spunk was aglow, and then in the timorous flame of the kindling candle,
taken from his own stores above, Varney recognized the face and figure
of the stately and imperious old chief Colannah. The next moment he
remembered something far more pertinent. He called out in an agitated
voice to the Indian to beware of the powder with which the place was
largely stocked.

"I came for that," said Colannah in Cherokee, with unaccustomed fingers
snuffing the wick as he had seen Varney perform the process, for the
Indians used torches and fires of split cane for purposes of
illumination.

"For God's sake, what have I done?" cried the trader in an agony of
terror, desirous to bring his accusation to the point as early as might
be and compass his release, thus forestalling the violent end of an
explosion.

"What do the English always?--you have robbed me!" said Colannah, the
light strong on his fierce indignant features, his garb of fringed
buckskin, his many rich strings of the ivory-like roanoke about his
neck, his gayly bedecked and feathered head, and in shadowy wise
revealing the rough walls of the cave, the boxes and bales of goods, the
reserve stock, as it were, the stands of arms, and the kegs and bags of
powder.

As Varney, half crouching on the ground, noted the latter in the dusk,
he cried out precipitately, "Robbed you of what? My God! let us go
upstairs. I'll give it back, whatever it is, twice over, fourfold! Don't
swing the candle around that way, Colannah! the powder will blow us and
the whole trading-house into the Tennessee River."

Colannah nodded acquiescence, the stately feathers on his head gleaming
fitfully in the clare-obscure of the cavern. "That is why I came! Then
the British government could demand no satisfaction for the life of the
British subject--an accident--the old chief of Tennessee Town killed
with him. And I should be avenged."

"For what? My God!" Varney had not before called upon the Lord for
twenty years. To hold a diplomatic conversation with an enraged wild
Indian, flourishing a lighted candle in a powder magazine, is calculated
to bring even the most self-sufficient and forgetful sinner to a sense
of his dependence and helplessness. The lighted candle was a more
subjugating weapon than a drawn sword. He had contemplated springing
upon the stanch old warrior, although, despite the difference in age, he
was no match for the Indian, in order to seek to extinguish it. He
reflected, howe