University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

During the rapid movement from the block-house,
and until the party was deeply buried in the
forest, each individual was too much interested in
their escape, to hazard a word even in whispers.
The scout resumed his post in the advance, though
his steps, after he had thrown a safe distance between
himself and his enemies, were more deliberate
than in their previous march, in consequence of his
utter ignorance of the localities of the surrounding
woods. More than once he halted to consult
with his confederates, the Mohicans, pointing
upwards at the moon, and examining the barks of
the trees with extraordinary care. In these brief
pauses, Heyward and the sisters listened, with senses
rendered doubly acute by their danger, to detect
any symptoms which might announce the proximity
of their foes. At such moments, it seemed as
if a vast range of country lay buried in eternal sleep;
not the least sound arising from the forest, unless it
was the distant and scarcely audible rippling of a
water-course. Birds, beasts, and man, appeared to
slumber alike, if, indeed, any of the latter were to be

found in that wide tract of wilderness. But the sounds
of the rivulet, feeble and murmuring as they were,
relieved the guides at once from no trifling embarrassment,
and towards it they immediately held their
silent and diligent way.

When the banks of the little stream were gained,
Hawk-eye made another halt; and, taking the moccasins
from his feet, he invited Heyward and Gamut
to follow his example. He then entered the water,
and for near an hour they travelled in the bed of the
brook, leaving no dangerous trail. The moon had
already sunk into an immense pile of black clouds,
which lay impending above the western horizon,
when they issued from the low and devious water
course to rise, again, to the light and level of the
sandy but wooded plain. Here the scout seemed to
be once more at home, for he held on his way, with
the certainty and diligence of a man, who moved in
the security of his own knowledge. The path soon
became more uneven, and the travellers could plainly
perceive, that the mountains drew nigher to them
on each hand, and that they were, in truth, about entering
one of their widest gorges. Suddenly, Hawk-eye
made a pause, and waiting until he was joined by
the whole party, he spoke; though in tones so low
and cautious, that they added to the solemnity of his
words, in the quiet and darkness of the place.

“It is easy to know the path-ways, and to find the
licks and water-courses of the wilderness,” he said;
“but who that saw this spot, could venture to say,
that a mighty army was at rest among yonder silent
trees and barren mountains!”

“We are then at no great distance from William
Henry?” said Heyward, advancing, with interest,
nigher to the scout.

“It is yet a long and weary path,” was the answer,
“and when and where to strike it, is now our greatest
difficulty. See,” he said, pointing through the
trees towards a spot where a little basin of water reflected
the bright stars from its still and placid bosom,
“here is the `bloody pond;' and I am on ground
that I have not only often travelled, but over which
I have fou't the enemy, from the rising to the setting
sun!”

“Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is
the sepulchre of the brave men who fell in the contest!
I have heard it named, but never have I stood
on its banks before!”

“Three battles did we make with the Dutch
Frenchman in a day!” continued Hawk-eye, pursuing
the train of his own thoughts, rather than replying
to the remark of Duncan. “He met us hard by,
in our outward march to ambush his advance, and
scattered us, like driven deer, through the defile, to
the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our
fallen trees, and made head against him, under Sir
William—who was made Sir William for that very
deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace of
the morning! Hundreds of Frenchmen saw the sun
that day for the last time; and even their leader,
Dieskau himself, fell into our hands, so cut and torn
with the lead, that he has gone back to his own
country, unfit for further acts in war.”

“'Twas a noble repulse!” exclaimed Heyward

in the heat of his youthful ardour; “the fame of it
reached us early in our southern army.”

“Ay! but it did not end there. I was sent by Major
Effingham, at Sir William's own bidding, to out-flank
the French, and carry the tidings of their disaster
across the portage, to the fort on the Hudson. Just
hereaway, where you see the trees rise into a mountain
swell, I met a party coming down to our aid, and
I led them where the enemy were taking their meal,
little dreaming that they had not finished the bloody
work of the day.”

“And you surprised them!”

“If death can be a surprise to men who are thinking
only of the cravings of their appetites! we gave
them but little breathing time, for they had borne
hard upon us in the fight of the morning, and there
were few in our party who had not lost friend or relative
by their hands. When all was over, the dead,
and some say the dying, were cast into that little pond.
These eyes have seen its waters coloured with blood,
as natural water never yet flowed from the bowels of
the 'arth.”

