THE blow was stayed - the death, deemed inevitable, was averted - the captives lived. The descending arm was arrested - the weapon thrown aside, and a voice of authority, at the most interesting juncture in the lives of the prisoners, interposed for their safety. The new comer was Chorley, the captain of the pirate, heading his troop of marines, and a small additional force of Indians. He was quite as much rejoiced as the captives, that he came in time for their relief. It was not here his policy to appear the man of blood, or to destroy, though mercilessly destructive wherever he appeared before. There were in the present instance many reasons to restrain him. The feeling of “auld lang syne” alone may have had its effect upon his mood, and, though not sufficiently potent, perhaps, for purposes of pity in a bosom otherwise so pitiless, yet, strengthened by a passion for the person of Bess Matthews, it availed happily to save the little family of the pastor. Their safety, indeed, had been his object, and he had hurried toward their dwelling with the first signal of war, as he well knew the dangers to which they would be exposed, should he not arrive in season, from the indiscriminate fury of the savages. But the circuitous route which he had been compelled to take, together with the difficulties of the forest to sailors, to whom a march through the tangled woods was something unusual, left him considerably behind the party led on by Ishiagaska. Arriving in time to save, however, Chorley was not displeased that he had been delayed so long. There was a merit in his appearance at a moment so perilous, which promised him advantages he had not contemplated before. He could now urge a claim to the gratitude of the maiden, for her own and the safety of her parents, upon which he built strongly in his desire to secure her person, if not her heart. This, at least, under all circumstances, he had certainly determined upon.

He came at the last moments but he came in time. He was well fitted for such a time, for he was bold and decisive. With a muscle of iron he grasped the arm of the savage, and thrust him back from his more delicate victim, while, with a voice of thunder, sustained admirably by the close proximity of the muskets borne by the marines, he commanded the savages to yield their prisoners. A spear-thrust from one of his men enforced the command, which was otherwise disregarded, in the case of the Indian bestriding Mr. Matthews, and the old pastor stood once more erect. But Ishiagaska, the first surprise being over, was not so disposed so yield his captives.

“Will the white brother take the scalps from Ishiagaska? Where was the white brother when Ishiagaska was here? He was on the blind path in the woods - I heard him cry like the lost child for the scouts of Ishiagaska. It was Ishiagaska who crept into the wigwam of the white prophet - look! The white prophet can strike - the mark of his club is on the head of a great chief - but not to slay. Ishiagaska has won the English - they are the slaves of the Yemassee - he can take their scalps - he can drink their blood - he can tear out their hearts!”

“I'll be dammed if he does, though, while I am here. Fear not, Matthews, old boy - and you, my beauty bird - have no fear. You are all safe - he takes my life before he puts hands on you, by Santiago, as the Spaniards swear. Hark ye, Ishiagaska - do you understand what I say?”

“The Yemassee has ears for his brother - let him speak,” replied the chief, sullenly.

“That means that you understand me, I suppose - though it doesn't say so exactly. Well, then - listen. I'll take care of these prisoners, and account for them to the Governor of Saint Augustine.”

“The white prophet and the women are for Ishiagaska. Let our brother take his own scalps. Ishiagaska strikes not for the Spaniard - he is a warrior of Yemassee.”

“Well, then, I will account to your people for them, but they are my prisoners now.”

“Is not Ishiagaska a chief of the Yemassees - shall the stranger speak for him to his people? Our white brother is like a cunning bird that is lazy. He looks out from the tree all day, and when the other bird catches the green fly, he steals it out of his teeth. Ishiagaska catches no fly for the teeth of the stranger.”

“Well, as you please; but, by God, you may give them up civilly or not! They are mine now, and you may better yourself as you can.”

The brow of the Indian, stormy enough before, put on new terrors, and without a word he rushed fiercely at the throat of the sailor, driving forward one hand for that purpose, while the other aimed a blow at his head with his hatchet. But the sailor was sufficiently familiar with Indian warfare, not less than war of most other kinds, and seemed to have anticipated some such assault. His readiness in defence was fully equal to the suddenness of the assault. He adroitly evaded the direct attack, bore back the erring weapon with a stroke that sent it wide from the owner's hand and grasping him by the throat, waved him to and fro as an infant in the grasp of a giant. The followers of the chief, not discouraged by this evidence of superiority, or by the greater number of seamen with their white ally, rushed forward to his rescue, and the probability is that the affair would have been one of mixed massacre but for the coolness of Chorley.

“Men - each his man! short work, as I order. Drop muskets, and close handsomely.”

The order was obeyed with promptitude, and the Indians were belted in, as by a hoop of iron, without room to lift a hatchet or brandish a knife, while each of the whites had singled out an enemy, at whose breast a pistol was presented. The sailor captain in the meanwhile appropriated Ishiagaska to himself, and closely encircled him with one powerful arm, while the muzzle of his pistol rested upon the Indian's head. But the affair was suffered to proceed no farther, in this way, by him who had now the chief management. The Indians were awed, and though they still held out a sullen attitude of defiance, Chorley, whose desire was that control of the savages without which he could hope to do nothing, was satisfied of the adequacy of what he had done toward his object. Releasing his own captive, therefore, with a stentorian laugh, he addressed Ishiagaska: -

“That's the way, chief, to deal with the enemy. But we are no enemies of yours, and have had fun enough.”

“It is fun for our white brother,” was the stern and dry response.

“Ay, what else - devilish good fun, I say - though, to be sure, you did not seem to think so. But I suppose I am to have the prisoners.”

“If our brother asks with his tongue, we say no - if he asks with his teeth, we say yes.”

“Well, I care not, damn my splinters, Ishy - whether you answer to tongue or teeth, so that you answer as I want you. I'm glad now that you speak what is reasonable.”

“Will our brother take the white prophet and the women, and give nothing to the Yemassee? The English buy from the Yemassee, and the Yemassee gets when he gives.”

“Ay, I see - you have learned to trade, and know how to drive a bargain. But you forget, chief, you have had all in the house.”

“Good - and the prisoners - they are scalps for Ishiagaska. But our brother would have them for himself, and will give his small gun for them.”

THE inmates of the Block House, as we remember had been warned by Hector of the probable approach of danger, and preparation was the word in consequence. But what was the preparation meant? Under no distinct command, every one had his own favourite idea of defence, and all was confusion in their councils. The absence of Harrison, to whose direction all parties would most willingly have turned their ears, was now of the most injurious tendency, as it left them unprovided with any head, and just at the moment when a high degree of excitement prevailed against the choice of any substitute. Great bustle and little execution took the place of good order, calm opinion, deliberate and decided action. The men were ready enough to fight, and this readiness was an evil of itself, circumstanced as they were. To fight would have been madness then - to protract the issue and gain time was the object; and few among the defenders of the fortress at that moment were sufficiently collected to see this truth. In reason, there was really but a single spirit in the Block House, sufficiently deliberate for the occasion - that spirit was a woman's - the wife of Granger. She had been the child of poverty and privation - the severe school of that best tutor, necessity, had made her equable and intrepid. She had looked suffering so long in the face, that she now regarded it without a tear. Her parents had never been known to her, and the most trying difficulties clung to her from infancy up to womanhood. So exercised, her mind grew strong in proportion to its trials, and she had learned, in the end, to regard them with a degree of fearlessness far beyond the capacities of any well-bred heir of prosperity and favouring fortune. The same trials attended her after marriage - since the pursuits of her husband carried her into dangers, to which even he could oppose far less ability than his wife. Her genius soared infinitely beyond his own, and to her teachings was he indebted for many of those successes which brought him wealth in after years. She counselled his enterprises, prompted or persuaded his proceedings, managed for him wisely and economically; in all respects proved herself unselfish; and if she did not at any time appear above the way of life they had adopted, she took care to maintain both of them from falling beneath it - a result too often following the exclusive pursuit of gain. Her experience throughout life, hitherto, served her admirably now, when all was confusion among the councils of the men. She descended to the court below, where they made a show of deliberation, and, in her own manner, with a just knowledge of human nature, proceeded to give her aid in their general progress. Knowing that any direct suggestion from a woman, and under circumstances of strife and trial, would necessarily offend the amour propre of the nobler animal, and provoke his derision, she pursued a sort of management which an experienced woman is usually found to employ as a kind of familiar - a wily little demon, that goes unseen at her bidding, and does her business, like another Ariel, the world all the while knowing nothing about it. Calling out from the crowd one of those whom she knew to be not only the most collected, but the one least annoyed by any unnecessary self-esteem, she was in a moment joined by Grayson, and leading him aside, she proceeded to suggest various measures of preparation and defence, certainly the most prudent that had yet been made. This she did with so much unobtrusive modesty, that the worthy woodman took it for granted, all the while, that the ideas were properly his own. She concluded with insisting upon his taking the command.

“But Nichols will have it all to himself. That's one of our difficulties now.”

“What of that? You may easily manage him Master Grayson.”

“How?” he asked.

“The greater number of the men here are of the ‘Green Jackets?’ ”

“Yes - ”

“And you are their lieutenant - next in command to Captain Harrison, and their first officer in his absence?”

“That's true

“Command them as your troop exclusively, and don't mind the rest.”

“But they will be offended.”

“And if they are, Master Grayson, is this a time to heed their folly when the enemy's upon us? Let them. You do with your troop without heed to them, and they will fall into your ranks - they will work with you when the time comes.”

“You are right,” was the reply; and immediately going forward with a voice of authority, Grayson, calling only the “Green Jackets” around him, proceeded to organize them, and put himself in command, as first lieutenant of the only volunteer corps which the parish knew. The corps received the annunciation with a shout, and the majority readily recognised him. Nichols alone grumbled a little, but the minority was too small to offer any obstruction to Grayson's authority, so that he soon submitted with the rest. The command, all circumstances considered, was not improperly given. Grayson, though not overwise, was decisive, and in matters of strife, wisdom itself must be subservient to resolution. Resolution in war is wisdom. The new commander numbered his force, placed the feeble and the young in the least trying situations - assigned different bodies to different stations, and sent the women and children into the upper and most sheltered apartment. In a few moments, things were arranged for the approaching conflict with tolerable precision.

