prang a huge dark shadow over his body, and there was heard the crash as
of an axe falling upon the flesh of the young Indian who slept on his
right side. A dismal shriek, the utterance of agony and terror, rose from
the barbarian's lips; and then came the sound of his footsteps, as he
darted, with a cry still wilder, into the forest, pursued by the sound
of other steps; and then all again was silent,--all save groans, and the
rustling in the grass of limbs convulsed in the death-throe at the
soldier's side.

Astounded, bewildered, and even horror-struck, by these incomprehensible
events, the work of but an instant, and all unseen by Roland, who, from
his position, could look only upwards towards the boughs and skies, he
would have thought himself in a dream, but for the agonised struggles
of the young Indian at his side, which he could plainly feel as well as
hear: until by and by they subsided, as if in sudden death. Was it a
rescue? was that shot fired by a friend? that axe wielded by a human
auxiliary? those sounds of feet dying away in the distance, were they the
steps of a deliverer? The thought was ecstacy, and he shouted aloud,
"Return, friend, and loose me! return!"

No voice replied to the shout; but it roused from the earth a dark and
bloody figure, which staggering and falling over the body of the young
warrior, crawled like a scotched reptile upon Roland's breast; when the
light of the fire shining upon it revealed to his eyes the horrible
spectacle of the old Piankeshaw warrior, the lower part of his face shot
entirely away, and his eyes rolling hideously, and, as it seemed,
sightlessly, in the pangs of death, his hand clutching the knife with
which he had so often threatened, and with which he yet seemed destined
to take, though in the last gasp of his own, the soldier's life. With one
hand he felt along the prisoner's body, as if seeking a vital part, and
sustained his own weight, while with the other he made repeated, though
feeble and ineffectual, strokes with the knife, all the time rolling, and
staggering, and shaking his gory head in a manner most horrible to
behold. But vengeance was denied the dying warrior; his blows were
offered impotently, and without aim; and becoming weaker at every effort,
his left arm at last failed to support him, and he fell across Roland's
body; in which position he immediately after expired.

In this frightful condition Roland was left, shocked, although relieved
from