exertions to flag, and Hetty
began, again, to prattle in her simple confiding manner, though nothing
farther was uttered that it may be thought necessary to relate.

Chapter XXVII.

"Thou hast been busy, Death, this day, and yet
But half thy work is done! The gates of hell
Are thronged, yet twice ten thousand spirits more
Who from their warm and healthful tenements
Fear no divorce; must, ere the sun go down,
Enter the world of woe!"--

Southey, Roderick, the Last of the Goths, XXIV, i-6.

One experienced in the signs of the heavens, would have seen that the
sun wanted but two or three minutes of the zenith, when Deerslayer
landed on the point, where the Hurons were now encamped, nearly abreast
of the castle. This spot was similar to the one already described, with
the exception that the surface of the land was less broken, and less
crowded with trees. Owing to these two circumstances, it was all the
better suited to the purpose for which it had been selected, the space
beneath the branches bearing some resemblance to a densely wooded lawn.
Favoured by its position and its spring, it had been much resorted to by
savages and hunters, and the natural grasses had succeeded their fires,
leaving an appearance of sward in places, a very unusual accompaniment
of the virgin forest. Nor was the margin of water fringed with bushes,
as on so much of its shore, but the eye penetrated the woods immediately
on reaching the strand, commanding nearly the whole area of the
projection.

If it was a point of honor with the Indian warrior to redeem his word,
when pledged to return and meet his death at a given hour, so was it
a point of characteristic pride to show no womanish impatience, but to
reappear as nearly as possible at the appointed moment. It was well not
to exceed the grace accorded by the generosity of the enemy, but it was
better to meet it to a minute. Something of this dramatic effect mingles
with most of the graver usages of the American aborigines, and no doubt,
like the prevalence of a similar feeling among people more sophisticated
and refined, may be referred to a principle of nature. We all love the
wonderful, and when it comes attended by chivalrous self-devotion and a
rigid regard to honor, it presents itself to our admiration in a shape
doubly attractive. As respects Deerslayer, though he took a pride in
showing his white blood, by often deviating from the usages of the
red-