The force thus commanded by Grayson was small enough - the whole number of men in the Block House not exceeding twenty-five. The women and children within its shelter were probably twice that number. The population had been assembled in great part from the entire extent of country lying between the Block House and the Indian settlements. From the Block House downward to Port Royal Island, there had been no gathering to this point; the settlers in that section, necessarily, in the event of a like difficulty, seeking a retreat to the fort on the island, which had its garrison already, and was more secure, and in another respect much more safe, as it lay more contiguous to the sea. The greater portion of the country immediately endangered from the Yemassees had been duly warned, and none but the slow, the indifferent, and the obstinate, but had taken sufficient heed of the many warnings given them, as to have put themselves in safety. Numbers, however, coming under one or other of these classes, had fallen victims to their folly or temerity in the sudden onslaught which followed the first movement of the savages sent among them, who, scattering themselves over the country, had made their attack so nearly at the same time, as to defeat any thing like unity of action in the resistance which might be offered them.

Grayson's first care in his new command was to get the women and children fairly out of the way. The close upper apartment of the Block House had been especially assigned them; and there they had assembled generally. But some few of the old ladies were not to be shut up; and his own good Puritan mother gave the busy commandant no little trouble. She went to and fro, interfering in this, preventing that, and altogether annoying the men to such a degree, that it became absolutely necessary to put on a show of sternness which it was the desire of all parties to avoid. With some difficulty and the assistance of Granger's wife, he at length got her out of the way, and to the great satisfaction of all parties, she worried herself to sleep in the midst of a Psalm, which she croned over to the dreariest tune in her whole collection. Sleep had also fortunately seized upon the children generally, and but few, in the room assigned to the women, were able to withstand the approaches of that subtle magician. The wife of the trader, almost alone, continued watchful; thoughtful in emergency, and with a ready degree of common sense, to contend with trial, and to prepare against it. The confused cluster of sleeping forms, in all positions, and of all sorts and sizes, that hour, in the apartment so occupied, was grotesque enough. One figure alone, sitting in the midst, and musing with a concentrated mind, gave dignity to the ludicrous grouping - the majestic figure of Mary Granger - her dark eye fixed upon the silent and sleeping collection, in doubt and pity - her black hair bound closely upon her head, and her broad forehead seeming to enlarge and grow with the busy thought at work within it. Her hand, too - strange association - rested upon a hatchet.

Having completed his arrangements with respect to the security of the women and children, and put them fairly out of his way, Grayson proceeded to call a sort of council of war for farther deliberation; and having put sentinels along the picket, and at different points of the building, the more “sage, grave men” of the garrison proceeded to their farther arrangements. These were four in number - one of them was Dick Grimstead, the blacksmith, who, in addition to a little farming, carried on when the humour took him, did the horse-shoeing and ironwork for his neighbours of ten miles round, and was in no small repute among them. He was something of a woodman too; and hunting, and perhaps drinking, occupied no small portion of the time which might, with more profit to himself, have been given to his farm and smithy. Nichols, the rival leader of Grayson, was also chosen, with the view rather to his pacification than with any hope of good counsel to be got out of him. Granger, the trader, made the third; and presiding somewhat as chairman, Grayson the fourth. We may add that the wife of the trader, who had descended to the lower apartment in the meantime, and had contrived to busy herself in one corner with some of the wares of her husband, was present throughout the debate. We may add, too, that at frequent periods of the deliberation, Granger found it necessary to leave the consultations of the council for that of his wife.

“What are we to do?” was the general question.

“Let us send out a spy, and see what they are about,” was the speech of one.

“Let us discharge a few pieces, to let them know that the servants of the people watch for them,” said waste, after that fashion, the powder for which a buck would say, thank you. If we are to shoot, let's put it to the red-skins themselves. What do you say, Master Grayson?”

“I say, keep quiet, and make ready.”

“Wouldn't a spy be of service?” suggested Granger, with great humility, recurring to his first proposition.

“Will you go?” was the blunt speech of the blacksmith. “I don't see any good a spy can do us.”

“To see into their force.”

“That won't strengthen ours. No! I hold, Wat Grayson, to my mind. We must give the dogs powder and shot when we see 'em. There's no other way - for here we are, and there they are. They're for fight, and will have our scalps, if we are not for fight too. We can't run, for there's no place to go to; and besides that, I'm not used to running, and won't try to run from a red-skin. He shall chaw my bullet first.”

“To be sure,” roared Nichols, growing remarkably valorous. “Battle, say I. Victory or death.”

“Well, Nichols, don't waste your breath now - you may want it before all's over - ” growled the smith, with a most imperturbable composure of countenance, - “if it's only to beg quarter.”

“I beg quarter - never!” cried the doctor, fiercely.

“It's agreed, then, that we are to fight - is that what we are to understand?” inquired Grayson, desirous to bring the debate to a close, and to hush the little acerbities going on between the doctor and the smith.

“Ay, to be sure - what else?” said Grimstead.

“What say you, Granger?”

“I say so too, sir - if they attack us - surely.”

“And you, Nichols?”

“Ay, fight, I say. Battle to the last drop of blood - to the last moment of existence. Victory or death, ay, that's my word.”

“Blast me, Nichols - what a bellows,” shouted the smith.

“Mind your own bellows, Grimstead - it will be the better for you. Don't trouble yourself to meddle with mine - you may burn your fingers,” retorted the demagogue, angrily.

“Why, yes, if your breath holds hot long enough,” was the sneering response of the smith, who seemed to enjoy the sport of teasing his windy comrade.

“Come, come, men, no words,” soothingly said the commander. “Let us look to the enemy. You are all agreed that we are to fight; and, to say truth, we didn't want much thinking for that; but how, is the question - how are we to do the fighting? Can we send out a party for scouts - can we spare the men?”

“I think not,” said the smith, soberly. “It will require all the men we have, and some of the women too, to keep watch at all the loop-holes. Besides, we have not arms enough, have we?”

“Not muskets, but other arms in abundance. What say you, Nichols - can we send out scouts?”

“Impossible! we cannot spare them, and it will only expose them to be cut up by a superior enemy. No, sir, it will be the nobler spectacle to perish, like men, breast to breast. I, for one, am willing to die for the people. I will not survive my country.”

“Brave man!” cried the smith - “but I'm not willing to die at all, and therefore I would keep snug and stand 'em here. I can't skulk in the bush, like Granger; I'm quite too fat for that. Though I'm sure, if I were such a skeleton sort of fellow as Nichols there, I'd volunteer as a scout, and stand the Indian arrows all day.”

“I won't volunteer,” cried Nichols, hastily. “It will set a bad example, and my absence might be fatal.”

“But what if all volunteer?” inquired the smith, scornfully.

“I stand or fall with the people,” responded the demagogue, proudly. At that moment, a shrill scream of the whip-poor-will smote upon the senses of the council.

“It is the Indians - that is a favourite cry of the Yemassees,” said the wife of Granger. The company started to their feet, and seized their weapons. As they were about to descend to the lower story, the woman seized upon the arm of Grayson, and craved his attendance in the adjoining apartment. He followed; and leading him to the only window in the room, without disturbing any around her, she pointed out a fallen pine-tree, evidently thrown down within the night, which barely rested upon the side of the log house with all its branches, and but a few feet below the aperture through which they looked. The tree must have been cut previously, and so contrived as to fall gradually upon the dwelling. It was a small one, and by resting in its descent upon other intervening trees its approach and contact with the dwelling had been unheard. This had probably taken place while the garrison had been squabbling below, with all the women and children listening and looking on. The apartment in which they stood, and against which the tree now depended, had been made, for greater security, without any loop-holes, the musketry being calculated for use in that adjoining and below. The danger arising from this new situation was perceptible at a glance.

“The window must be defended. Two stout men will answer. But they must have muskets,” spoke the woman.

“They shall have them,” said Grayson, in reply to the fearless and thoughtful person who spoke. “I will send Mason and your husband.”

“Do - I will keep it till they come.”

“You?” with some surprise, inquired Grayson.

“Yes, Master Grayson - is there any thing strange in that? I have no fears. Go - send your men.”

“But you will close the shutter.”

“No - better, if they should come - better it should be open. If shut, we might be too apt to rest satisfied. Exposure compels watchfulness, and men make the best fortresses.”

Full of his new command, and sufficiently impressed with its importance, Grayson descended to the arrangement of his forces; and, true to his promise, despatched Granger and Mason with muskets to the defence of the window, as had been agreed upon with the wife of the trader. They prepared to do so; but, to their great consternation, Mason, who was a bulky man, had scarcely reached midway up the ladder leading to the apartment, when, snapping off in the middle, down it came, in its destruction, breaking off all communication between the upper and lower stories of the house until it could be repaired. To furnish a substitute was a difficult task, about which several of the men were set immediately. This accident deeply impressed the wife of the trader, even more than the defenders of the house below, with the dangers of their situation; and in much anxiety, watchful and sad, she paced the room in which they were now virtually confined, in momentary expectation of the enemy.

HUGH GRAYSON, with all his faults, and they were many, was in reality a noble fellow. Full of a high ambition - a craving for the unknown and the vast, which spread itself vaguely and perhaps unattainably before his imagination - his disappointments very naturally vexed him somewhat beyond prudence, and now and then beyond the restraint of a right reason. He usually came to a knowledge of his error, and his repentance was not less ready than his wrong. So in the present instance. The stern severity of those rebukes which had fallen from the lips of Bess Matthews, had the effect upon him which she had anticipated. They brought out the serious determination of his manhood, and with due effort he discarded those feeble and querulous fancies which had been productive of so much annoyance to her and others, and so much unhappiness to himself. He strove to forget the feelings of the jealous and disappointed lover, in the lately recollected duties of the man and citizen.

With the good steed of Harrison, which, in the present service, he did not scruple to employ, he set off on the lower route, in order to beat up recruits for the perilous strife which he now began to believe, the more he thought of it, was in reality at hand. The foresters were ready, for one condition of security in border life was the willingness to volunteer in defence of one another; and a five mile ride gave him as many followers. But his farther progress was stopped short by an unlooked-for circumstance. The tread of a body of horse reached the ears of his party, and they slunk into cover. Indistinctly, in the imperfect light, they discovered a mounted force of twenty or thirty men. Another survey made them out to be friends.

“Who goes there?” cried the leader, as Grayson emerged from the bush.

“Friends - well met. There is still time,” was the reply.

“I hope so - I have pushed for it,” said the commander, “as soon as Sir Edmund gave the orders.”

“Ha! you were advised then of this, and come from” -

“Beaufort,” cried the officer, “with a detachment of twenty-eight for the upper Block House. Is all well there?”

“Ay, when I left, but things are thought to look squally, and I have just been beating up volunteers for preparation.”

