This time he would not hesitate to deliver the fatal blow.

As his sword struck living flesh, however, something hard crashed into the captain’s skull, and he crumpled to the deck, a curtain of blackness falling over his eyes.

LATER, when the last trace of the battle had bubbled to the surface, the silent witness who had been hiding in the grass made his way cautiously along the beach not far from where he had first seen the horse-head monster.

All was quiet. The cries of pain and agony and the clash of weapons had faded. There was only the soft ripple of water along the riverbank, which was littered with the dead. He went from body to body, ignoring gold ornaments in favor of more-useful items.

He was bending over to pick up more booty when he heard a pitiful meow. The soggy mass of yellowish orange fur had its claws dug into a charred board. The hunter had never seen a cat before, and, for a moment, he considered killing it. But he relented and instead wrapped the animal in a soft leather cloth.

When he could carry no more, he stole away, leaving only his footprints in the sand.

THE WHITE HOUSE, 1809

THE EXECUTIVE MANSION ON Pennsylvania Avenue was dark except for the study, where a crackling fire in the hearth kept the winter chill at bay. The flickering yellow firelight bathed the high-nosed profile of the man who sat at a desk, humming as he worked.

Thomas Jefferson glanced at the wall clock with the bright blue-gray eyes whose intensity often startled those who met him for the first time. It was two in the morning; he usually retired at ten. He had been working in the study since six o’clock in the evening, having risen at dawn.

The president had taken his afternoon ride around Washington on his favorite horse, Eagle, and still wore his riding clothes: a comfortable, worn brown jacket, red waistcoat, corduroy pants, and woolen socks. He had exchanged his riding boots for the slippers without heels that had shocked foreign envoys who’d expected more-regal footwear gracing the presidential feet.

The president’s long arm reached out to a cabinet. The doors flew open at the touch of his finger, a feature that appealed to Jefferson’s love of gadgetry. Stacked neatly inside the cabinet were a cut-glass goblet, a decanter filled with French red wine, a plate of cakes, and a night candle used to navigate the corridors back to his bedroom. He poured half a glass of wine, held it dreamily to the light, and took a sip that brought back fond memories of Paris.

Tomorrow could not come too soon. Within hours, the onerous burden of office would be shifted to the narrow but capable shoulders of his friend James Madison.

He savored another sip and returned to the papers spread out on his desk. Written in the same flowing hand that had penned the Declaration of Independence were specimens, arranged in columns, of more than fifty Indian vocabularies collected over a thirty-year period.