sy expanse of the
waters, which, like a submarine firmament, glittered with its thousand
mimic stars. The melancholy air, the hour, together with the vast frame
of the man who thus leaned, in musing, against the English ramparts,
left no doubt as to his person, in the mind of his observant spectator.
Delicacy, no less than prudence, now urged him to retire; and he had
moved cautiously round the body of the tree for that purpose, when
another sound drew his attention, and once more arrested his footsteps.
It was a low and almost inaudible movement of the water, and was
succeeded by a grating of pebbles one against the other. In a moment he
saw a dark form rise, as it were out of the lake, and steal without
further noise to the land, within a few feet of the place where he
himself stood. A rifle next slowly rose between his eyes and the watery
mirror; but before it could be discharged his own hand was on the lock.

"Hugh!" exclaimed the savage, whose treacherous aim was so singularly
and so unexpectedly interrupted.

Without making any reply, the French officer laid his hand on the
shoulder of the Indian, and led him in profound silence to a distance
from the spot, where their subsequent dialogue might have proved
dangerous, and where it seemed that one of them, at least, sought a
victim. Then, throwing open his cloak, so as to expose his uniform and
the cross of St. Louis which was suspended at his breast, Montcalm
sternly demanded,--

"What means this! Does not my son know that the hatchet is buried
between the English and his Canadian Father?"

"What can the Hurons do?" returned the savage, speaking also, though
imperfectly, in the French language. "Not a warrior has a scalp, and the
pale-faces make friends!"

"Ha! Le Renard Subtil! Methinks this is an excess of zeal for a friend
who was so late an enemy! How many suns have set since Le Renard struck
the war-post of the English?"

"Where is that sun!" demanded the sullen savage. "Behind the hill; and
it is dark and cold. But when he comes again, it will be bright and
warm. Le Subtil is the sun of his tribe. There have been clouds, and
many mountains between him and his nation; but now he shines, and it is
a clear sky!"

"That Le Renard has power with his people, I well know," said Montcalm;
"for yesterday he hunted for their scalps, and to-day they hear him at
the council-fire."

"Magua is a great chief."

"Let him prove it, by teaching his nation how to co