his prey!
It is not too late:--let us go back!"

"An Injun, massa!" said Emperor, stuttering with fright, and yet
proceeding both to handle his arms and to give encouragement to his young
mistress, which his age and privileged character, as well as the urgency
of the occasion, entitled him to do: "don't be afraid, missie Edie;
nebber mind;--ole Emperor will fight and die for missie, old massa John's
daughter!"

"Hist!" said Roland, as another scream rose on the air, louder and more
thrilling than before.

"It is the cry of a human being!" said Edith,--"of a man in distress!"

"It is, indeed," replied the soldier,--"of a man in great peril, or
suffering. Remain here on the road; and if anything--Nay, if you will
follow me, it may be better; but let it be at a distance. If anything
happens to me, set spurs to your horses:--Telie here can at least lead
you back to the fort."

With these words, and without waiting to hear the remonstrances, or
remove the terrors of his companions, the young man turned his horse into
the wood, and guided by the cries, which were almost incessant, soon
found himself in the vicinity of the place from which they proceeded. It
was a thick grove of beeches of the colossal growth of the west, their
stems as tall and straight as the pines of the Alleghanies, and their
boughs, arched and pendulous like those of the elm, almost sweeping the
earth below, over which they cast shadows so dark that scarce anything
was visible beneath them, save their hoary and spectral trunks.

As Roland, followed by his little party, approached this spot, the cries
of the unknown, and as yet unseen, sufferer, fearful even at a distance,
grew into the wildest shrieks of fear, mingled with groans, howls, broken
prayers and execrations, and half-inarticulate expressions, now of
fondling entreaty, now of fierce and frantic command, that seemed
addressed to a second person hard by.

A thousand strange and appalling conceits had crept into Roland's mind,
when he first heard the cries. One while he almost fancied he had
stumbled upon a gang of savages, who were torturing a prisoner to death;
another moment, he thought the yells must proceed from some unlucky
hunter, perishing by inches in the grasp of a wild beast, perhaps a bear
or panther, with which animals it was easy to believe the forest might
abound. With such horrible fancies oppressing his mind, his surprise
may be imagined, when, having cocked his rifle and