“ 'Tis well - fall in, gentlemen, and good speed - but this cursed road is continually throwing me out. Will you undertake to guide us, so that no time may be lost?”

“Ay - follow - we are now seven miles from the Block, and I am as familiar with the road, dark and light, as with my own hands.”

“Away then, men - away” - and, led by the younger Grayson, now fully aroused by the spirit of the scene, they hurried away at full speed, through the narrow trace leading to the Block House. They had ridden something like two thirds of the distance, when a distant shot, then a shout, reached their ears, and compelled a pause for counsel, in order to avoid rushing into ambuscade.

“A mile farther,” cried Grayson - “a mile farther, and we must hide our horses in the woods, and take the bush on foot. Horse won't do here; we shall make too good a mark; and besides, riding ourselves, we should not be able to hear the approach of an enemy.”

A few moments after and they descended, each fastening his horse to a tree in the shelter of a little bay; and, hurriedly organizing under Grayson's direction, they proceeded, alive with expectation, in the direction of the fray.

It is high time that we now return to our fugitive, whose escape from his Indian prison has already been recorded. Paddling his canoe with difficulty, Harrison drew a long breath as it struck the opposite bank in safety. He had escaped one danger, but how many more, equally serious, had he not reason to anticipate in his farther progress! He knew too well the character of Indian warfare, and the mode of assault proposed by them at present, not to feel that all the woods around him were alive with his enemies. That they ran along in the shadow of the trees, and lay in waiting for the steps of the flyer, alongside of the fallen tree. He knew his danger, but he had a soul well calculated for its trials.

He leaped to the shore, and at the very first step which he took, a bright column of flame rose above the forests in the direction of the Graysons' cottage. It lay, not directly in his path, but it reminded him of his duties, and he came to all the full decision marking his character as he pushed forward in that quarter. He was not long in reaching it, and the prospect realized many of his fears. The Indians had left their traces, and the dwelling was wrapped in flame, illuminating with a deep glare the surrounding foliage. He looked for other signs of their progress, but in vain. There was no blood, no mark of struggle, and his conclusion was, therefore, that the family had been able to effect its escape from the dwelling before the arrival of the enemy. This conviction was instantaneous, and he gave no idle time in surveying a scene, only full of a terrible warning. The thought of the whole frontier, and more than all, to his heart, the thought of Bess Matthews, and of the obstinate old father, drove him onward - the blazing ruins lighting his way some distance through the woods. The rush of the wind, as he went forward, brought to his ears, at each moment and in various quarters, the whoops of the savage, reduced to faintness by distance or cross currents of the breeze, that came here and there, through dense clusters of foliage. Now on one side and now on the other, they ascended to his hearing, compelling him capriciously to veer from point to point in the hope of avoiding them. He had not gone far when a second and sudden volume of fire rushed up on one hand above the trees, and he could hear the crackling of the timber. Almost at the same instant, in an opposite direction; another burst of flame attested the mode of warfare adopted by the cunning savages, who, breaking into small parties of five or six in number, thus dispersed themselves over the country, making their attacks simultaneous. This was the mode of assault best adapted to their enterprise; and, but for the precautions taken in warning the more remote of the borderers to the protection of the Block House, their irruption, throughout its whole progress, had been marked in blood. But few of the settlers could possibly have escaped their knives. Defrauded however of their prey, the Indians were thus compelled to wreak their fury upon the unoccupied dwellings.

Dreading to make new and more painful discoveries, but with a spirit nerved for any event, Harrison kept on his course with unrelaxing effort, till he came to the dwelling of an old German, an honest but poor settler, named Van Holten. The old man lay on his threshold insensible. His face was prone to the ground, and he was partially stripped of his clothing. Harrison turned him over, and discovered a deep wound upon his breast, made seemingly with a knife - a hatchet stroke appeared upon his forehead, and the scalp was gone - a red and dreadfully lacerated scull presented itself to his sight, and marked another of those features of war so terribly peculiar to the American border struggles. The man was quite dead; but the brand thrown into his cabin had failed, and the dwelling was unhurt by the fire. On he went, roused into new exertion by this sight, yet doubly apprehensive of his discoveries in future. The cries of the savages grew more distinct as he proceeded, and his caution was necessarily redoubled. They now stood between him and the white settlements, and the probability of coming upon his enemies was increased at every step in his progress. Apart from this, he knew but little of their precise position - now they were on one, and now on the other side of him - their whoops sounding with the multiplied echoes of the wood in every direction, and inspiring a hesitating dread, at every moment, that he should find himself suddenly among them. The anxiety thus stimulated was more decidedly painful than would have been the hand-to-hand encounter. It was so to the fearless heart of Harrison. Still, however, he kept his way, until, at length, emerging from the brush and foliage, a small lake lay before him, which he knew to be not more than three miles from the dwelling of Bess Matthews. He immediately prepared to take the path he had usually taken, to the left, which carried him upon the banks of the river. At that moment his eye caught the motion of a small body of the savages in that very quarter. One third of the whole circuit of the lake lay between them and himself, and he now changed his course to the right, in the hope to avoid them. But they had been no less watchful than himself. They had seen, and prepared to intercept him. They divided for this purpose, and while with shouts and fierce halloos one party retraced their steps and came directly after him, another, in perfect silence, advanced on their course to the opposite quarter of the lake, in the hope to waylay him in front. Of this arrangement Harrison was perfectly unaware, and upon this he did not calculate. Having the start considerably of those who came behind, he did not feel so deeply the risk of his situation; but, fearless and swift of foot, he cheerily went forward, hoping to fall in with some of the whites, or at least to shelter himself in a close cover of the woods before they could possibly come up with him. Through brake and bush, heath and water, he went forward, now running, now walking, as the cries behind him of his pursuers influenced his feelings. At length the circuit of the lake was made, and he dashed again into the deeper forest, more secure, as he was less obvious to the sight than when in the glare of the now high ascending moon. The woods thickened into copse around him, and he began to feel something more of hope. He could hear more distinctly the cries of war, and he now fancied that many of the shouts that met his ears were those of the English. In this thought he plunged forward, and as one fierce halloo went up which he clearly felt to be from his friends, he could not avoid the impulse which prompted him to shout forth in response. At that moment, bounding over a fallen tree, he felt his course arrested. His feet were caught by one who crouched beside it, and he came heavily to the ground. The Indian who had lain in ambush was soon above him, and he had but time to ward with one arm a blow aimed at his head, when another savage advanced upon him. These two formed the detachment which had been sent forward in front, for this very purpose, by the party in his rear. The prospect was desperate, and feeling it so, the efforts of Harrison were Herculean. His only weapon was the knife of Matiwan, but he was a man of great muscular power and exceedingly active. His faculties availed him now. With a sudden evolution, he shook one of his assailants from his breast, and opposed himself to the other while recovering his feet. They drove against him with their united force, and one hatchet grazed his cheek. The savage who threw it was borne forward by the blow, and received the knife of Harrison in his side, but not sufficiently deep to disable him. They came to it again with renewed and increased ferocity, one assailing him from behind, while the other employed him in front. He would have gained a tree, but they watched and kept him too busily employed to allow of his design. A blow from a club for a moment paralyzed his arm, and he dropped his knife. Stooping to recover it they pressed him to the ground, and so distributed themselves upon him, that farther effort was unavailing. He saw the uplifted hand, and felt that his senses swam with delirious thought - his eyes were hazy, and he muttered a confused language. At that moment - did he dream or not! - it was the deep bay of his own favourite hound that reached his ears. The assailants heard it too - he felt assured of that, as, half starting from their hold upon him, they looked anxiously around. Another moment, and he had no farther doubt; the cry of thirst and anger - the mixed moan and roar of the well-known and evidently much-aroused animal, was closely at hand. One of the Indians sprang immediately to his feet - the other was about to strike, when, with a last effort, he grasped the uplifted arm and shouted “Dugdale!” aloud. Nor did he shout in vain. The favourite, with a howl of delight, bounded at the well-known voice, and in another instant Harrison felt the long hair and thick body pass directly over his face, then a single deep cry rung above him, and then he felt the struggle. He now strove, again, to take part in the fray, though one arm hung motionless beside him. He partially succeeded in freeing himself from the mass that had weighed him down; and looking up, saw the entire mouth and chin of the Indian in the jaws of the ferocious hound. The savage knew his deadliest enemy, and his struggle was, not to destroy the dog, but, under the sudden panic, to free himself from his hold. With this object his hatchet and knife had been dropped. His hands were vainly endeavouring to loosen the huge, steely jaws of his rough assailant from his own. The other Indian had fled with the first bay of the animal - probably the more willing to do so, as the momentary fainting of Harrison had led them to suppose him beyond farther opposition. But he recovered, and with recovering consciousness resuming the firm grasp of his knife which had fallen beside him, seconded the efforts of Dugdale by driving it into the breast of their remaining enemy, who fell dead, with his chin still between the teeth of the hound. Staggering as much with the excitement of such a conflict, as with the blow he had received, Harrison with difficulty regained his feet. Dugdale held on to his prey, and before he would forego his hold, completely cut the throat which he had taken in his teeth. A single embrace of his master attested the deep gratitude which he felt for the good service of his favourite. But there was no time for delay. The division which pursued him was at hand. He heard their shout from a neighbouring copse, and bent his steps forward. They were soon apprised of the movement. Joined by the fugitive, and having heard his detail, what was their surprise to find their own warrior a victim, bloody and perfectly dead upon the grass, where they had looked to have taken a scalp! Their rage knew no bounds, and they were now doubly earnest in pursuit. Feeble from the late struggle, Harrison had not his previous vigour - besides, he had run far through the woods, and though as hardy as any of the Indians, he was not so well calculated to endure a race of this nature. But though they gained on him, he knew that he had a faithful ally at hand on whom he felt he might safely depend. The hound too, trained as was the custom, was formidable to the fears of the Indians. Like the elephant of old, he inspired a degree of terror, among the American aborigines, which took from them courage and conduct, in great degree; and had there been less inequality of force, the dog of Harrison alone would have been sufficient to have decided his present pursuers to choose a more guarded course, if not to a complete discontinuance of pursuit. But they heard the shouts of their own warriors all around them, and trusting that flying from one, he must necessarily fall into the hands of some other party, they were stimulated still farther in the chase. They had not miscalculated. The wild whoop of war - the “Sangarrah-me, Yemassee,” rose directly in the path before him, and, wearied with flight, the fugitive prepared himself for the worst. He leaned against a tree in exhaustion, while the dog took his place beside him, obedient to his master's command, though impatient to bound forward. Harrison kept him for a more concentrated struggle, and wreathing his hands in the thick collar about his neck, he held him back for individual assailants. In the meantime his pursuers approached, though with caution. His dog was concealed by the brush, on the skirts of which he had studiously placed him. They heard at intervals his long, deep bay, and it had an effect upon them not unlike that of their own war-whoop upon the whites. They paused, as if in council. Just then their party in front set up another shout, and the confusion of a skirmish was evident to the senses as well of Harrison as of his pursuers. This, to him, was a favourable sign. It indicated the presence of friends. He heard at length one shot, then another, and another, and at the same time the huzzas of the Carolinians. They inspired him with new courage, and with an impulse which is sometimes, and, in desperate cases, may be almost always considered wisdom, he plunged forward through the brush which separated him from the unseen combatants, loudly cheering in the English manner, and prompting the hound to set up a succession of cries, sufficiently imposing to inspire panic in the savages. His movement was the signal to move also on the part of those who pursued him. But a few steps changed entirely the scene. He had rushed upon the rear of a band of the Yemassees, who, lying behind brush and logs, were skirmishing at advantage with the corps of foresters which we have seen led on by the younger Grayson. A single glance sufficed to put Harrison in possession of the true facts of the case, and though hazarding every chance of life, he bounded directly among and through the ambushed Indians. Never was desperation more fortunate in its consequences. Not knowing the cause of such a movement, the Yemassees conceived themselves beset front and rear. They rose screaming from their hiding-places, and yielding on each side of the fugitive. With an unhesitating hand he struck with his knife one of the chiefs who stood in his path. The hound, leaping among them like a hungry panther, farther stimulated the panic, and for a moment all were paralyzed. The fierce and forward advance of that portion of their own allies which had been pursuing Harrison, still farther contributed to impress them with the idea of an enemy in the rear; and before they could recover so as to arrest his progress and discover the true state of things, he had passed them, followed by the obedient dog. In another instant, almost fainting with fatigue, to the astonishment but satisfaction of all, he threw himself with a laugh of mingled triumph and exhaustion into the ranks of his sturdy band of foresters. Without a pause he commanded their attention. Fully conscious of the confusion among the ambushers, he ordered an advance, and charged resolutely through the brush. The contest was now hand to hand, and the foresters took their tree when necessary, as well as their enemies. The presence of their captain gave them new courage, and the desperate manner in which he had charged through the party with which they fought, led them to despise their foes. This feeling imparted to the Carolinians a degree of fearlessness, which, new to them in such warfare, was not less new to the Indians. Half frightened before, they needed but such an attack to determine them upon retreat. They faltered, and at length fled - a few fought on alone, but wounded and without encouragement, they too gave way, sullenly and slowly, and at length were brought up with their less resolute companions in the cover of a neighbouring and denser wood.

