he supposed to have been drowned. The figure
stood in front of him, and, as revealed by a flash of lightning, was
haggard and dripping, as though it had just risen from a watery grave.

Ere the frightened warrior could give an alarm, a stunning blow from
behind felled him to the wet earth, where he lay motionless and
apparently devoid of life.

CHAPTER XVII

DEATH OF HAS-SE (THE SUNBEAM)

On this night of storm and escape, Cat-sha, the Seminole chief, was
more than usually restless. He tossed and turned on his couch of
robes, but found it impossible to sleep. Finally he determined to make
one of his customary midnight visits of inspection to the several
guards, and to his sole remaining prisoner, the "young white chief."
As he left his lodge Cat-sha bowed his head to the bitter storm, and
drew his robe more closely about him.

On approaching the hut, in which he imagined the prisoner to be
spending his last hours of life, he found the guard standing before it,
motionless, but wide-awake, and with one corner of his robe drawn over
his head to protect it somewhat from the pelting rain. Cat-sha
questioned him as to the safety of the prisoner, and the warrior
answered that he had looked in upon him just as the storm began, and
found him quietly sleeping and securely bound.

The rain had extinguished the watch-fire, which it was customary to
keep burning in the middle of the village during the night, and thus it
would be somewhat difficult for the Seminole chief to procure a light
with which to examine for himself into the condition of the prisoner.
He therefore accepted the assurance of the guard that he was still
safely confined within the hut; for, indeed, how could it be otherwise?
Such a thing as escaping seemed too utterly impossible to be worthy a
thought.

So Cat-sha passed on, and bent his steps in the direction of the
sentinel who kept watch at the end of the trail. At first he was not
to be discovered, nor did he answer when challenged, and Cat-sha was
rapidly becoming both angry and surprised, when all at once he
stumbled, and almost fell over the prostrate form of him whom he
sought. The warrior was still unconscious, for the terrible blow that
felled him had been delivered but a few minutes before Cat-sha's
discovery of his condition.

At this state of affairs, the wily Seminole at once took an alarm. To
be sure, he reflected that the sentinel might have been struck by a
lightning-flash