g the weeds around Wenonga's hut, now
started suddenly forth, and displayed to his eyes the young Virginian,
who, rushing eagerly up, clasped the rescued captive in his arms,
crying,--"Forward now, for the love of Heaven! forward, forward!"

"Thee has ruined all!" cried Nathan, with bitter reproach, as Edith,
rousing from insensibility at the well known voice, opened her eyes upon
her kinsman, and, all unmindful of the place of meeting, unconscious of
everything but his presence--the presence of him whose supposed death
she had so long lamented,--sprang to his embrace with a cry of joy that
was heard over the whole square, a tone of happiness, pealing above the
rush of the winds and the uproar of men and animals. "Thee has ruined
all,--theeself and the maid! Save thee own life!"

With these words, Nathan strove to tear Edith from his grasp, to make one
more effort for her rescue; and Roland, yielding her to his superior
strength, and perceiving that a dozen Indians were running against them,
drew his tomahawk, and, with a self-devotion which marked his love, his
consciousness of error, and his heroism of character, waved Nathan away,
while he himself rushed, back upon the pursuers, not so much, however, in
the vain hope of disputing the path, as, by laying down his life on the
spot, to purchase one more hope of escape to his Edith.

The act, so unexpectedly, so audaciously bold, drew a shout of admiration
from throats which had before only uttered yells of fury: but it was
mingled with fierce laughter, as the savages, without hesitating at, or
indeed seeming at all to regard his menacing position, ran upon him in a
body, and avoiding the only blow they gave him the power to make, seized
and disarmed him,--a result that, notwithstanding his fierce and furious
struggles, was effected in less space than we have taken to describe it.
Then, leaving him in the hands of two of their number, who proceeded to
bind him securely, the others rushed after Nathan, who, though encumbered
by his burden, again inanimate, her arms clasped around his neck, as they
had been round that of her kinsman, made the most desperate exertions to
bear her off, seeming to regard her weight no more than if the burden had
been a cushion of thistle-down. He ran for a moment with astonishing
activity, leaping over bush and gully, where such crossed his path, with
such prodigious strength and suppleness of frame, as to the savages
appeared little short o