Harrison did not think it advisable to pursue them. Calling off his men, therefore, he led them on the route toward the Block House, which he relied upon as the chief rallying point of the settlers in that quarter. His anxieties, however, at that moment, had in them something selfish, and he proceeded hurriedly to the house of old Matthews. It was empty - its inmates were gone, and the marks of savage devastation were all around them. The building had been plundered, and a hasty attempt made to burn it by torches, but without success, the floors being only slightly scorched. He rushed through the apartments in despair, calling the family by name. What had been their fate - and where was she? The silence of every thing around spoke to him so loudly, and with the faintest possible hope that they had been sufficiently apprised of the approach of the Indians to have taken the shelter of the Block House, he proceeded to lead his men to that designated point.

LET us go back once more to the Block House, and look into the condition of its defenders. We remember the breaking of the ladder, the only one in their possession, which led to the upper story of the building. This accident left them in an ugly predicament; since some time must necessarily be taken up in its repair, and in the meanwhile, the forces of the garrison were divided in the different apartments, above and below. In the section devoted to the women and children, and somewhat endangered, as we have seen, from the exposed window and the fallen tree, they were its exclusive occupants. The opposite chamber held a few of the more sturdy and common sense defenders, while in the great hall below a miscellaneous group of fifteen or twenty - the inferior spirits - were assembled. Two or three of these were busied in patching up the broken ladder, which was to renew the communication between the several parties, thus, of necessity, thrown asunder.

The watchers of the fortress, from their several loop-holes, looked forth, east and west, yet saw no enemy. All was soft in the picture, all was silent in the deep repose of the forest. The night was clear and lovely, and the vague and dim beauty with which, in the perfect moonlight, the foliage of the woods spread away in distant shadows, or clung and clustered together as in groups, shrinking for concealment from her glances, touched the spirits even of those rude foresters. With them, its poetry was a matter of feeling - with the refined, it is an instrument of art. Hence it is, indeed, that the poetry of the early ages speaks in the simplest language, while that of civilization, becoming only the agent for artificial enjoyment, is ornate in its dress, and complex in its form and structure. Far away in the distance, like glimpses of a spirit, little sweeps of the river, in its crooked windings, flashed upon the eye, streaking, with a sweet relief, the sombre foliage of the swampy forest through which it stole. A single note - the melancholy murmur of the chuck-will's-widow - the Carolina whippoorwill, broke fitfully upon the silence, to which it gave an added solemnity. That single note indicated to the keepers of the fortress a watchfulness, corresponding with their own, of another living creature. Whether it were human or not - whether it were the deceptive lure and signal of the savage, or, in reality, the complaining cry of the solitary and sad bird which it so resembled, was, however, matter of nice question with those who listened to the strain.

“They are there - they are there,” cried Grayson - “I'll swear it. I've heard them quite too often not to know their cunning now. Hector was right, after all, boys.”

“What! where?” - asked Nichols.

“There, in the bush to the left of the blasted oak - now, down to the bluff - and now, by the bay on the right. They are all round us.”

“By what do you know, Wat?”

“The whippoorwill - that is their cry - their signal.”

“It is the whippoorwill,” said Nichols, - “there is but one of them; you never hear more than one at a time.”

“It is the Indian,” responded Grayson - “for though there is but one note, it comes, as you perceive, from three different quarters. Now it is at the Chief's Bluff - and now - it comes immediately from the old grove of scrubby oak. A few shot there would get an answer.”

“Good! that is just my thought - let us give them a broadside, and disperse the scoundrels,” cried Nichols.

“Not so fast, Nichols - you swallow your enemy without asking leave of your teeth. Have you inquired first whether we have powder and shot to throw away upon bushes that may be empty?” now exclaimed the blacksmith, joining in the question.

“A prudent thought, that, Grimstead,” said Grayson - “we have no ammunition to spare in that way. But I have a notion that may prove of profit. Where is the captain's straw man - here, Granger, bring out Dugdale's trainer.”

The stuffed figure already described was brought forward, the window looking in the direction of the grove supposed to shelter the savages thrown open, and the perfectly indifferent head of the automaton thrust incontinently through the opening. The ruse was completely successful. The foe could not well resist this temptation, and a flight of arrows, penetrating the figure in every portion of its breast and face, attested the presence of the enemy and the truth of his aim. A wild and shivering cry rung through the forest at the same instant - that cry, well known as the fearful war-whoop, the sound of which made the marrow curdle in the bones of the frontier settler, and prompted the mother with a nameless terror to hug closer to her bosom the form of her unconscious infant. It was at once answered from side to side, wherever their several parties had been stationed, and it struck terror even into the sheltered garrison which heard it - such terror as the traveller feels by night, when the shrill rattle of the lurking serpent, with that ubiquity of sound which is one of its fearful features, vibrates all around him, leaving him at a loss to say in what quarter his enemy lies in waiting, and teaching him to dread that the very next step which he takes may place him within that coil which is death.

“Ay, there they are, sure enough - fifty of them at least, and we shall have them upon us, after this, monstrous quick, in some way or other,” was the speech of Grayson, while a brief pause in all the party marked the deep influence upon them of the summons which they had heard.

“True - and we must be up and doing,” said the smith; “we can now give them a shot, Hugh Grayson, for they will dance out from the cover now, thinking they have killed one of us. The savages - they have thrown away some of their powder at least.” As Grimstead spoke, he drew three arrows with no small difficulty from the bosom of the figure in which they were buried.

“Better there than in our ribs. But you are right. Stand back for a moment, and let me have that loop - I shall waste no shot. Ha! I see - there is one - I see his arm and the edge of his hatchet - it rests upon his shoulder, I reckon, but that is concealed by the brush. He moves - he comes out, and slaps his hand against his thigh. The red devil, but he shall have it. Get ready, now, each at his loop, for if I hurt him they will rush out in a fury.”

The sharp click of the cock followed the words of Grayson, who was an able shot, and the next moment the full report came burdened with a dozen echoes from the crowding woods around. A cry of pain - then a shout of fury, and the reiterated whoop followed, and as one of their leaders reeled and sunk under the unerring bullet, the band in that station, as had been predicted by Grayson, rushed forth to where he stood, brandishing their weapons with ineffectual fury, and lifting their wounded comrade, as is their general custom, to bear him to a place of concealment, and preserve him from being scalped, by secret burial, in the event of his being dead. They paid for their temerity. Following the direction of their leader, whose decision necessarily commended their obedience, the Carolinians took quite as much advantage of the exposure of their enemies, as the member of the loopholes in that quarter of the building would admit. Five muskets told among the group, and a reiterated shout of fury indicated the good service which the discharge had done, and taught the savages a lesson of prudence, which, in the present instance, they had been too ready to disregard. They sunk back into cover, taking care however to remove their hurt companions, so that, save by the peculiar cry which with them marks a loss, the garrison were unable to determine what had been the success of their discharges Having driven them back into the brush, however, without loss to themselves, the latter were now sanguine where, before, their confined and cheerless position had taught them a feeling of despondency not calculated to improve the comforts of their case.

