with you, Alice, I have the permission of
your father to aspire to a still nearer and dearer tie."

Alice trembled violently, and there was an instant during which she bent
her face aside, yielding to the emotions common to her sex; but they
quickly passed away, leaving her mistress of her deportment, if not of
her affections.

"Heyward," she said, looking him full in the face with a touching
expression of innocence and dependency, "give me the sacred presence and
the holy sanction of that parent before you urge me further."

"Though more I should not, less I could not say," the youth was about to
answer, when he was interrupted by a light tap on his shoulder. Starting
to his feet, he turned, and, confronting the intruder, his looks fell on
the dark form and malignant visage of Magua. The deep guttural laugh of
the savage sounded, at such a moment, to Duncan, like the hellish taunt
of a demon. Had he pursued the sudden and fierce impulse of the instant,
he would have cast himself on the Huron, and committed their fortunes
to the issue of a deadly struggle. But, without arms of any description,
ignorant of what succor his subtle enemy could command, and charged with
the safety of one who was just then dearer than ever to his heart, he no
sooner entertained than he abandoned the desperate intention.

"What is your purpose?" said Alice, meekly folding her arms on her
bosom, and struggling to conceal an agony of apprehension in behalf of
Heyward, in the usual cold and distant manner with which she received
the visits of her captor.

The exulting Indian had resumed his austere countenance, though he drew
warily back before the menacing glance of the young man's fiery eye. He
regarded both his captives for a moment with a steady look, and then,
stepping aside, he dropped a log of wood across a door different from
that by which Duncan had entered. The latter now comprehended the manner
of his surprise, and, believing himself irretrievably lost, he drew
Alice to his bosom, and stood prepared to meet a fate which he hardly
regretted, since it was to be suffered in such company. But Magua
meditated no immediate violence. His first measures were very evidently
taken to secure his new captive; nor did he even bestow a second glance
at the motionless forms in the center of the cavern, until he had
completely cut off every hope of retreat through the private outlet he
had himself used. He was watched in all his movements by Heywa