these savages is possessed of an evil spirit that
no power short of Omnipotence can tame. I have tried him sleeping and
waking, but neither sounds nor language seem to touch his soul."

"Where is the knave?" bluntly interrupted the scout.

"He hunts the moose to-day, with his young men; and tomorrow, as I hear,
they pass further into the forests, and nigher to the borders of Canada.
The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighboring people, whose lodges
are situate beyond yonder black pinnacle of rock; while the younger
is detained among the women of the Hurons, whose dwellings are but two
short miles hence, on a table-land, where the fire had done the office
of the axe, and prepared the place for their reception."

"Alice, my gentle Alice!" murmured Heyward; "she has lost the
consolation of her sister's presence!"

"Even so. But so far as praise and thanksgiving in psalmody can temper
the spirit in affliction, she has not suffered."

"Has she then a heart for music?"

"Of the graver and more solemn character; though it must be acknowledged
that, in spite of all my endeavors, the maiden weeps oftener than she
smiles. At such moments I forbear to press the holy songs; but there are
many sweet and comfortable periods of satisfactory communication,
when the ears of the savages are astounded with the upliftings of our
voices."

"And why are you permitted to go at large, unwatched?"

David composed his features into what he intended should express an air
of modest humility, before he meekly replied:

"Little be the praise to such a worm as I. But, though the power of
psalmody was suspended in the terrible business of that field of blood
through which we have passed, it has recovered its influence even over
the souls of the heathen, and I am suffered to go and come at will."

The scout laughed, and, tapping his own forehead significantly, he
perhaps explained the singular indulgence more satisfactorily when he
said:

"The Indians never harm a non-composser. But why, when the path lay open
before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not
so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings
to Edward?"

The scout, remembering only his own sturdy and iron nature, had probably
exacted a task that David, under no circumstances, could have performed.
But, without entirely losing the meekness of his air, the latter was
content to answer:

"Though my soul would rejoice to visit the