ting
out the stars, it seemed to dominate the entire expanse, hovering over
us menacingly, and assuming the shape of some gigantic monster, with
leering face and cruel mouth, bending forward as if to smite us with
huge uplifted hand. Perchance our tensioned nerves may have
exaggerated the resemblance, but nothing more horribly real have my
eyes ever beheld.

For a moment I cowered, like a nerveless craven, behind the logs,
gazing up at that awful apparition, that mocking devil's-face, as a man
fronts death in some terrible and unexpected form. It seemed as if the
breath of the creature must be pestilence, and that it would smite us
gasping to earth, or draw us helplessly struggling within its merciless
clutch. A prayer trembled on my lips, but remained unuttered, for I
could only stare upward at the mighty, crawling thing now overshadowing
us, my arms uplifted in impotent effort to avert the crushing blow.

I could hear the girl sob where she had sunk upon the platform, and
caught one glimpse of De Croix, his face yellow in the weird glare as
he stared in speechless terror out over the water, his hands clutching
the palisades. It was Captain Wells, who had been standing near us,
who first found voice.

"'Tis the Death-Shadow of the Miamis!" he cried, in choked accents,
striding toward us along the narrow plank, and pointing eastward. "I
knew it must come, for our doom is sealed."

What centuries of Indian superstition rested behind the fateful
utterance, I know not; but facing that horrible spectre as we did, his
words held me in speechless awe. In the blood of us all such terrors
linger to unman the bravest; and for the moment such fright and panic
swept me as I have never known before or since. I, who have laughed at
death even in the hour of torture, sank in deadly agony before that
mystery of light and shadow, as if it indeed foreshadowed the wrath of
the Great Spirit.

The sobs of Mademoiselle recalled me somewhat to myself, and led me to
forget my own terror that I might help to relieve hers.

"I beg you, fear not," I urged, though my voice trembled and my lips
were dry. "Come, Mademoiselle," and I found her hand and clasped it,
feeling the touch a positive relief to my unstrung nerves, "look up and
see! the cloud is even now breaking asunder, and has already lost much
of its form of terror. Mind not the words of Captain Wells; he has
been raised among the Indians, and drunk in their superstitions.