Nathaniel hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said uncertainly. Then, persuasively, he added, “You heard the guns, didn’t you? Your aunt wants to get back to Ticonderoga tonight, in case the fort’s taken. Burgoyne depends on her a good deal.”

Doc, tall in his horned headdress, stared impassively at his feet, as if he had heard nothing and seen nothing.

“I go see her now,” Joseph said.

From the south there was another burst of far-off gunfire—a dull, irregular throbbing. The sutler swore softly, pulled the boards from the packing cases, and hurriedly started stowing them with goods.

“Wait till tomorrow,” Nathaniel urged Joseph. “Ellen’ll be up near the army then. Your aunt doesn’t like to have anyone see Ellen while she’s in this state. You don’t need to worry about her. You can’t do her any good by going to see her, anyway. There’s a woman with her all the time, to see she doesn’t need anything.”

“I go see her now,” Joseph repeated. “You show me tent.”

He took Nathaniel by the arm and turned him toward the high ground, in the direction from which he had come when we first saw him. Nathaniel, I perceived, was both reluctant and troubled. He became more so when he glanced over his shoulder and saw Doc and me following.

“Look here,” he said, stopping short. “Send those men back where they belong! It’s bad enough for Ellen to see you, all painted up this way, without having to look at those devils! Your aunt won’t like it, I tell you!”

Joseph laughed. There was something grim and terrifying about him. “They good men,” he assured Nathaniel. “You stop thinking about my aunt. I take care my aunt!”

Again he urged Nathaniel forward, but in a moment he ceased to urge him and went on ahead, for from one of the highest of the tents came the sound of a sweet, soft voice—a voice I recognized as that of Marie de Sabrevois.

As we came closer to the tent, I heard Ellen speak. There seemed to rush suddenly into my brain, to obliterate all thought, a host of sounds: sounds associated in my mind with scenes I loved—the roaring and rushing of breakers on a ledge: the drone of bees among apple blossoms: the humming of a fair breeze in the rigging of a vessel.

“Marie,” Nathaniel called. “Marie!”

I heard Marie de Sabrevois say gaily, “In just one minute!”

Then Nathaniel said, “Here’s Joseph Phipps.”

There was a quick movement inside the tent. The flap was drawn back, and Marie de Sabrevois stood there, as innocent and pretty as a china doll with yellow hair.