“It was a convenient, and, I trust, will prove a
peaceful grave for a soldier! You have, then, seen
much service on this frontier?”

“I!” said the scout, erecting his tall person with
an air of military pride; “there are not many echoes
among these hills that haven't rung with the crack of
my rifle, nor is there the space of a square mile
atwixt Horican and the river, that `kill-deer' hasn't
dropped a living body on, be it an enemy, or be it a
brute beast. As for the grave there, being as quiet as

you mention, it is another matter. There are them
in the camp, who say and think, man to lie still,
should not be buried while the breath is in the body;
and certain it is, that in the hurry of that evening, the
doctors had but little time to say who was living, and
who was dead. Hist! see you nothing, now, walking
on the shore of the pond?”

“'Tis not probable that any are as houseless as ourselves,
in this dreary forest.”

“Such as he may care but little for house or shelter,
and night dew can never wet a body that passes
its days in the water!” returned the scout, grasping
the shoulder of Heyward, with such convulsive
strength, as to make the young soldier painfully sensible
how much superstitious terror had gotten the
mastery of a man, who was usually so dauntless.

“By heaven! there is a human form, and it approaches!
stand to your arms, my friends, for we
know not whom we encounter.”

“Qui vive?” demanded a stern and deep voice,
which sounded like a challenge from another world,
issuing out of that solitary and solemn place.

“What says it?” whispered the scout; “it speaks
neither Indian nor English!”

“Qui vive?” repeated the same voice, which was
quickly followed by the rattling of arms, and a menacing
attitude.

“France,” cried Heyward, advancing from the
shadow of the trees, to the shore of the pond, within
a few yards of the sentinel.

“D'où venez-vous—où allez-vous d'aussi bonne

heure?” demanded the grenadier, in the language,
and with the accent of a man from old France.

“Je viens de la découverte, et je vais me coucher.”

“Etes-vous officier du roi?”

“Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour
un provincial! Je suis capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward
well knew that the other was of a regiment in
the line)—j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant
de la fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler!
je les ai fait prisonnières près de l'autre fort, et je les
conduis au général.”

“Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis faché pour vous,”
exclaimed the young soldier, touching his cap with
studious politeness, and no little grace; “mais—fortune
de guerre! vous trouverez notre général un
brave homme, et bien poli avec les dames.”

“C'est le caractère des gens de guerre,” said Cora,
with admirable self-possession; “Adieu, mon
ami; je vous souhaiterais un devoir plus agrèable,
àremplir.”

The soldier made a low and humble acknowledgment
for her civility; and Heyward adding, “a bonne
nuit, mon camarade,” they moved deliberately forward;
leaving the sentinel pacing along the banks of
the silent pond, little suspecting an enemy of so much
effrontery, and humming to himself those words
which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women,
and, perhaps, by recollections of his own distant
and beautiful France—

“'Tis well you understood the knave!” whispered
the scout, when they had gained a little distance
from the place, and letting his rifle fall into the hollow
of his arm again; “I soon saw that he was one of
them uneasy Frenchers, and well for him it was, that
his speech was friendly, and his wishes kind; or a
place might have been found for his bones amongst
those of his countrymen.”

He was interrupted by a long and heavy groan,
which arose from the little basin, as though, in truth,
the spirits of the departed lingered about their watery
sepulchre.

“Surely, it was of flesh!” continued the scout;
“no spirit could handle its arms so steadily!”

“It was of flesh, but whether the poor fellow still
belongs to this world, may well be doubted,” said
Heyward, glancing his eyes quickly around him, and
missing Chingachgook from their little band. Another
groan, more faint than the former, was succeeded
by a heavy and sullen plunge into the water, and
all was as still again, as if the borders of the dreary
pool had never been awakened from the silence of
creation. While they yet hesitated in an uncertainty,
that each moment served to render more
painful, the form of the Indian was seen gliding out
of the thicket, and rejoined them, while with one
hand he attached the reeking scalp of the unfortunate
young Frenchman to his girdle, and with the
other he replaced the knife and tomahawk that had
drank his blood. He then took his wonted station,
a little on one flank, with the satisfied air of a man
who believed he had done a deed of merit.

