the adjacent shores of the narrow
stream. Not a sound escaped them; the most subtle examination could not
have told they breathed. It was evident that this excess of caution
proceeded from an experience that no subtlety on the part of their
enemies could deceive. It was, however, continued without any apparent
consequences, until the moon had set, and a pale streak above the
tree-tops, at the bend of the river a little below, announced the
approach of day.

Then, for the first time, Hawkeye was seen to stir. He crawled along
the rock, and shook Duncan from his heavy slumbers.

"Now is the time to journey," he whispered; "awake the gentle ones, and
be ready to get into the canoe when I bring it to the landing-place."

"Have you had a quiet night?" said Heyward; "for myself, I believe sleep
has got the better of my vigilance."

"All is yet still as midnight. Be silent, but be quick."

By this time Duncan was thoroughly awake, and he immediately lifted the
shawl from the sleeping females. The motion caused Cora to raise her
hand as if to repulse him, while Alice murmured, in her soft, gentle
voice, "No, no, dear father, we were not deserted; Duncan was with us!"

"Yes, sweet innocence," whispered the youth; "Duncan is here, and while
life continues or danger remains, he will never quit thee. Cora! Alice!
awake! The hour has come to move!"

A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the form of the other
standing upright before him, in bewildered horror, was the unexpected
answer he received. While the words were still on the lips of Heyward,
there had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries as served to drive the
swift currents of his own blood back from its bounding course into the
fountains of his heart. It seemed, for near a minute, as if demons of
hell had possessed themselves of the air about them, and were venting
their savage humors in barbarous sounds. The cries came from no
particular direction, though it was evident they filled the woods, and
as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the caverns of the falls, the
rocks, the bed of the river, and the upper air. David raised his tall
person in the midst of the infernal din, with a hand on either ear,
exclaiming--

"Whence comes this discord! Has hell broke loose, that man should utter
sounds like these!"

The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles, from the
opposite banks of the stream, followed this incautious exposure of his
pe