ve it's the strangeness of the night, the quality of the air we
breathe and that singular veiling of the sun just when we wished it, and
as if in answer to our prayers."

"That is one of the reasons, Dagaeoga. We cannot see Areskoui, because
he is on the other side of the world now, but he turned his face toward
us and bade us go and win. Nor can we see Tododaho on his star, because
of the mighty veil that has been drawn between, but the great Onondaga
chief who went away to eternal life more than four hundred centuries ago
still watches over his own, and I know that his spirit is with us."

"Can you see the island yet, Tayoga? My eyes make out a shadow in the
mist, but whether it's land, or merely a darker stream of vapor, I can't
tell."

"I am not sure either, but I do not think it is land. The island is four
hundred yards away, and the mist is so thick that neither the earth
itself nor the trees and bushes would yet appear through it."

"You must be right, and we're swimming slowly, too, to avoid any
splashing of the water that would alarm St. Luc's sentinels. At what
point do you think we'll approach the island, Tayoga?"

"From the north, because if they are expecting us at all they will look
for us from the west. See, Daganoweda already leads in the curve toward
the north."

"It's so, Tayoga. I can barely make out his figure, but he has certainly
changed our course. I don't know whether it's my fancy or not, but I
seem to feel a change, too, in the quality of the air about us. A stream
of new and stronger air is striking upon the right side of my face, that
is, the side toward the south."

"It is reality and not your fancy, Dagaeoga. A wind has begun to blow
out of the south and west. But it does not blow away the vapors. It
merely sends the columns and waves of mist upon one another, fusing them
together and then separating them again. It is the work of Areskoui.
Though there is now a world between us and him he still watches over us
and speeds us on to a great deed. So, Dagaeoga, the miracle of the sky
is continued into the night, and for us. Areskoui will clothe us in a
mighty blanket of mist and water and fire."

The Onondaga's face was again the rapt face of a seer, and his words
were heavy with import like those of a prophet of old.

"Listen!" he said. "It is Areskoui himself who speaks!"

Robert shivered, but it was not from the cold of the water. It was
because a mighty belief that Tayoga spoke t