The scout dropped one end of his rifle to the
earth, and leaning his hands on the other, he stood
musing a moment in profound silence. Then shaking
his head in a mournful manner, he muttered—

“'Twould have been a cruel and an unhuman act
for a white-skin; but 'tis the gift and natur of an Indian,
and I suppose it should not be denied! I could
wish, though, it had befallen an accursed Mingo, rather
than that gay, young boy, from the old countries!”

“Enough!” said Heyward, apprehensive the unconscious
sisters might comprehend the nature of the
detention, and conquering his disgust by a train of reflections
very much like that of the hunter; “'tis
done, and though better it were left undone, cannot
be amended. You see we are, too obviously, within
the sentinels of the enemy; what course do you
propose to follow?”

“Yes,” said Hawk-eye, rousing himself again,
“'tis, as you say, too late to harbour further thoughts
about it! Ay, the French have gathered around the
fort in good earnest, and we have a delicate needle
to thread in passing them.”

“And but little time to do it in,” added Heyward;
glancing his eyes upward, towards the bank of vapour
that concealed the setting moon.

“And little time to do it in!” repeated the scout.
“The thing may be done in two fashions, by the help
of Providence, without which it may not be done at
all!”

“Name them quickly, for time presses.”

“One would be, to dismount the gentle ones, and
let their beasts range the plain; by sending the Mohicans

in front, we might then cut a lane through
their sentries, and enter the fort over the dead bodies.”

“It will not do—it will not do!” interrupted the
generous Heyward; “a soldier might force his way
in this manner, but never with such a convoy.”

“'Twould be, indeed, a bloody path for such tender
feet to wade in!” returned the equally reluctant
scout, “but I thought it befitting my manhood to
name the thing. We must then turn on our trail,
and get without the line of their look-outs, when we
will bend short to the west, and enter the mountains;
where I can hide you, so that all the devil's hounds
in Montcalm's pay would be thrown off the scent, for
months to come.”

“Let it be done,” returned the impatient young
man, “and that instantly.”

Further words were unnecessary; for Hawk-eye,
merely uttering the mandate to “follow,” moved
along the route, by which they had just entered their
present, critical, and even dangerous situation.
Their progress, like their late dialogue, was guarded,
and without noise; for none knew at what moment a
passing patrol, or a crouching picquet, of the enemy,
might rise upon their path. As they held their silent
way along the margin of the pond, again, Heyward
and the scout stole furtive glances at its appalling
dreariness. They looked in vain for the form they
had so recently seen stalking along its silent shores,
while a low and regular wash of the little waves, by
announcing that the waters were not yet subsided,
furnished a frightful memorial of the deed of blood

they had just witnessed. Like all that passing and
gloomy scene, the low basin, however, quickly melted
in the darkness, and became blended with the
mass of black objects in the rear of the active travellers.

Hawk-eye soon deviated from the line of their retreat,
and striking off towards the mountains which
form the western boundary of the narrow plain,
he led his followers, with swift steps, deep within the
dense shadows, that were cast from their high and broken
summits. Their route was now painful; lying
over ground ragged with rocks, and intersected with
ravines, and their progress proportionately slow.
Bleak and black hills lay on every side of them, compensating,
in some degree, for the additional toil
of the march, by the sense of security they imparted.
At length the party began slowly to rise a
steep and rugged ascent, by a path that curiously
wound among rocks and trees, avoiding the one, and
supported by the other, in a manner that showed it had
been devised by men long practised in the arts of the
wilderness. As they gradually rose from the level of
the valleys, the thick darkness which usually precedes
the approach of day, began to disperse, and
objects were seen in the plain and palpable colours
with which they had been gifted by nature.
When they issued from the stinted woods which clung
to the barren sides of the mountain, upon a flat and
mossy rock, that formed its summit, they met the
morning, as it came blushing above the green pines
of a hill, that lay on the opposite side of the valley of
the Horican.

The scout now told the sisters to dismount,
and taking the bridles from the mouths and the
saddles off the backs of the jaded beasts, he turned
them loose, to glean a scanty subsistence, among the
shrubs and meager herbage of that elevated region.

“Go,” he said, “and seek your food where natur
gives it you; and beware that you become not
food to ravenous wolves yourselves, among these
hills.”

“Have we no further need of them?” demanded
Heyward.

