er
way in the usual manner; care being taken to make no noise. The wind was
passing northward, and the sail soon swept the scow so far up the lake
as to render the dark outlines of the trees that clothed the point dimly
visible. Floating Tom steered, and he sailed along as near the land as
the depth of the water and the overhanging branches would allow. It was
impossible to distinguish anything that stood within the shadows of the
shore, but the forms of the sail and of the hut were discerned by the
young sentinel on the beach, who has already been mentioned. In the
moment of sudden surprise, a deep Indian exclamation escaped him. In
that spirit of recklessness and ferocity that formed the essence of
Hurry's character, this man dropped his rifle and fired. The ball was
sped by accident, or by that overruling providence which decides the
fates of all, and the girl fell. Then followed the scene with the
torches, which has just been described.

At the precise moment when Hurry committed this act of unthinking
cruelty, the canoe of Judith was within a hundred feet of the spot from
which the Ark had so lately moved. Her own course has been described,
and it has now become our office to follow that of her father and his
companions. The shriek announced the effects of the random shot of
March, and it also proclaimed that the victim was a woman. Hurry himself
was startled at these unlooked for consequences, and for a moment he
was sorely disturbed by conflicting sensations. At first he laughed, in
reckless and rude-minded exultation; and then conscience, that monitor
planted in our breasts by God, and which receives its more general
growth from the training bestowed in the tillage of childhood, shot a
pang to his heart. For a minute, the mind of this creature equally of
civilization and of barbarism, was a sort of chaos as to feeling, not
knowing what to think of its own act; and then the obstinacy and pride
of one of his habits, interposed to assert their usual ascendency. He
struck the butt of his rifle on the bottom of the scow, with a species
of defiance, and began to whistle a low air with an affectation of
indifference. All this time the Ark was in motion, and it was already
opening the bay above the point, and was consequently quitting the land.

Hurry's companions did not view his conduct with the same indulgence
as that with which he appeared disposed to regard it himself. Hutter
growled out his dissatisfaction, for t