fire I could see the earth walls of the burrow, which were worn smooth as if the place had been the well-used den¹⁰ of some wild creature. But overhead there was the mark of human occupancy, since the earth-arch was sooted¹¹ and blackened with the reek¹² of many fires.
 
When I stirred there was another stir beyond the handful of fire, and Jennifer came to kneel beside me, taking my hand and chafing¹³ it as a tender-hearted woman might, and asking if I knew him.
 
"Know you? Why should I not?" I said, wondering why the words took so many breaths between.
 
"O Jack¹⁴!" was all I had in answer; but when he had found a tongue to babble¹⁵ out his joy, I learned the why and wherefore. Once more grim death had reached for me, lying await in the twirled tomahawk that set me dreaming of my mother's lap and lullaby. For a week I had lain here upon the bed of pine-tufts, poised¹⁶ upon the brink¹⁷ of the death pit with only my dear lad to hold and draw me back.
 
"A week?" I queried¹⁸, when he had named the interval¹⁹. "And you have been here all the time?"
 
"I've never left you, save to forage²⁰ for the pot," he admitted. "I dared not leave you, Jack."
 
"But where are we?" I would ask.
 
"In a den on the river's edge, a mile or more above your sacked cabin. 'Tis some dodge²¹-hole hollowed out by the Catawbas long ago and shared since by them and the bears, judging from the stinking²² reek of it. Uncanoola steered²³ me hither the night of the raid."
 
"Then the chief came off safely?" I said, falling into a dumb and impotent rage that the saying of two words should scant²⁴ me so of strength to say a third.
 
"Right as a trivet—scalps and all," laughed Jennifer. "He'll be the envy of every warrior²⁵ in the tribe when he vaunts himself at the Catawbas' council fire."
 
I let it rest a while at that, casting about for words to shape a hungrier question.
 
"Have you no news?" I asked, at length.
 
"Little or none," he answered shortly.
 
"But you have had some word—some news—from Appleby Hundred?" I stammered²⁶ feebly.
 
"Nothing you'd care to hear," he rejoined, evasively, I thought. "'Tis as you left it, save that Tarleton whipped away to the south again as suddenly as he came, and our cursing baronet has made the manor²⁷ house his headquarters in fact, lodging²⁸ himself and all his troop on Mr. Stair. From his lying quiet and keeping the Cherokees in tow, there will be some deviltry afoot, I'll warrant."
 
I knew that Falconnet was waiting for the powder cargo²⁹, but another matter crowded this aside.
 
"But—but Margery?" I queried, on sharpest tenter-hooks to know how much or little he had heard.
 
I thought his brow darkened at the question, but mayhap it was only a shadow cast by the flickering fire. At any rate, he laughed hardily³⁰.
 
"She is well—and well content, I dare swear. 'Twas only yesterday I saw her taking the air on the river road, with Falconnet for an escort. You told me once he had a sure hand with the women and it made me mad; but, truly, I have come to think you drew it mild, Jack."
 
Now though I could ply³¹ a decent ready blade, or keep a firing line from lurching at a pinch, I had not learned to put a snaffle on a blundering tongue, as I have said before.
 
"Damn him as you please, Dick, and he'll warrant it. But you must not judge the lady over harshly, nor always by appearances. She may have flouted³² you as a boyish lover, and yet I think—"
 
I stopped in sheer bewilderment, shot through and through with keenest agonies of remorseful³³ recollection. For at the moment I had clean forgot the gulf³⁵ impassable I had set between these two. So I would have lapsed³⁶ into shamed silence, but Jennifer would not suffer it.
 
"Well, what is it that you think?" he demanded.
 
"I think—nay³⁷, I may say I know that she thinks well of you, Dick," I blundered on, seeing no way to put him off.
 
He gripped my hand, and in his eyes there was the light of the old love reawakening.
 
"Don't lift me up to fling me down again, Jack! How can you know what she thinks of me?" he broke in, eagerly.
 
I should have told him then all there was to tell. He had been thrice my savior, and his heart was soft and malleable³⁸ on the side of friendship. I knew it—knew that the pregnant moment for full confession³⁹ had arrived; and yet I could not force my tongue to shape the words. Indeed, I saw more clearly than before that never any word of mine could make him understand that I was not a faithless traitor⁴⁰ in intention. So I paltered with the truth, like any wretched coward of them all.
 
"You forget that I have come to know her well," I said. "I was a month or more under the same roof with her, and in that time she told me many things."
 
Now, this witless speech was no better than a whip to flog him on.
 
"What things?" he questioned, promptly⁴¹.
 
"Oh, many things. She spoke⁴² often of you."
 
"What did she say of me, Jack? Tell me what she said," he begged. "It can make no difference now; she is less than nothing to me—nay,'tis even worse than that, since she would play Delilah if she could. But oh, Jack, I love her!—I should love her if I stood on the gallows⁴³ and she stood by to spring the drop and turn me off!"
 
Truly, if the lash⁴⁴ of remorse³⁴ had lacked its keenest thong⁴⁵, this passionate⁴⁶ outburst of his would have added it. None the less, I must needs be weaker than water and fall back another step and put him off.
 
"Another time, Richard. I am strangely unnerved and dizzy-headed now. By and by, when I am stronger, I will tell you all."
 
Taking a reproach where none was meant, he sprang up with a self-aimed malison upon his lack of care for me, stirred the fire alive and brewed⁴⁷ me a most delicious-smelling cup of broth⁴⁸. And afterward⁴⁹, when I had drunk the broth with some small beckonings of returning appetite, he spread his coat to screen me from the fire light and would have driven me to sleep again.
 
"At any rate, you shall not talk," he promised. "If you are wakeful I will talk to you and tell you what little I have gleaned

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