ageous
defenders, might have bidden defiance to thrice the number of barbarians
that had actually succeeded in storming it. Its present appearance was
ruinous and melancholy in the extreme. The stockade was in great part
destroyed, especially in front, where the stakes seemed to have been
rooted up by the winds, or to have fallen from sheer decay; and the right
wing or cot, that had suffered most from the flames, lay a black and
mouldering-pile of logs, confusedly heaped on its floor, or on the earth
beneath. The only part of the building yet standing was the cot on the
left hand, which consisted of but a single room, and that, as Roland
perceived at a glance, almost roofless and ready to fall.

Nothing could be more truly cheerless and forbidding than the appearance
of the ruined pile; and the hoarse and dismal rush of the river below,
heard the more readily by reason of a deep rocky fissure, or ravine,
running from the rear yard to the water's edge, through which the sound
ascended in hollow echoes, added double horror to its appearance. It was,
moreover, obviously insecure and untenable against any resolute enemy, to
whom the ruins of the fallen wing and stockade and the rugged depths of
the ravine offered much more effectual shelter, as well as the best place
of annoyance. The repugnance, however, that Roland felt to occupy it even
for a few hours, was combatted by Nathan, who represented that the ford
at which he designed crossing the river, several miles farther down,
could not be safely attempted until the rise of the waning moon, or
until the clouds should disperse, affording them the benefit of the dim
star-light; that the road to it ran through swamps and hollows, now
submerged, in which could be found no place of rest for the females,
exhausted by fatigue and mental suffering; and that the ruin might be
made as secure as the Station the travellers had left; "for truly," said
he, "it is not according to my ways or conscience to leave anything to
chance or good luck, when there is Injun scent in the forest, though it
be in the forest ten miles off. Truly, friend, I design, when thee poor
tired women is sleeping, to keep watch round the ruin, with Peter to help
me; and if theeself and thee two male persons have strength to do the
same, it will be all the better for the same."

"It shall be done," said Roland, as much relieved by the suggestion as he
was pleased by the humane spirit that prompted it: "my two sold