iers can
watch, if they cannot fight, and I shall take care they watch well."

Thus composing the difficulty, preparations were immediately made to
occupy the ruin, into which Roland, having previously entered with the
Emperor, and struck a light, introduced his weary kinswoman with her
companion Telie; while Nathan and Pardon Dodge led the horses into the
ravine, where they could be easily confined, and allowed to browse and
drink at will, being at the same time beyond the reach of observation
from any foe that might yet be prowling through the forest.

CHAPTER XIV.

The light struck by the negro was soon succeeded by a fire, for which
ample materials lay ready at hand among the ruins; and as it blazed up
from the broken and long deserted hearth, the travellers could better
view the dismal aspect of the cabin. It consisted, as has been mentioned,
of but a single remaining apartment, with walls of logs, from whose
chinks the clay, with which they had been originally plastered, had long
since vanished, with here and there a fragment of a log itself, leaving a
thousand gaps for the admission of wind and rain. The ceiling of poles
(for it had once possessed a kind of garret) had fallen down under the
weight of the rotting roof, of which but a small portion remained, and
that in the craziest condition; and the floor of _puncheons_, or planks
of split logs, was in a state of equal dilapidation, more than half of it
having rotted away, and mingled with the earth on which it reposed. Doors
and windows there were none; but two mouldering gaps in the front and the
rear walls, and another of greater magnitude opening, from the side, into
what had once been the hall or passage (though now a platform heaped with
fragments of charred timber), showed where the narrow entrance and
loop-hole windows had once existed. The former was without leaf or
defence of any kind, unless such might have been found in three or four
logs standing against the wall hard by, whence they could be easily
removed and piled against the opening; for which purpose, Roland did not
doubt they had been used, and by the houseless Nathan himself. But a
better protection was offered by the ruins of the other apartment, which
had fallen down in such a way as almost to block up the door, leaving a
passage in and out, only towards the rear of the building; and, in case
of sudden attack and seizure of this sole entrance, there were several
gaps at the bottom