The Indians had made their arrangements on the other hand with no little precaution. But they had been deceived and disappointed. Their scouts, who had previously inspected the fortress, had given a very different account of the defences and the watchfulness of their garrison, to what was actually the fact upon their appearance. The scouts, however, had spoken truth, and but for the discovery made by Hector, the probability is that the Block House would have been surprised with little or no difficulty. Accustomed to obey Harrison as their only leader, the foresters present never dreamed of preparation for conflict unless under his guidance; and but for the advice of the trader's wife, and the confident assumption of command on the part of Walter Grayson, a confusion of councils, not less than of tongues, would have neutralized all action, and left them an easy prey, without head or direction, to the knives of their insidious enemy. Calculating upon surprise and cunning as the only means by which they could hope to balance the numerous advantages possessed by European warfare over their own, the Indians had relied rather more on the suddenness of their onset, and the craft peculiar to their education, than on the force of their valour. They felt themselves baffled, therefore, in their main hope, by the sleepless caution of the garrison, and now prepared themselves for other means. They had made their disposition of force with no little judgment. Small bodies, at equal distances under cover, had been stationed all about the fortress. With the notes of the whippoorwill they had carried on their signals, and indicated the several stages of their preparation; while, in addition to this, another band - a sort of forlorn hope, consisting of the more desperate, who had various motives for signalizing their valour - creeping singly, from cover to cover, now reposing in the shadow of a log along the ground, now half buried in a clustering bush, made their way at length so closely under the walls of the log house as to be completely concealed from the garrison, which, unless by the window, had no mode of looking directly down upon them. As the windows were well watched by their comrades - having once attained their place of concealment - it followed that their position remained entirely concealed from those within. They lay in waiting for the favourable moment - silent as the grave, and sleepless - ready, when the garrison should determine upon a sally, to fall upon their rear, and in the meanwhile quietly preparing dry fuel in quantity, gathered from time to time, and piling it against the logs of the fortress, they prepared thus to fire the defences that shut them out from their prey.

There was yet another mode of finding entrance which has been partially glimpsed at already. The scouts had done their office diligently in more than the required respects. Finding a slender pine twisted by a late storm, and scarcely sustained by a fragment of its shaft, they applied fire to the rich turpentine oozing from the wounded part of the tree, and carefully directing its fall, as it yielded to the fire, they lodged its extremest branches, as we have already seen, against the wall of the Block House and just beneath the window - the only one looking from that quarter of the fortress. Three of the bravest of their warriors were assigned for scaling this point and securing their entrance, and the attack was forborne by the rest of the band, while their present design, upon which they built greatly, was in progress.

Let us then turn to this quarter. We have already seen that the dangers of this position were duly estimated by Grayson, under the suggestion of Granger's wife. Unhappily for its defence, the fate of the ladder prevented that due attention to the subject, at first, which had been imperatively called for; and the subsequent excitement following the discovery of the immediate proximity of the Indians, had turned the consideration of the defenders to the opposite end of the building, from whence the partial attack of the enemy as described, had come. It is true that the workmen were yet busy with the ladder; but the assault had suspended their operations, in the impatient curiosity which such an event would necessarily induce, even in the bosom of fear.

The wife of Grayson, fully conscious of the danger, was alone sleepless in that apartment. The rest of the women, scarcely apprehensive of attack at all, and perfectly ignorant of the present condition of affairs, with all that heedlessness which marks the unreflecting character, had sunk to the repose, without an effort at watchfulness, which previous fatigues had, perhaps, made absolutely necessary. She alone sat thoughtful and silent, musing over present prospects - perhaps of the past - but still unforgetful of the difficulties and the dangers before her. With a calm temper she awaited the relief which, with the repair of the ladder, she looked for from below. In the meantime, hearing something of the alarm, together with the distant war-whoop, she had looked around her for some means of defence, in the event of any attempt being made upon the window before the aid promised could reach her. But a solitary weapon met her eye, in the long heavy hatchet, a clumsy instrument, rather more like the cleaver of the butcher than the light and slender tomahawk so familiar to the Indians. Having secured this, with the composure of that courage which had been in great part taught her by the necessities of fortune, she prepared to do without other assistance, and to forego the sentiment of dependence, which is perhaps one of the most marked characteristics of her sex. Calmly looking round upon the sleeping and defenseless crowd about her, she resumed her seat upon a low bench in a corner of the apartment, from which she had risen to secure the hatchet, and, extinguishing the only light in the room, fixed her eye upon the accessible window, while every thought of her mind prepared her for the danger which was at hand. She had not long been seated when she fancied that she heard a slight rustling of the branches of the fallen tree just beneath the window. She could not doubt her senses, and her heart swelled and throbbed with the consciousness of approaching danger. But still she was firm - her spirit grew more confirmed with the coming trial; and coolly throwing the slippers from her feet, grasping firmly her hatchet at the same time, she softly arose, and keeping close in the shadow of the wall, she made her way to a recess, a foot or so from the entrance, to which it was evident some one was cautiously approaching along the attenuated body of the yielding pine. In a few moments and a shadow darkened the opening. She edged more closely to the point, and prepared for the intruder. She now beheld the head of the enemy - a fierce and foully painted savage - the war-tuft rising up into a ridge, something like a comb, and his face smeared with colours in a style the most ferociously grotesque. Still she could not strike, for, as he had not penetrated the window, and as its entrance was quite too small to enable her to strike with any hope of success at any distance through it, she felt that it would be folly; and though excited with doubt and determination alike, she saw the error of any precipitation. But, the next moment, he laid his hand upon the sill of the window, the better to raise himself to his level. In that instant she struck at the broad arm lying across the wood. The blow was given with all her force, and would certainly have separated the hand from the arm had it taken effect. But the quick eye of the Indian caught a glimpse of her movement at the very moment in which it was made, and the hand was withdrawn before the hatchet descended. The steel sunk deep into the soft wood - so deeply that skip could not disengage it. To try at this object would have exposed her at once to his weapon, and leaving it where it stuck, she sunk back again into shadow.

What now was she to do? To stay where she was would be of little avail; but to cry out and to fly, equally unproductive of good, besides warning the enemy of the defenselessness of their condition, and thus inviting a renewal of the attack. The thought came to her with the danger, and, without a word, she maintained her position, in waiting for the progress of events. As the Indian had also sunk from sight, and some moments had now elapsed without his reappearance, she determined to make another effort for the recovery of the hatchet. She grasped it by the handle, and in the next moment the hand of the savage was upon her own. He felt that it was that of a woman, and in a brief word and something of a chuckle, while he still maintained his hold on it, conveyed intelligence of the fact to those below. But it was a woman with a man's spirit with whom he contended, and her endeavour was successful to disengage herself. The same success did not attend her effort to recover the weapon. In the brief struggle with her enemy it had become disengaged from the wood and while both strove to seize it, it slipped from their mutual hands, and sliding over the sill, in another instant was heard rattling through the intervening bushes. Descending upon the ground below, it became the spoil of those without, whose murmurs of gratulation she distinctly heard. But now came the tug of difficulty. The Indian, striving at the entrance, necessarily encouraged by the discovery that his opponent was not a man, and assured, at the same time, by the forbearance, on the part of those within, to strike him effectually down from the tree, now resolutely endeavoured to effect his entrance. His head was again fully in sight of the anxious woman - then his shoulders, and at length, resting his hand upon the sill, he strove to elevate himself by its muscular strength, so as to secure him sufficient purchase for the object at which he aimed. What could she do - weaponless, hopeless? The prospect was startling and terrible enough; but she was a strong-minded woman, and impulse served her when reflection would most probably have taught her to fly. She had but one resource; and as the Indian gradually thrust one hand forward for the hold upon the sill, and raised the other up to the side of the window, she grasped the one nighest to her own. She grasped it firmly and to advantage, as, having lifted himself on tiptoe for the purpose of ascent, he had necessarily lost much of the control which a secure hold for his feet must have given him. Her grasp sufficiently assisted him forward, to lessen still more greatly the security of his feet, while, at the same time, though bringing him still farther into the apartment, placing him in such a position as to defeat much of the muscular exercise which his limbs would have possessed in any other situation. Her weapon now would have been all-important; and the strong woman mentally deplored the precipitancy with which she had acted in the first instance, and which had so unhappily deprived her of its use. But self-reproach was unavailing now, and she was satisfied if she could retain her foe in his present position, by which, keeping him out, or in and out, as she did, she necessarily excluded all other foes from the aperture which he so completely filled up. The intruder, though desirous enough of entrance before, was rather reluctant to obtain it now, under existing circumstances. He strove desperately to effect a retreat, but had advanced too far, however, to be easily successful; and, in his confusion and disquiet, he spoke to those below in their own language, explaining his difficulty and directing their movement to his assistance. A sudden rush along the tree indicated to the conscious sense of the woman the new danger, in the approach of additional enemies, who must not only sustain but push forward the one with whom she contended. This warned her at once of the necessity of some sudden procedure, if she hoped to do any thing for her own and the safety of those around her, whom, amid all the contest, she had never once alarmed. Putting forth all her strength, therefore, though nothing in comparison with that of him whom she opposed, had he been in a condition to exert it, she strove to draw him still farther across the entrance, so as to exclude, if possible, the approach of those coming behind him. She hoped to gain time - sufficient time for those preparing the ladder to come to her relief; and with this hope, for the first time, she called aloud to Grayson and her husband. The Indian, in the meanwhile, derived the support for his person as well from the grasp of the woman, as from his own hold upon the sill of the window. Her effort necessarily drawing him still farther forward, placed him so completely in the way of his allies that they could do him little service while things remained in this situation, and, to complete the difficulties of his predicament, while they busied themselves in several efforts at his extrication, the branches of the little tree, resting against the dwelling, yielding suddenly to the unusual weight upon it - trembling and sinking away at last - cracked beneath the burden, and snapping off from their several holds, fell from under them, dragging against the building in their progress down, thus breaking their fall, and finally settling heavily upon the ground. Down went the three savages who had so readily ascended to the assistance of their comrade - bruised and very much hurt; - while he, now without any support but that which he derived from the sill, and what little his feet could secure from the irregular crevices between the logs of which the house had been built, was hung in air, unable to advance except at the will of his woman opponent, and dreading a far worse fall from his eminence than that which had already happened to his allies. Desperate with his situation, he thrust his arm, as it was still held by the woman, still farther into the window, and thus enabled her with both hands to secure and strengthen the grasp which she had originally taken upon it. This she did with a new courage, and strength derived from the voices below, by which she understood a promise of assistance. Excited and nerved, she drew the extended arm of the Indian, in spite of all his struggles, directly over the sill, so as to turn the elbow completely down upon it. With her whole weight employed, bending down to the floor to strengthen herself to the task, she pressed the arm across the window until her ears heard the distinct, clear, crack of the bone - until she heard the groan, and felt the awful struggles of the suffering wretch, twisting himself round with all his effort to obtain for it a natural and relaxed position, and, with this object, leaving his hold upon every thing, only sustained, indeed, by the grasp of his enemy. But the movement of the woman had been quite too sudden, her nerves too firm, and her strength too great to suffer him to succeed. The jagged splinters of the broken limb were thrust up, lacerating and tearing through flesh and skin, while a howl of the acutest agony attested the severity of that suffering which could extort such an acknowledgment from the American savage. He fainted in his pain, and as the weight increased upon her arm, the nature of her sex began to resume its sway. With a shudder of every fibre, she released her hold upon him. The effort of her soul was over - a strange sickness came upon her, and she was just conscious of a crashing fall of the heavy body among the branches at the foot of the window, when she staggered back, fainting, into the arms of her husband, who, just at that moment, ascended to her relief.

