they saw him, to whom the guardianship of the wretched Clara was now
confided, suddenly spring from the sand bar into the lake, and in a few
rapid strokes gain the side of the boat. Leaving the hapless Baynton to
be disposed of by his companion, the foremost darted upon the bank,
burning with disappointment, and resolved to immolate another victim.
For a moment he balanced his tomahawk, and then, with the rapidity of
thought, darted it at the covered head of the youth who still lingered
on the bar. A well-timed movement of the latter averted the blow, and
the whizzing steel passed harmlessly on. A gutteral "Ugh!" marked the
disappointment of the Indian, now reduced to his scalping-knife; but
before he could determine whether to advance or to retreat, his
opponent had darted upon him, and, with a single blow from his cutlass,
cleft his skull nearly asunder. The next instantaneous purpose of the
victor was to advance to the rescue of the exhausted Baynton; but, when
he turned to look for him, he saw the mangled form of what had once
been that gallant and handsome officer floating, without life or
motion, on the blood-stained surface of the Huron, while his fiendish
murderer, calmly awaiting the approach of his companions, held up the
reeking scalp, in triumph, to the view of the still yelling groups
within the block-house.

"Noble, generous, self-devoted fellow!" exclaimed the youth, as he
fixed his burning tearless eye for a moment on the unfortunate victim;
"even you, then, are not spared to tell the horrid story of this
butchery; yet is the fate of the fallen far, far more enviable than
that of those who have survived this day." He then committed his
cutlass to its sheath; and, leaping into the deep water that lay beyond
the bar, was, in a few seconds, once more in the stern of the boat.

Meanwhile, the numerous band, who followed their two first fierce
comrades into the lake, bounded rapidly forward; and, so active were
their movements, that, at almost the same moment when the second of the
youths had gained his temporary place of refuge, they stood yelling and
screaming on the sand bar he had just quitted. Two or three, excited to
desperation by the blood they had seen spilt, plunged unhesitatingly
into the opposite depths of the lake; and the foremost of these was the
destroyer of the ill-fated Baynton. With his bloody scalping-knife
closely clutched between his teeth, and his tomahawk in his right hand,
this fier