Darkness had long since infolded us; we had slackened to a walk, moving forward between impervious walls of blackness. And always on the curtain of the inky shadow I saw Elsin's pallid face gazing upon me, until the vision grew so real that I could have cried out in my anguish, reeling forward, on, ever on, through a blackness thick as the very shadows of the pit that hides lost souls!
At midnight we halted for an hour. The Oneida ate calmly; Lyn Montour tasted the parched corn, and drank at an unseen spring that bubbled a drear lament amid the rocks. Then we descended into the Drowned Lands, feeling our spongy trail between osier, alder, and willow. Once, very far away, I saw a light, pale as a star, low shining on the marsh. It was the Fish House, and we were near our journey's end--perhaps the end of all journeys, save that last swift trail upward among those thousand stars!
It was near to dawn when we came out upon the marsh; and above, I heard the whir and whimpering rush of wild ducks passing, the waking call of birds, twittering all around us in the darkness; the low undertone of the black water flowing to the Sacandaga.
Over the quaking marsh we passed, keeping the trodden trail, now wading, now ankle-deep in cranberry, now up to our knees in moss, now lost in the high marsh-grass, on, on, through birch hummocks, willows, stunted hemlocks and tamaracks, then on firm ground once more, with the oak-mast under foot, and the white dawn silvering the east, and my horse breathing steam as he toiled on.
Suddenly I was aware of a dark figure moving through the marsh, parallel, and close to me. The Oneida stopped, stared, then drew his blanket around him and sat down at the foot of a great oak.
We had arrived at Thendara! Now, all around us in the dim glade, tall forms moved--spectral shapes of shadowy substance that drifted hither and thither, passing, repassing, melting into the gloom around, until I could scarce tell them from the shreds of marsh fog that rose and floated through the trees around us.
Slowly the heavens turned to palest gold, then to saffron. All about us shadowy throngs arose to face the rising sun. A moment of intense stillness, then a far, faint cry, "Koue!" And the glittering edge of the sun appeared above the wooded heights. Blinding level rays fell on the painted faces of the sachems of the Long House, advancing to the forest's edge; the Oneida strode forward, head erect, and I, with a sign to the girl at my side, followed.