THESE slight defeats were sufficiently annoying in themselves to the invaders - they were more so as they proved not only the inadequacy of their present mode of assault, but the watchfulness of the beleaguered garrison. Their hope had been to take the borderers by surprise. Failing to succeed in this, they were now thrown all aback. Their fury was consequently more than ever exaggerated by their losses, and rushing forward in their desperation, through, and in defiance of, the fire from the Carolinians, the greater number placed themselves beneath the line of pickets with so much celerity as to baffle, in most respects, the aim of the defenders. A few remained to bear away the wounded and slain to a place of safe shelter in the thick woods, while the rest lay, either in quiet under the walls of the Block House, secure there from the fire of the garrison, or amused themselves in unavailing cries of sarcasm to those within, while impotently expending blows upon the insensible logs between them. The elder Grayson, who directed solely the movements of the beleaguered, was not unwilling that the assailants should amuse themselves after this fashion, as the delay of the Indians was to them the gain of time, which was all they could expect at such a period, and perhaps in a predatory warfare like the present, all they could desire.

But Ishiagaska with his force now came upon the scene, and somewhat changed the aspect of affairs. He took the entire command, reinvigorated their efforts, and considerably altered the mode and direction of attack. He was a subtle partisan, and the consequences of his appearance were soon perceptible in the development of events. The force immediately beneath the walls, and secure from the shot of the garrison, were reinforced, and in so cautious a manner, that the Carolinians were entirely ignorant of their increased strength in that quarter. Creeping, as they did, from bush to bush - now lying prone and silent to the ground, in utter immobility - now rushing, as circumstances prompted, with all rapidity - they put themselves into cover, crossing the intervening space without the loss of a man. Having thus gathered in force beneath the walls of the fortress, the greater number, while the rest watched, proceeded to gather up in piles, as they had begun to do before, immense quantities of the dry pine trash and the gummy turpentine wood which the neighbourhood readily afforded. This they clustered in thick masses around the more accessible points of the pickets; and the first intimation which the garrison had of their proceeding was a sudden gust of flame, blazing first about the gate of the area, on one side of the Block House, then rushing from point to point with amazing rapidity, sweeping and curling widely around the building itself. The gate, and the pickets all about it, studiously made as they had been of the rich pine, for its great durability, was as ready an ally of the destructive element as the Indians could have chosen; and, licked greedily by the fire, were soon ignited. Blazing impetuously, it soon aroused the indwellers to a more acute consciousness of the danger now at hand. A fierce shout of their assailants, as they beheld the rapid progress of the experiment, warned them to greater exertion if they hoped to escape the dreadful fate which threatened to ingulf them. To remain where they were, was to be consumed in the flames; to rush forth, was to encounter the tomahawks of an enemy four times their number.

It was a moment of gloomy necessity, that which assembled the chief defenders of the fortress to a sort of war-council. They could only deliberate - to fight was out of the question. Their enemy now was one to whom they could oppose

The Indians showed no front for assault or aim, while the flames, rushing from point to point, and seizing upon numerous places at once, continued to advance with a degree of celerity which left it impossible, in the dry condition of its timber, that the Block House could possibly, for any length of time, escape. Upon the building itself the savages could not fix the fire at first. But two ends of it were directly accessible to them, and these were without any entrance, had been pierced with holes for musketry, and were well watched by the vigilant eyes within. The two sides were enclosed by the line of pickets, and had no need of other guardianship. The condition of affairs was deplorable. The women wept and prayed, the children screamed, and the men, gathering generally in the long apartment of the lower story, with heavy hearts and solemn faces, proceeded to ask counsel of each other in the last resort. Some lay around on the loose plank - here and there along the floor a bearskin formed the place of rest for a huge and sullen warrior, vexed with the possession of strength which he was not permitted to employ. A few watched at the musket holes, and others busied themselves in adjusting all things for the final necessity, so far as their thoughts or fancies could possibly divine its shape.

The principal men of the garrison were gathered in the centre of the hall, sitting with downcast heads and fronting one another, along two of the uncovered sleepers; their muskets resting idly between their legs, their attitudes and general expression of abandon signifying clearly the due increase of apprehension in their minds with the progress of the flames. Broad flashes of light from the surrounding conflagration illuminated, but could not enliven, the sombre character of that grouping. A general pause ensued after their assemblage - none seeming willing or able to offer counsel, and Grayson himself, the brave forester in command, evidently at fault in the farther business before them. Nichols was the only man to break the silence, which he did in his usual manner.

“And why, my friends, are we here assembled?” was his sagacious inquiry, looking round as he spoke upon his inattentive coadjutors. A forced smile on the faces of several, but not a word, attested their several estimates of the speaker. He proceeded.

“That is the question, my friends - why are we here assembled? I answer, for the good of the people. We are here to protect them if we can, and to perish for and with them if we must. I cannot forget my duties to my country, and to those in whose behalf I stand before the hatchet of the Indian, and the cannon of the Spaniard. These teach me, and I would teach it to you, my friends - to fight, to hold out to the last. We may not think of surrender, my friends, until other hope is gone. Whatever be the peril, till that moment be it mine to encounter it - whatever be the privation, till that moment I am the man to endure it. Be it for me, at least, though I stand alone in this particular, to do for the people whatever wisdom or valour may do until the moment comes which shall call on us for surrender. The question now, my friends, is simply this - has that moment come or not? I pause for a reply.”

“Who talks of surrender?” growled the smith, as he cast a glance of ferocity to the speaker. “Who talks of surrender at all, to these cursed bloodhounds; the red-skins that hunt for nothing but our blood. We cannot surrender if we would - we must fight, die, do any thing but surrender!”

“So say I - I am ready to fight and die for my country. I say it now, as I have said it a hundred times before, but - ” The speech which Nichols had thus begun, the smith again interrupted with a greater bull-dog expression than ever.

“Ay, so you have, and so will say a hundred times more - with as little sense in it one time as another. We are all here to die, if there's any need for it; but that isn't the trouble. It's how we are to die - that's the question. Are we to stay here and be burnt to death like timber-rats - to sally out and be shot, or to volunteer, as I do now, axe in hand, to go out and cut down the pickets that immediately join the house? By that we may put a stop to the fire, and then we shall have a clear dig at the savages that lie behind them. I'm for that. If anybody's willing to go along with me, let him up hands - no talk - we have too much of that already.”

“I'm ready - here!” cried Grayson, and his hands were thrust up at the instant.

“No, Wat,” cried the smith - “not you - you must stay and manage here. Your head's the coolest, and though I'd sooner have your arm alongside of me in the rough time than any other two that I know of, 'twon't do to take you from the rest on this risk. Who else is ready? - let him come to the scratch and no long talk about it. What do you say, Nichols? that's chance enough for you, if you really want to die for the people.” And as Grimstead spoke, he thrust his head forward, while his eyes peered into the very bosom of the little doctor, and his axe descended to the joist over which he stood with a thundering emphasis that rung through the apartment.

“I can't use the axe,” cried Nichols, hurriedly. “It's not my instrument. Sword or pistol for me. In their exercise I give way to no man, and in their use I ask for no leader. But I am neither woodman nor blacksmith.”

“And this is your way of dying for the good of the people!” said the smith, contemptuously.

“I am willing even now - I say it again, as I have before said, and as now I solemnly repeat it. But I must die for them after my own fashion, and under proper circumstances. With sword in hand, crossing the perilous breach - with weapon befitting the use of a noble gentleman, I am ready; but I know not any rule in patriotism that would require of me to perish for my country with the broad-axe of a wood-chopper, the cleaver of a butcher, or the sledge of a blacksmith in my hands.”

“Well, I'm no soldier,” retorted the smith; “but I think a man, to be really willing to die for his country, shouldn't be too nice as to which way he does it. Now the sword and the pistol are of monstrous little use here. The muskets from these holes above and below will keep off the Indians, while a few of us cut down the stakes; so, now, men, as time grows short, Grayson, you let the boys keep a sharp look-out with the ticklers, and I'll for the timber, let him follow who will. There are boys enough, I take it, to go with Dick Grimstead, though they may none of them be very anxious to die for their country.”

Thus saying, and having received the sanction of Grayson to this, the only project from which any thing could be expected, the blacksmith pushed forward, throwing open the door leading to the area which the fire in great part now beleaguered - while Grayson made arrangements to command the ground with his musketry, and to keep the entrance, thus opened for Grimstead and his party, with his choicest men. The blacksmith was one of those blunt, burly fellows, who take with the populace. It was not difficult for him to procure three men where twenty were ready. They had listened with much sympathy to the discussion narrated, and as the pomposity and assumption of Nichols had made him an object of vulgar ridicule, a desire to rebuke him, not less than a willingness to go with the smith, contributed readily to persuade them to the adventure. In a few moments the door was unbarred, and the party sallied forth through the entrance, which was kept ajar for their ingress, and well watched by half a dozen of the stoutest men in the garrison, Grayson at their head. Nichols went above to direct the musket-men, while his mind busied itself in conning over the form of a capitulation, which he thought it not improbable he should have to frame with the chiefs of the besieging army. In this labour he had but one cause of vexation, which arose from the necessity he would be under, in enumerating the prisoners, of putting himself after Grayson, the commander.

In the meanwhile, with sleeves rolled up, jacket off, and face that seemed not often to have been entirely free from the begriming blackness of his profession, Grimstead commenced his tremendous blows upon the contiguous pickets, followed with like zeal, if not equal power, by the three men who had volunteered along with him. Down went the first post beneath his arm, and as, with resolute spirit, he was about to assail another, a huge Santee warrior stood in the gap which he had made, and with a powerful blow from the mace which he carried, had our blacksmith been less observant, would have soon finished his career. But Grimstead was a man of agility as well as strength and spirit, and leaping aside from the stroke, as his eye rose to the corresponding glance from that of his enemy, he gave due warning to his axe-men, who forbore their strokes under his command. The aperture was yet too small for any combat of the parties; and, ignorant of the force against him, surprised also at their appearance, he despatched one of his men to Grayson, and gave directions, which, had they been complied with, had certainly given them the advantage.

