sail was again set, and
the Ark pursued its course towards its habitual moorings, Deerslayer
silently felicitating himself on the recovery of the canoe, and brooding
over his plans for the morrow. The wind rose as the party quitted the
point, and in less than an hour they reached the castle. Here all was
found as it had been left, and the reverse of the ceremonies had to
be taken in entering the building, that had been used on quitting it.
Judith occupied a solitary bed that night bedewing the pillow with her
tears, as she thought of the innocent and hitherto neglected creature,
who had been her companion from childhood, and bitter regrets came over
her mind, from more causes than one, as the weary hours passed away,
making it nearly morning before she lost her recollection in sleep.
Deerslayer and the Delaware took their rest in the Ark, where we shall
leave them enjoying the deep sleep of the honest, the healthful and
fearless, to return to the girl we have last seen in the midst of the
forest.

When Hetty left the shore, she took her way unhesitatingly into the
woods, with a nervous apprehension of being followed. Luckily, this
course was the best she could have hit on to effect her own purpose,
since it was the only one that led her from the point. The night was so
intensely dark, beneath the branches of the trees, that her progress
was very slow, and the direction she went altogether a matter of chance,
after the first few yards. The formation of the ground, however, did not
permit her to deviate far from the line in which she desired to proceed.
On one hand it was soon bounded by the acclivity of the hill, while
the lake, on the other, served as a guide. For two hours did this
single-hearted and simple-minded girl toil through the mazes of the
forest, sometimes finding herself on the brow of the bank that bounded
the water, and at others struggling up an ascent that warned her to go
no farther in that direction, since it necessarily ran at right angles
to the course on which she wished to proceed. Her feet often slid from
beneath her, and she got many falls, though none to do her injury; but,
by the end of the period mentioned, she had become so weary as to want
strength to go any farther. Rest was indispensable, and she set about
preparing a bed, with the readiness and coolness of one to whom the
wilderness presented no unnecessary terrors. She knew that wild beasts
roamed through all the adjacent forest, but ani