“See, and judge with your own eyes,” said the scout,
advancing towards the eastern brow of the mountain,
whither he beckoned for the whole party to follow;
“if it was as easy to look into the heart of man, as it
is to spy out the nakedness of Montcalm's camp from
this spot, hypocrites would grow scarce, and the cunning
of a Mingo might prove a losing game, compared
to the honesty of a Delaware.”

When the travellers had reached the verge of the
precipice, they saw, at a glance, the truth of the
scout's declaration, and the admirable foresight with
which he had led them to their commanding station.

The mountain on which they stood, elevated perhaps
a thousand feet in the air, was a high cone,
that rose a little in advance of that range which reached
for miles along the western shores of the lake, until
meeting its sister piles, beyond the water, it ran
off far towards the Canadas, in confused and broken
masses of rock, which were thinly sprinkled with evergreens.
Immediately at the feet of the parts the southern
shore of the Horican swept in a broad semi-circle,

from mountain to mountain, marking a wide strand,
that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat elevated
plain. To the north, stretched the limpid, and, as it
appeared from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of
the “holy lake,” indented with numberless bays, embellished
by fantastic head-lands, and dotted with
countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the
bed of the waters became lost among mountains, or
was wrapped in the masses of vapour, that came slowly
rolling along their bosom, before a light morning air.
But a narrow opening between the crests of the hills,
pointed out the passage by which they found their way
still farther north, to spread their pure and ample
sheets again, before pouring out their tribute into
the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the
defile, or, rather, broken plain, so often mentioned.
For several miles, in this direction, the mountains appeared
reluctant to yield their dominion, but within
reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into
the level and sandy lands, across which we have accompanied
our adventurers in their double journey.
Along both ranges of hills, which bounded the opposite
sides of the lake and valley, clouds of light
vapour were rising in spiral wreaths from the uninhabited
woods, looking like the smokes of hidden cottages,
or rolled lazily down the declivities, to mingle
with the fogs of the lower land. A single, solitary,
snow-white cloud, floated above the valley, and marked
the spot, beneath which lay the silent pool of the
`bloody pond.'

Directly on the shore of the lake, and nearer to its
western than to its eastern margin, lay the extensive

earthen ramparts and low buildings of William Henry.
Two of the sweeping bastions appeared to rest on
the water, which washed their bases, while a deep
ditch and extensive morasses guarded its other sides
and angles. The land had been cleared of wood for
a reasonable distance around the work, but every
other part of the scene lay in the green livery of nature,
except where the limpid water mellowed the
view, or the bold rocks thrust their black and naked
heads above the undulating outlines of the mountain
ranges. In its front, might be seen the scattered sentinels,
who held a weary watch against their numerous
foes; and within the walls themselves, the travellers
looked down upon men still drowsy with a
night of vigilance. Towards the south-east, but in
immediate contact with the fort, was an entrenched
camp, posted on a rocky eminence, that would have
been far more eligible for the work itself, in which
Hawk-eye pointed out the presence of those auxiliary
regiments that had so recently left the Hudson, in
their company. From the woods, a little farther
to the south, rose numerous dark and lurid smokes,
that were easily to be distinguished from the purer
exhalations of the springs, and which the scout also
showed to Heyward, as evidences that the enemy lay
in force in that direction.

But the spectacle which most concerned the young
soldier, was on the western bank of the lake, though
quite near to its southern termination. On a stripe
of land, which appeared, from his stand, too narrow
to contain such an army, but which, in truth, extended
many hundreds of yards from the shores of the

Horican to the base of the mountain, were to be seen
the white tents and military engines for an encampment
of ten thousand men. Batteries were already
thrown up in their front, and even while the
spectators above them were looking down, with such
different emotions, on a scene, which lay like
a map beneath their feet, the roar of artillery rose
from out the valley, and passed off, in thundering
echoes, along the eastern hills.

“Morning is just touching them below,” said the
deliberate and musing scout, “and the watchers have
a mind to wake up the sleepers by the sound of cannon.
We are a few hours too late! Montcalm has
already filled the woods with his accursed Iroquois.”

“The place is, indeed, invested,” returned Duncan;
“but is there no expedient by which we may
enter? capture in the works would be far preferable
to falling, again, into the hands of roving Indians.”

“See!” exclaimed the scout, unconsciously directing
the attention of Cora to the quarters of her own
father, “how that shot has made the stones fly from
the side of the commandant's house! Ay! these
Frenchers will pull it to pieces faster than it was put
together, solid and thick though it be!”