“Now, boys, you shall have fun - I have sent for some hand-to-hand men to do the fighting, while we do the chopping, - and Nichols, who loves dying so much, can't help coming along with them. He's the boy for sword and pistol - he's no woodcutter. Well, many a better chap than he's had to chop wood for an honest living. But we'll see now what he is good for. Let him come.”

“Oh, he's all flash in the pan, Grimstead. His tongue is mustard-seed enough, but it 'taint the shot. But what's that - ?”

The speaker, who was one of Grimstead's comrades, might well ask, for first a crackling, then a whirling crash, announced the fall at length of the huge gate to the entrance of the court. A volume of flame and cinders, rising with the gust which it created, rushed up, obscuring for a moment and blinding all things around it; but, as it subsided, the Indians lying in wait on the outside, and whom no smoke could blind, leaped with uplifted tomahawks through the blazing ruins, and pushed forward to the half-opened entrance of the Block House. The brave blacksmith, admirably supported, threw himself in the way, and was singled out by the huge warrior who had struck at him through the picket. The savage was brave and strong, but he had his match in the smith, whose courage was indomitable and lively, while his strength was surpassed by that of few. Wielding his axe with a degree of ease that, of itself, warned the enemy what he had to expect, it was but a moment before the Indian gave way before him. But the smith was not disposed to allow a mere acknowledgment of his superiority to pass for a victory. He pressed him back upon his comrades, while his own three aids, strong and gallant themselves, following his example, drove the intruders upon the blaze which flamed voluminously around them. Already a severe wound, which almost severed the arm of the Santee warrior from its trunk, had confirmed the advantage gained by the whites, while severe hatchet wounds had diminished not a little the courage of his Indian fellows, when, of a sudden, a new party came upon the scene of combat, changing entirely its face and character, and diminishing still more the chances of the Carolinians. This was Chorley, the captain of the pirate. Having lodged his captives, as we have seen, in a little hovel on the river's brink, under a small guard of his own seamen, he had proceeded with all due speed upon the steps of Ishiagaska. He arrived opportunely for the band which had been placed along the walls of the Block House, in ambush, and whose daring had at length carried them into the outer defences of the fortress. A single shot from one of his men immediately warned the smith and his brave comrades of the new enemy before them, and while stimulating afresh the courage of their savage assailants, it materially diminished their own. They gave back - the three survivors - one of the party having fallen in the first discharge. The Indians rushed upon them, and thus throwing themselves between, for a time defeated the aim of Chorley's musketeers. Fighting like a lion, as he retreated to the door of the Block House, the brave smith continued to keep unharmed, making at the same time some little employment in the shape of ugly wounds to dress, in the persons of his rash assailants. Once more they gave back before him, and again the musketry of Chorley was enabled to tell upon him. A discharge from the Block House in the meantime retorted with good effect the attack of the sailors, and taught a lesson of caution to Chorley, of which he soon availed himself. Three of his men bit the dust in that single fire; and the Indians, suffering more severely, fled at the discharge. The brave smith reached the door with a single unwounded follower, himself unhurt. His comrades threw open the entrance for his reception, but an instant too late. A parting shot from the muskets of the seamen was made with a fatal effect. Grimstead sunk down upon the threshold as the bullet passed through his body - the axe fell from his hand - he grasped at it convulsively, and lay extended in part upon the sill of the door, when Grayson drew him in safety within, and again securely closed it.

“You are not hurt, Dick, my old fellow,” exclaimed Grayson, his voice trembling with the apprehensions which he felt.

“Hurt enough, Wat - bad enough. No more grist ground at that mill. But, hold in - don't be frightened - you can lick 'em yet. Ah,” he groaned, in a mortal agony.

They composed his limbs, and pouring some spirits down his throat, he recovered in a few moments, and convulsively inquired for his axe.

“I wouldn't lose it - it was dad's own axe, and must go to brother Tom when I die.”

“Die indeed, Dick - don't think of such a thing,” said Grayson.

“I don't, Wat - I leave that to Nichols - but get the axe - ah! God - it's here - here - where's Tom?”

His brother, a youth of sixteen, came down to him from the upper apartment where he had been stationed and kneeling over him, tried to support his head - but the blood gushed in a torrent from his mouth. He strove to speak, but choked in the effort. A single convulsion, which turned him upon his face, and the struggle was all over. The battles of the smith were done.

THE force brought up by the younger Grayson, and now led by Harrison, came opportunely to the relief of the garrison. The flames had continued to rage, unrestrained, so rapidly around the building, that its walls were at length greedily seized upon by the furious element, and the dense smoke, gathering through all its apartments, alone was sufficient to compel the retreat of its defenders. Nothing now was left them in their desperation but to sally forth even upon the knives and hatchets of their merciless and expecting foe; and for this last adventure, so full of danger, so utterly wanting in a fair promise of any successful result, the sturdy foresters prepared. Fortunately for this movement, it was just about this period that the approach of Harrison, with his party, compelled the besiegers to change their position, in order the better to contend with him; and, however reluctant to suffer the escape of those so completely in their power, and for whose destruction they had already made so many sacrifices of time and life, they were compelled to do so in the reasonable fear of an assault upon two sides - from the garrison before them, impelled by desperation, and from the foe in their rear, described by their scouts as in rapid advance to the relief of the Block House. The command was shared jointly between Chorley and Ishiagaska. The former had fared much worse than his tawny allies; for, not so well skilled in the artifices of land and Indian warfare, seven out of the twenty warriors whom he commanded had fallen victims in the preceding conflicts. His discretion had become somewhat more valuable, therefore, when reminded by the scanty force remaining under his command, not only of his loss, but of his present weakness; a matter of no little concern, as he well knew that his Indian allies, in their capricious desperation, might not be willing to discriminate between the whites who had befriended, and those who had been their foes.

Thus, counselled by necessity, the assailing chiefs drew off their forces from the Block House, and sinking into cover, prepared to encounter their new enemies, after the fashion of their warfare. Ignorant in the meantime of the approach of Harrison or the force under him, Grayson wondered much at this movement of the besiegers, of which he soon had intelligence, and instantly prepared to avail himself of the privilege which it gave to the garrison of flight. He called his little force together, and having arranged, before leaving its shelter, the progress and general movement of his party, he carefully placed the women and children in the centre of his little troop, sallied boldly forth into the woods, conscious of all the dangers of the movement, but strengthened with all those thoughts of lofty cheer with which the good Providence, at all times, inspires the spirit of adventure, in the hour of its trying circumstance. There was something of pleasure in their very release from the confined circuit of the Block House, though now more immediately exposed to the tomahawk of the Indian; and with the pure air, and the absence of restraint, the greater number of the foresters grew even cheerful and glad - a change of mood in which even the women largely partook. Some few indeed, of the more Puritanical among them, disposed to think themselves the especial charge of the Deity, and holding him not less willing than strong to save, under any circumstances, even went so far as to break out into a hymn of exultation and rejoicing, entirely forgetting the dangers still hanging around them, and absolutely contending warmly with Grayson when he undertook to restrain them. Not the least refractory of these was his own mother, who, in spite of all he could say, mouthed and muttered continually, and every now and then burst forth into starts of irrepressible psalmody, sufficient to set the entire tribe of Indians unerringly upon their track. The remonstrance of Grayson had little effect, except when he reminded her of his younger brother. The idolized Hugh, and his will, were her law in most things. Appealing to his authority, and threatening complaint to him, he succeeded in making her silent, at least to a certain extent. Entire silence was scarcely possible with the old dame, who likened her escape from the flaming Block House, and, so far, from the hands of the savage, to every instance of Providential deliverance she had ever read of in the sacred volume; and still, under the stimulus of such a feeling, broke out every now and then, with sonorous emphasis, into song, from an old collection of the period, every atom of which she had familiarly at the end of her tongue. A moment had not well elapsed after the first suggestion of Grayson, when, as if unconsciously, she commenced again: -

“Now, mother, in the name of common sense, can't you be quiet?”

“And wherefore should we not send up the hymn of rejoicing and thanksgiving for all his mercies, to the Father who has stood beside us in the hour of peril? Wherefore, I ask of you, Walter Grayson? Oh, my son, beware of self-conceit and pride of heart; and because you have here commanded earthly and human weapons, think not, in the vanity of your spirit, that the victory comes from such as these. The Saviour of men, my son - it is he that has fought this fight. It is his sword that has smitten the savage hip and thigh, and brought us free out of the land of bondage, even as he brought his people of old from the bondage of the Egyptians. He is mighty to save, and therefore should we rejoice with an exceeding strong voice.” And as if determined to sustain amply the propriety she insisted on, her lungs were never more tasked than when she sung: -

“For Heaven's sake, mother - hush your tongue - if it be in you to keep it quiet for a moment. Let it rest only for a little while, or we shall all be scalped. Wait till daylight, and you may then sing to your heart's content. It can't be long till daylight, and you can then begin, but not till then, or we shall have the savages on our track, and nothing can save us.”

DAY dawned, and the sun rose clearly and beautifully over the scattered bands of the forest. The Indians were fairly defeated, Ishiagaska slain, and Chorley, the pirate, uninfluenced by any of those feelings of nationality in the present case, which would have prompted him to a desperate risk of his own person in a struggle so utterly unlooked-for, as soon as he saw the final and complete character of the defeat, silently withdrew, with his few remaining followers, from farther conflict. He had another care upon his hands beside that of his own safety. There was one reward - one spoil - with which he consoled himself for his disaster - and that was Bess Matthews. Filled with a fierce passion, as he thought of her, he took his way, unseen by the victorious Carolinians, toward the little cot on the river's edge, in which he had left his prisoners. Circumstances had materially altered from what they were at the time when they became so. He was no longer able to control, with an imposing and superior force, the progress, either of his Indian allies or of his Carolinian enemies. He had not foreseen, any more than the Yemassees, the state of preparation in which the settlers about the Pocota-ligo had met the invasion. He had looked to find invasion and conquest one - and had never dreamed of opposition, much less of a defence which would prove so completely successful. The energies of a single man, his address, farsightedness, and circumspection, had done all this. To the perseverance and prudence of Harrison - his devotedness to the cause he had undertaken, the borderers owed their safety. But of this the pirate chief knew nothing; and, anticipating no such provident management, he had fearlessly leagued himself with the savages, stimulated by passions as sanguinary as theirs, and without that redeeming sense of national character and feeling - that genuine love of country, which not only accounted for, but exculpated the people of whom he was the unworthy ally. But he had lost all that he came for - all objects but one. His best followers had fallen victims - his hope of spoil had in great part been defeated, and though he had shed blood the quantity was as nothing to one with whom such had been a familiar indulgence. Yet, with a voluptuous appetite, he had won a prize which promised him enjoyment, if it could not compensate his losses. The beautiful Bess Matthews - the young, the budding, the sweet. She was in his power - a trembling dove in the grasp of the fowler. The thought was as so much fire to his fancy, and he sought the cottage in which he had secured her with a fierce and feverish thirst - a brutal sense at work in his mind, stimulating him to an utter disregard of humanity, and prompting the complete violation of all ties of kindred, as he meditated to tear her away from the bosom of her parents.

