ittle for house or shelter, and night dew can
never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout,
grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to
make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror
had got the mastery of a man usually so dauntless.

"By heaven! there is a human form, and it approaches! Stand to your
arms, my friends; for we know not whom we encounter."

"Qui vive?" demanded a stern, quick voice, which sounded like a
challenge from another world, issuing out of that solitary and solemn
place.

"What says it?" whispered the scout; "it speaks neither Indian nor
English!"

"Qui vive?" repeated the same voice, which was quickly followed by the
rattling of arms, and a menacing attitude.

"France!" cried Heyward, advancing from the shadow of the trees to the
shore of the pond, within a few yards of the sentinel.

"D'ou venez-vous--ou allez-vous, d'aussi bonne heure?" demanded the
grenadier, in the language and with the accent of a man from old France.

"Je viens de la decouverte, et je vais me coucher."

"Etes-vous officier du roi?"

"Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour un provincial! Je suis
capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward well knew that the other was of a
regiment in the line); j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant de
la fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler! je les ai fait
prisonnieres pres de l'autre fort, et je les conduis au general."

"Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis fache pour vous," exclaimed the young
soldier, touching his cap with grace; "mais--fortune de guerre! vous
trouverez notre general un brave homme, et bien poli avec les dames."

"C'est le caractere des gens de guerre," said Cora, with admirable
self-possession. "Adieu, mon ami; je vous souhaiterais un devoir plus
agreable a remplir."

The soldier made a low and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and
Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately
forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond,
little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself
those words, which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and
perhaps by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France--

"Vive le vin, l'amour," etc., etc.

"'Tis well you understood the knave!" whispered the scout, when they had
gained a little distance from the place, and letting his rifle fall into
the hollow of his a