"I have already acknowledged my fault there," exclaimed Alvarez. "It was
an impulse! Need I be accused of it again?"

Father Montigny turned his gaze upon Alvarez, and the Captain, bold as he
was, feared it more than that of Bernardo Galvez.

"That is but a preamble," continued the priest, the Governor General not
noticing the interruption, "but it caused me to take especial notice of
what might be occurring in Louisiana at the furthest limits of settlement.
I went thence among the Cherokees and Creeks and kindred tribes and I
found them stirred by a great emotion. They were preparing for the war
trail. Messengers had come from tribes in the far north, Shawnees, Miamis,
Wyandots, and others, whom they have fought for generations in the region,
lying between them, known to them as the Dark and Bloody Ground, and to
us as Kaintock."

Francisco Alvarez suddenly paled, and looked away from the priest.

"What was the purport of these messages?" asked Bernardo Galvez.

"That there must be peace for the time being between the northern and
southern tribes. The northern tribes would march south and the southern
would march north. When they met they would be joined also by Spanish
soldiers with cannon, and the three forces would destroy forever the new
white settlements in Kaintock."

The pallor of Alvarez deepened, but Oliver Pollock still sat immovable,
his expression not changing. Bernardo Galvez looked straight at Alvarez,
and there was lightning in his gaze.