But I fell back.  I could not.  I could not.  Three hundred lives for one life.  I could spill my own blood for her, but not theirs.

But as for empire, I had forgotten its meaning.

All of these men lying in the shadows had women who were dear.  Many of the wives would kill themselves if their husbands died.  I had seen an Indian wife do it; she had smiled while she was dying.

Would the woman think of me—­at the last?  She would not know that I had failed her.  She would not know that I was worse than Starling.

She was the highest-couraged, the most finely wrought woman that the world knew.  Yet two men had failed her.

“Monsieur,” she had said, “life has not been so pleasant that I should wish to live.”

It was only a week ago that she—­she, alive, untouched, my own—­had walked away from me in the sunshine, leaning on Cadillac’s arm.  And I had let her go.  And I had let her go.

And I had let her go.  I said that over and over, with my mouth dry, and I forgot time.  I did not know that minutes were passing, but I looked up, and the stars were dim, and branches and twigs were taking form.  Day would be on us soon.

I raised myself on my elbow and peered.  I could see very little, but I could hear the strange rhythmic rustle that I call the breathing of the forest.  And with it mingled the breathing of three hundred warriors.  They carried clubs, arrows, muskets.  I was to give them the signal for war.

I tried to rise.  I was up on my knees.  I fell back.  I tried again.  My muscles did not obey.  I saw the war club of the Indian beside me.  My hands stole out to it.  A blow on my own head would end matters.  My hands closed on the handle of the club.

Then the savage next me stirred.  That roused me.  The insanity was over, and sweat rained from me at realization of my weakness,—­the weakness that always traps a man unsure of his values, his judgment.  When men say that a man’s life is not his own to take, I am not sure.  But that had nothing to do with me now.  I was not a man in the sense of having a man’s free volition.  When I had given up human claims for myself, I had ceased to exist as an independent agent.  It was only by knowing that I was a tool that I could keep myself alive.

And so I sat upon my knees and whispered to the Indians about me.  They whispered in turn, and soon three hundred men were waked and ready.

Yet the forest scarcely rustled.

I motioned, and the line started.  We crept some twenty paces from tree to tree.  Then ahead of us I saw an opening.  I could distinguish the outlines of a rough redoubt.

I stepped in front and stopped a moment.  It had grown light enough for me to see the faces of the Sac warriors.  Dirt-crusted, red-eyed, wolfish, they awaited my signal.

I raised my sword.  “Ready!” I called.  An inferno of yells arose.  We ran at the top of our speed.  We charged the stake-built redoubt with knives in hands.  Mingled with our war cry I heard the screams of the awakening camp.