sought Miss de Haldimar to forget every thing but her own
danger, and to summon resolution to tear herself from the scene: but
prayer and entreaty, and even force, were alike employed in vain.
Clinging firmly to the rude balustrades, she refused to be led up the
staircase, and wildly resisting all his efforts to detach her hands,
declared she would again return to the scene of death, in which her
beloved parent was so conspicuous an actor. While he was yet engaged in
this fruitless attempt to force her from the spot, the door of the
council-room was suddenly burst open, and a group of bleeding officers,
among whom was Major de Haldimar, followed by their yelling enemies,
rushed wildly into the passage, and, at the very foot of the stairs
where they yet stood, the combat was renewed. From that moment Miss de
Haldimar lost sight of her generous protector. Meanwhile the tumult of
execrations, and groans, and yells, was at its height; and one by one
she saw the unhappy officers sink beneath weapons yet reeking with the
blood of their comrades, until not more than three or four, including
her father and the commander of the schooner, were left. At length
Major de Haldimar, overcome by exertion, and faint from wounds, while
his wild eye darted despairingly on his daughter, had his sword-arm
desperately wounded, when the blade dropped to the earth, and a dozen
weapons glittered above his head. The wild shriek that had startled
Clara then burst from the agonised heart of her maddened cousin, and
she darted forward to cover her father's head with her arms. But her
senses failed her in the attempt; and the last thing she recollected
was falling over the weltering form of Middleton, who pressed her, as
she lay there, in the convulsive energy of death, to his almost
pulseless heart.

A vague consciousness of being raised from the earth, and borne rapidly
through the air, came over her even in the midst of her insensibility,
but without any definite perception of the present, or recollection of
the past, until she suddenly, when about midway between the fort and
the point of wood that led to Chabouiga, opened her eyes, and found
herself in the firm grasp of an Indian, whose features, even in the
hasty and fearful glance she cast at the countenance, she fancied were
not unfamiliar to her. Not another human being was to be seen in the
clearing at that moment; for all the savages, including even the women
assembled outside, were now wi