About a mile from the hovel in which the family of the pastor was immured lay the guarda-costa. There was an air of bustle on board of her, in the unreeling of sails, and the waving and rustling of her ropes. The tide of battle had alternated from spot to spot along the banks of the river - now lost in the density of the forest, and now finding a full reverberation from the bosom of the water. The firing had alarmed all parties, the seamen remaining on board, not less than the old pastor and his timid wife and trembling daughter, who, only conscious of the struggle, and not of its results, were filled with a thousand tearful anticipations. To Bess Matthews, however, the strife brought with it a promise, since it proved that the Carolinians were prepared, in part at least, for their invaders - and many were the fluctuations of hope and fear in her soul, as the gathering clamour now approached and now receded in the distance. Love taught her that Harrison was the leader making such bold head against the enemy - love promised her, as the battle dissipated, that he would come and rescue her from a position in which she did not well know whether to regard herself as a captive to the seaman, or as one owing him gratitude for her own and the preservation of her family. She remembered his lustful eye and insolent speech and gesture, and she trembled as she thought of it. True, her father knew him in his boyhood, but his account of him was rather tolerant than favourable; and the subsequent life and conduct of the licentious rover - not to speak of the suspicions openly entertained of his true character by her lover, all taught her to fear the protection which he had given, and to dread, while she seemed to anticipate, the price of it.

She had no long time for doubt, and but little for deliberation. He came - bloody with conflict - covered with dust, blackened with gunpowder - the fierce flame of war in his eye, and in his hand the bared weapon, streaked with fresh stains, only partially covered with the sand through which it had been drawn. His manner was impatient and stern, as, without addressing either of his captives, he called aside and gave directions to his seamen. The pastor craved his attention, but he waved his hand impatiently, nor turned to him for an instant, until he had despatched two of his men to the edge of the stream, where, well concealed by the shrubbery upon its banks, lay the small boat of the vessel, which had been carefully placed there by his orders. They gave him a shrill whistle as they reached it, which he immediately returned - then approaching the pastor, he scrupled not an instant in the development of the foul design which he had all along meditated.

“Hark ye, Matthews - this is no place for us now - I can't protect ye any longer. I havn't the men - they are cut up - slashed - dead - eleven of the finest fellows - best men of my vessel - by this time, without a scalp among them. I have done my best to save you, but it's all over, and there's but one way - you must go with us on board.”

“How, Chorley - go with you - and wherefore? I cannot - I will not.”

“What, will not? Do you think I'll let you stay to lose your scalps, and this sweet darling here? No, by my soul, I were no man to suffer it. You shall go.”

“What mean you, Chorley? Are the savages successful - have they defeated our men? - And you - wherefore do you fly - how have you fought - with us - for our people?”

The old pastor, half bewildered, urged these questions incoherently, but yet with such directness of aim as almost to bewilder the person he addressed, who could not well answer them. How, as he argued, if the Yemassees had defeated the Carolinians - how was it that Chorley, who had evidently been their ally, could not exert his power and protect them? and, on the other hand, if the Carolinians had been the victors, wherefore should they fly from their own people? Unable well to meet these propositions, the native fierce impetuosity of the pirate came to his relief, and throwing aside entirely the conciliatory manner of his first address, he proceeded in a style more congenial with his true character.

“Shall I stay all day disputing with you about this nonsense? I tell you, you shall go, whether you will or not. Look, I have the power - look at these men - can you withstand them? In a word, they force you to the ship, and all your talking - ay, and all your struggling, will help you nothing. Come - away.”

“Never - never! Oh father, let us die first!” was the involuntary exclamation of the maiden, convulsively clinging to the old man's arm as the ruffian took a step toward her.

“Captain Chorley, I cannot think you mean this violence!” said the old man with dignity.

“May I be d-d,” said he fiercely, “but I do! What, old man, shall I leave you here to be made mincemeat of by the Indians? No, no! I love you and your pretty daughter too well for that. Come, sweetheart, don't be shy - what! do you fear me, then!”

“Touch me not - touch me not with your bloody hands. Away! I will not go - strike me dead first - strike me dead, but I will not go.”

“But you shall! what! think you I am a child to be put off with words and pretty speeches? What, ho! there, boys - do as I have told you.”

In a moment, the pastor and his child were torn asunder.

“Father - help - help! I lose thee - mother - father - Gabriel!”

“Villain, release me - give me back my child. Undo your hold - you shall suffer for this. Ha! ha! ha! - they come - they come! Hurry, hurry, my people. Here - here - we are here - they tear away my child. Where are you - oh, Harrison, but come now - come now, and she is yours - only save her from the hands of this fierce ruffian. They come - they come!”

They did come - the broad glare of sunlight on the edge of the forest was darkened by approaching shadows. A shot - another and another were heard - and the fugitives, who were Indians flying from the pursuing Carolinians, rushed forward headlong; but as they saw the group of whites on the river's brink, thinking them new enemies, they darted aside, and taking another route, buried themselves in the forest out of sight just as their pursuers came forth upon the scene. A single glance of Bess Matthews, as the ruffian suddenly seized upon and bore her to the boat, distinguished the manly form of her lover darting out of the thicket and directly upon the path approaching them. That glance gave her new hope - new courage - new strength! She shrieked to him in a voice delirious with terror and hope, as the pirate, steadying himself in the water, placed her in the boat in which sat two of his seamen.

“Come to me, Gabriel - save me, save me, or I perish. It is I - thy own Bess - ever thine - save me, save me.”

She fell back fainting with exhaustion and excitement, and lay nerveless and almost senseless in the arms of her abductor. He sustained her with perfect ease with one arm upon his bosom, while, standing erect, for the boat scarce permitted him with his burden to do otherwise, he placed his foot upon the slender rudder and guided its progress, his men looking round occasionally and suggesting the course of the vessel. In this way, he kept his eye upon shore, and beheld the progress of events in that quarter.

The cries of his betrothed had taught Harrison the condition of affairs. He saw her precarious situation at a glance, and rushing down to the beach, followed by his men, the seamen fled along the banks higher up the river, and were soon out of sight, leaving the old pastor and his lady free. The scene before him was too imposing in the eye of Harrison to permit of his giving the fugitives a thought. But the pastor, now free from restraint, with a speechless agony rushed forward to him, and clasping his arm, pointed with his finger to the form of his daughter, hanging like a broken flower, supine, and almost senseless, upon the shoulder of her Herculean captor. The action of Harrison was immediate, and in a moment, the musketoon was lifted to his shoulder, his eye ranging upon the sight, and singling out the exposed breast of the pirate, which lay uncovered, but just alongside of the drooping head of the maiden. As the seaman saw the movement, he changed her position - she saw it too, and lifting her hand, placed it, with an emphasis not to be mistaken, upon her heart. The old man rushed forward, and seizing Harrison, cried to him convulsively, while the tears trickled down his cheeks -

“Stay thy hand - stay thy hand - shoot not; rather let me lose her, but let her live - thou wilt slay her, thou wilt slay my child - my own, my only child,” and he tottered like an infant in his deep agony.

“Away, old man - away!” and with the words, with a terrible strength, Harrison hurled him headlong upon the sands. Without a pause the fearful instrument was again uplifted - the aim was taken, - his finger rested on the trigger, but his heart sickened - his head swam - his eyes grew blind and dizzy ere he drew it; and with a shiver of convulsion, he let the weapon descend heavily to the ground. The weakness was only momentary. A faint scream came to his ears over the water, and brought back with it all his strength. The maiden had watched closely all his motions, and the last had given her energy somewhat to direct them. That scream aroused him. He resumed his position and aim; and fixing the sight upon that part of the bosom of his enemy least concealed, nerved himself to all the hazard, and resolutely drew the trigger. The effect was instantaneous. The next instant the maiden was seen released from the pirate's grasp and sinking down in the bottom of the boat, while he stood erect. The venerable pastor fainted, while, on her knees, his aged wife bent over him in silent prayer. That moment was more than death to Harrison; but what was his emotion of delight when, at the next, he beheld the pirate, like some gigantic tree that has kept itself erect by its own exceeding weight, fall, like a tower, headlong over the side of the boat, stiff and rigid, and without a struggle, sink deeply and silently down beneath the overclosing waters. But a new danger awaited the maiden; for in his fall, destroying the equipoise of the skiff, its entire contents were at the next instant precipitated into the stream; and while the two seamen, unhurt, struck off toward the vessel, the maiden lay in sight, sustained above the surface only by the buoyancy of her dress, and without exhibiting any other motion. A dozen sinewy arms from the shore at once struck the water, but which of all, nerved as he was by the highest stimulant of man's nature, could leave the fearless Harrison behind him? On he dashes, on - on - now he nears her, - another moment and she is saved; but while every eye was fixed as with a spell upon the prospect with an anxiety inexpressible, the sullen gushing waters went over her, and a universal cry of horror arose from the shore. - But she rose again in an instant, and with a show of consciousness, stretching out her hand, the name of “Gabriel,” in a tone of imploring love, reached the ears of her lover. That tone, that word, was enough, and the next moment found her insensible in his arms. She was a child in his grasp, for the strength of his fearless and passionate spirit, not less than of his native vigour, was active to save her.

“Help - help,” was his cry to the rest, and to the shore, - he sustained her till it came. It was not long ere she lay in the arms of her parents, whose mutual tears and congratulations came sweetly, along with their free consent, to make her preserver happy with the hand hitherto denied him.