“Heyward, I sicken at the sight of danger, that I
cannot share,” said the undaunted but anxious daughter.
“Let us go to Montcalm, and demand admission;
he dare no deny a child the boon!”

“You would scarce find the tent of the Frenchman
with the hair on your head!” said the blunt scout.
“If I had but one of the thousand boats which lie empty
along that shore, it might be done. Ha! here will

soon be an end of the firing, for yonder comes a fog
that will turn day to night, and make an Indian arrow
more dangerous than a moulded cannon. Now, if
you are equal to the work, and will follow, I will
make a push; for I long to get down into that camp,
if it be only to scatter some Mingo dogs, that I see
lurking in the skirts of yonder thicket of birch.”

“We are equal!” said Cora, firmly; “on such
an errand we will follow to any danger!”

The scout turned to her with a smile of honest and
cordial approbation, as he answered—

“I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs
and quick eyes, that feared death as little as you!
I'd send them jabbering Frenchers back into their
den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so
many fettered hounds, or hungry wolves. But stir,”
he added, turning from her to the rest of the party, “the
fog comes rolling down so fast, we shall have but just
the time to meet it on the plain, and use it as a cover.
Remember, if any accident should befall me, to keep
the air blowing on your left cheeks—or, rather, follow
the Mohicans; they'd scent their way, be it in day,
or be it at night.”

He then waved his hand for them to follow, and
threw himself down the steep declivity, with free but
careful footsteps. Heyward assisted the sisters to
descend, and in a few minutes they were all far
down a mountain, whose sides they had climbed with
so much toil and pain.

The direction taken by Hawk-eye soon brought
the travellers to the level of the plain, nearly opposite
to a sally-port, in the western curtain of the fort,

which lay, itself, at the distance of about half & mile
from the point where he halted, to allow Duncan to
come up with his charge. In their eagerness, and
favoured by the nature of the ground, they had anticipated
the fog, which was rolling heavily down the
lake, and it became necessary to pause, until the
mists had wrapped the camp of the enemy in their
fleecy mantle. The Mohicans profited by the delay,
to steal out of the woods, and to make a survey of
surrounding objects. They were followed, at a little
distance, by the scout, with a view to profit early by
their report, and to obtain some faint knowledge for
himself of the more immediate localities.

In a very few moments he returned, his face reddened
with vexation, while he muttered forth his
disappointment in words of no very gentle import.

“Here, has the cunning Frenchman been posting a
picquet directly in our path,” he said; “red-skins
and whites; and we shall be as likely to fall into
their midst, as to pass them in the fog!”

“Cannot we make a circuit to avoid the danger,”
asked Heyward, “and come into our path again
when it is past?”

“Who that once bends from the line of his march,
in a fog, can tell when or how to turn to find it again!
The mists of Horican are not like the curls from a
peace-pipe, or the smoke which settles above a mosquetoe
fire!”

He was yet speaking, when a crashing sound was
heard, and a cannon ball entered the thicket, striking
the body of a sapling, and rebounding to the earth, its
force being much expended by previous resistance.

The Indians followed instantly like busy attendants on
the terrible messenger, and Uncas commenced speaking
earnestly, and with much action, in the Delaware
tongue.

“It may be so, lad,” muttered the scout, when he
had ended; “for desperate fevers are not to be treated
like a tooth-ache. Come, then, the fog is shutting
in.”

“Stop!” cried Heyward; “first explain your expectations.”

“'Tis soon done, and a small hope it is; but then
it is better than nothing. This shot that you see,”
added the scout, kicking the harmless iron with his
foot, “has ploughed the 'arth in its road from the
fort, and we shall hunt for the furrow it has made,
when all other signs may fail. No more words, but
follow; or the fog may leave us in the middle of our
path, a mark for both armies to shoot at.”

Heyward perceiving that, in fact, a crisis had arrived,
when acts were more required than words,
placed himself between the sisters, and drew them
swiftly forward, keeping the dim figure of their leader
in his eye. It was soon apparent that Hawk-eye
had not magnified the power of the fog, for before
they had proceeded twenty yards, it was difficult for
the different individuals of the party to distinguish
each other, in the vapour.

They had made their little circuit to the left, and
were already inclining again towards the right,
having, as Heyward thought, got over nearly half the
distance to the friendly works, when his ears were saluted

with the fierce summons, apparently within
twenty feet of them, of—

“Qui va la?”

