one with his sorrows, Duncan
immediately returned to the open air, too much excited himself to seek
the repose he had recommended to his veteran friend.

While Hawkeye and the Indians lighted their fire, and took their
evening's repast, a frugal meal of dried bear's meat, the young man paid
a visit to that curtain of the dilapidated fort which looked out on the
sheet of the Horican. The wind had fallen, and the waves were already
rolling on the sandy beach beneath him, in a more regular and tempered
succession. The clouds, as if tired of their furious chase, were
breaking asunder; the heavier volumes, gathering in black masses about
the horizon, while the lighter scud still hurried above the water, or
eddied among the tops of the mountains, like broken flights of birds,
hovering around their roosts. Here and there, a red and fiery star
struggled through the drifting vapor, furnishing a lurid gleam of
brightness to the dull aspect of the heavens. Within the bosom of the
encircling hills, an impenetrable darkness had already settled; and the
plain lay like a vast and deserted charnel-house, without omen or
whisper to disturb the slumbers of its numerous and hapless tenants.

Of this scene, so chillingly in accordance with the past, Duncan stood
for many minutes a rapt observer. His eyes wandered from the bosom of
the mound, where the foresters were seated around their glimmering fire,
to the fainter light which still lingered in the skies, and then rested
long and anxiously on the embodied gloom, which lay like a dreary void
on that side of him where the dead reposed. He soon fancied that
inexplicable sounds arose from the place, though so indistinct and
stolen, as to render not only their nature but even their existence
uncertain. Ashamed of his apprehensions, the young man turned towards
the water, and strove to divert his attentions to the mimic stars that
dimly glimmered on its moving surface. Still, his too conscious ears
performed their ungrateful duty, as if to warn him of some lurking
danger. At length a swift trampling seemed quite audibly to rush athwart
the darkness. Unable any longer to quiet his uneasiness, Duncan spoke in
a low voice to the scout, requesting him to ascend the mound to the
place where he stood. Hawkeye threw his rifle across an arm, and
complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm, as to prove how much he
counted on the security of their position.

"Listen!" said Duncan, when the other pla