Chapter XIV

It seemed a long march. We had aroused a single fort—a northern outpost of the city. They took us past that, following a crude corduroy road. A noisy, blustering cortege we made in the woods. Some fifty Dutchmen, armed with fowling pieces and swords, carrying torches.

We came to other outposts. Our party augmented. We passed through a long, armed stockade, and were in the little city.

It was well toward midnight now. But the city needed no arousing. The houses were all lighted. The winding streets, bounded by picket fences and the houses with little gardens and vegetable patches, were thronged with excited Dutchmen. For this was a momentous night. The English were coming. Nichols, emissary of the Duke of York, already had sent his demand that Peter Stuy-vesant surrender this little Dutch Empire to English rule. His fleet now had been sighted; it would anchor in the bay tomorrow. All day, and now far into the night, the little city had been in turmoil. The streets were littered with groups of jabbering patroons firing up their great pipes and vowing that the thing was dastardly. How dare the English duke demand their surrender! They rushed at us, stared open-mouthed; but our captors fended them off, and vouchsafed nothing.

I seized upon this fellow who spoke English.

“Where are you taking us?”

“To the Governor. He is in Council now.”

Down by the Bowling Green, near where the main fort displayed its flag and menaced the bay with its cannon, Peter Stuy-vesant sat in the upper story of his home deliberating with his Council upon this crisis. But we never reached there. We went only a blockor two from the northern edgeof the city. The Dutchmen on the street corners gazed up at their tin weathercocks and prayed for a storm that would blow Nichols’s fleet to perdition. They came running out from their gardens to regard us, and jabbered some more. The city was flooded with words this night.

An argument broke out among our captors. We were faced about, taken north again.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Keep you here,” said our interpreter. “The good Peter will come up to see you.”

We were taken back. Out beyond the stockade, a little blockhouse stood on a rise of ground. The woods were thick around it.

“Leave you here,” the fellow told us. “There is enough trouble in the city tonight. Peter will come up to see you.” He chuckled. “Tomorrow they will bargain with Nichols’s emissary at the Bowling Green—unless, as I hope, the Council decides to have our fort blow up these cursed English ships as soon as they appear. But if there is a bargain, by the gods it is nice to have you English out here secluded in the woods as hostages.”

He evidently thought we were strangely dressed, important personages connected with the English invasion. Sent ahead, perhaps, to stir up the Indians in the northern woods. He said something like that; and how could we contradict it?

The log fort was a heavy-set structure. Two rooms in the lower story with an open space like an attic under the peaked roof. We were flung into one of the rooms. Its windows were barred with solid planks. The Dutchman bound us with lengths of rope and laid us like bundles on the floor.

“Lie there—keep quiet.”

They slammed the oak door upon us. We lay in the darkness. In the next room when most of them departed, we fancied some half a dozen had been left to guard us. We heard their voices; the light from their candles showed through the chinks of the interior log wall.

We whispered to each other. We were worried about Nanette but she was unhurt.

“Yes, I’m all right, Alan. But I’m so frightened.”

“At least it’s better than being in Turber’s hands, Nanette.” If we could escape now, there might still be time to get back to the tower. If not—well, we might be stranded here to live out our lives in New Amsterdam. But at least these Dutchmen probably would not murder us. But could we escape? It seemed impossible. We lay in the darkness on the log floor, bound securely. An interval went by. There was a stir outside. Thumping. More voices. The door opened. Peter Stuyvesant came in. He stood, balanced upon his wooden leg, and regarded us by the light of a candle held aloft. Eyed us as though we were some monstrosities, poked at us with the peg of his leg and turned and stumped back to the doorway.

And then, in the doorway, I saw Wolf Turber standing! Turber, in his black cloak, his white shirt gleaming beneath it. His sardonic gaze upon us.

The thing struck me with such surprise and horror that neither Alan nor I moved, or spoke. The door was left open. Turber and Stuyvesant sat at a table. The candlelight showed them plainly. There seemed now only one other man in the room—some trusted patroon, no doubt.

Turber spoke in contemporary Dutch. They conversed. We could hear them but could not understand a word.

What they said will never be disclosed. Unrecorded history, this! A furtive, hidden incident—who was there even to record it? Did Stuyvesant think Turber some magician? Or just a rich adventurer?

A bargain was struck. From a bag Turber produced jewels. And coins and chunks of gold. He piled them on the table in the candlelight. He and Stuyvesant drank from their golden goblets to seal the bargain. Stuyvesant gathered up the treasure and stuffed it in the pockets of his greatcoat. Turber came in to us. He bent down. “If you speak or move, I’ll have them kill you now.” He chuckled.

“Say goodbye to Nanette— quite a little fortune I paid for her but she’s worth it.”

He lifted up Nanette. He untied her thongs. She cried out—just once.

“Don’t be frightened, child. I won’t hurt you.”

Alan and I were straining at our bonds.

“Quiet, you fools!” We had helplessly tried to menace him with words. He led Nanette from the room. The door closed upon us. We could hear Stuyvesant leaving. And then Turber taking Nanette away. His voice reached us:

“Don’t be frightened, child.”

There was silence.

Another interval passed. There were again guards in the room outside. I whispered: “Alan, it must be nearly dawn.”

We had no idea. There were spaces in the outer log walls where the mortises had fallen away. But only blackness showed.

In the adjoining room there was candlelight, and the drowsy voices of the Dutchmen.

“Alan, what’s that?”

A thud had sounded; something striking the roof over our heads. Then another. Off in the woods there was a shout. A war-hoop! And other thuds. A rain of arrows falling upon the roof and the side of the little fort.

An Indian attack! The Dutchmen in the adjoining room made short work of getting out of this isolated building. They did not come in even to look at us. They decamped into the woods, running for the village stockade.

We were left alone. Helpless!

The rain of arrows kept on. We could hear the Indians shouting, but they did not advance. The dawn was coming.Orwasitthe dawn?Ared glow showing through the log walls. Red and yellow. I smelled smoke! Alan coughed with a sudden choking.

The little log blockhouse was being bombarded with flaming arrows. It was on fire, filling up with smoke which already was choking us!