“Push on!” whispered the scout, once more
bending to the left.

“Push on!” repeated Heyward; when the summons
was renewed by a dozen voices, each of which
seemed charged with threatening menaces.

“C'est moi,” cried Duncan, dragging, rather than
leading, those he supported, swiftly, onward.

“Bête! qui? moi!”

“Un ami de la France.”

“Tu m'as plus l'air d'un ennemi de la France;
arrete! ou pardieu je te ferai ami du diable. Non!
feu; camarades; feu!”

The order was instantly obeyed, and the fog was
stirred by the explosion of fifty muskets. Happily,
the aim was bad, and the bullets cut the air in a direction
a little different from that taken by the fugitives;
though still so nigh them, that to the unpractised
ears of David and the two maidens, it appeared as
if they whistled within a few inches of the organs. The
outcry was renewed, and the order, not only to fire
again, but to pursue, was too plainly audible. When
Heyward briefly explained the meaning of the words
they heard, Hawk-eye halted, and spoke with quick
decision and great firmness.

“Let us deliver our fire,” he said; “they will
believe it a sortie, and give way; or will wait for
reinforcements.”

The scheme was well conceived, but failed in its
effect. The instant the French heard their pieces,

it seemed as if the plain was alive with men, muskets
rattling along its whole extent, from the shores of the
lake to the farthest boundary of the woods.

“We shall draw their entire army upon us, and
bring on a general assault,” said Duncan. “Lead
on my friend, for your own life, and ours!”

The scout seemed willing to comply; but, in the
hurry of the moment, and in the change of position,
he had lost the direction. In vain he turned either
cheek towards the light air; they felt equally
cool. In this dilemma, Uncas lighted on the furrow
of the cannon ball, where it had cut the ground in
three little, adjacent, ant-hills.

“Give me the range!” said Hawk-eye, bending
to catch a glimpse of the direction, and then instantly
moving onward.

Cries, oaths, voices calling to each other, and the
reports of muskets, were now quick and incessant,
and, apparently, on every side of them. Suddenly,
a strong glare of light flashed across the scene, the
fog rolled upward in thick wreaths, and several cannon
bleched across the plain, and the roar was thrown
heavily back from the bellowing echoes of the mountain.

“'Tis from the fort!” exclaimed Hawk-eye, turning
short on his tracks; “and we, like stricken fools,
were rushing to the woods, under the very knives of
the Maquas.”

The instant their mistake was rectified, the whole
party retraced the error with the utmost diligence.
Duncan willingly relinquished the support of Cora
to the offered arm of Uncas, and Cora as readily

accepted the welcome assistance. Men, hot and
angry in the pursuit, were evidently on their footsteps,
and each instant threatened their capture, if
not their destruction.

“Point de quartier, aux coquins!” cried an eager
pursuer, who seemed to direct the operations of the
enemy.

“Stand firm, and be ready, my gallant 60ths!”
suddenly exclaimed a voice above them, in the deep
tones of authority; “wait to see the enemy; fire
low, and sweep the glacis.”

“Father! father!” exclaimed a piercing female
cry from out the mist; “it is I! Alice! thy own
Elsie! spare, oh! save, your daughters!”

“Hold!” shouted the former speaker, in the awful
tones of parental agony, the sound reaching even
to the woods, and rolling back in solemn echo.
“'Tis she! God has restored me my children!
Throw open the sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to
the field; pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs!
Drive off these dogs of France with your steel.”

Duncan heard the grating of the rusty hinges,
and darting to the spot, directed by the sound, he met
a long line of dark-red warriors, passing swiftly towards
the glacis. He knew them for his own battalion
of the royal Americans, and flying to their head,
soon swept every trace of his pursuers from before
the works.

For an instant, Cora and Alice had stood trembling
and bewildered by this unexpected desertion; but,
before either had leisure for speech, or even thought,
an officer of gigantie frame, whose locks were bleached

with years and service, but whose air of military
grandeur had been rather softened than destroyed
by time, rushed out of the body of the mist, and folded
them to his bosom, while large, scalding tears rolled
down his pale and wrinkled cheeks, and he exclaimed,
in the peculiar accent of Scotland—

“For this I thank thee, Lord! Let danger come
as it will, thy servant is prepared!”