ady
their eyes were turned in terror, for the red blaze of the burning huts
was seen, miles off, in the bay. Scarcely had the first boat neared the
shore, when a volley of fire-arms poured in upon her--while the war-cry
that rose above it, told them their hour was come. The Indians were
several hundred in number, armed to the teeth; the others few, and
without a single weapon. Contest, it was none. The slaughter scarce
lasted many minutes, for ere the flame from the distant rock subsided,
the last white man lay a corpse on the bloody strand. Such was the
terrible retribution on crime, and at the very moment too, when their
cruel hearts were bent on its perpetration.

"This tale, which was told me in a broken jargon, between
Canadian-French and English, concluded with words, which were not to me,
at the time, the least shocking part of the story; as the narrator, with
glistening eyes, and in a voice whose guttural tones seemed almost too
thick for utterance said, 'It was I, that planned it!'

"You will ask me, by what chance did I escape with life among such a
tribe. An accident--the merest accident--saved me. When a smuggler, as I
have already told you I was, I once, when becalmed in the Bay of Biscay,
got one of the sailors to tattoo my arm with gunpowder, a very common
practice at sea. The operator had been in the North American trade, and
had passed ten years as a prisoner among the Indians, and brought away
with him innumerable recollections of their habits and customs. Among
others, their strange idols had made a great impression on his mind;
and, as I gave him a discretionary power as to the frescos he was to
adorn me with, he painted a most American-looking savage with two faces
on his head--his body all stuck over with arrows and spear-points,
while he, apparently unmoved by such visitors, was skipping about, in
something that might be a war-dance.

"This, with all its appropriate colours--for as the heraldry folk say,
'It was proper'--was a very conspicuous object on my arm, and no sooner
seen by the chief, than he immediately knelt down beside me, dressed my
wounds and tended me; while the rest of the tribe, recognising me as one
whose existence was charmed, showed me every manner of respect, and
even devotion. Indeed, I soon felt my popularity to be my greatest
difficulty; for whatever great event was going forward among the tribe,
it became the etiquette to consult me on it, as a species of soothsayer,
an