th his grim
companion, had not his whole soul been too busily and painfully occupied
with the thoughts of his vanished Edith. He strove to ask the wild
barbarian of her fate, but the latter motioned him fiercely to keep
silence; and the motion and the savage look that accompanied it being
disregarded, the Indian drew a long knife from his belt, and pressing the
point on Roland's throat, muttered too sternly and emphatically to be
misconceived,--"Long-knife speak, Long-knife die! Piankeshaw fight
Long-knife's brudders--Piankeshaw great fighting-man!" from which all
that Roland could understand was that there was mischief of some kind
still in the wind, and that he was commanded to preserve silence on the
peril of his life. What that mischief could be he was unable to divine;
but he was not kept long in ignorance.

As he lay upon the ground, his cheek pillowed upon it stone which
accident, or perhaps the humanity of the old warrior, had placed under
his head, he could distinguish a hollow, pattering, distant sound, in
which, at first mistaken for the murmuring of the river over some rocky
ledge, and then for the clatter of wild beasts approaching over the rocky
hill, his practised ear soon detected the trampling of a body of horse,
evidently winding their way along the stony road which had conducted him
to captivity, and from which he was but a few paces removed. His heart
thrilled within him. Was it, could it be, a band of gallant Kentuckians,
in pursuit of the bold marauders, whose presence in the neighbourhood
of the settlements had been already made known? or could they be (the
thrill of expectation grew to transport, as he thought it) his fellow
emigrants, summoned by the faithful Nathan to his assistance, and now
straining every nerve to overtake the savages, whom they had tracked from
the deserted ruin? He could now account for the disappearance of his
captors, and the deathlike silence that surrounded him. Too vigilant to
be taken at unawares, and perhaps long since apprised of the coming of
the band, the Indians had resumed their hiding-places in the grass and
among the bushes, preparing for the new-comers an ambuscade similar to
that they had so successfully practised against Roland's unfortunate
party. "Let them hide as they will, detestable miscreants," he uttered to
himself with feelings of vindictive triumph; "they will not, this time,
have frightened women and a handful of dispirited fugitives to deal
with.