e," said Captain Wentworth.
"How I should like to be able to discharge a twenty-four pound battery,
loaded with grape, into the very heart of the devilish throng."

"Do you see any prisoners?--Are any of our friends among them?" eagerly
and tremblingly enquired De Haldimar of the officer who had last spoken.

Captain Wentworth made a sweep of his glass along the shores of the
island; but apparently without success. He announced that he could
discover nothing but a vast number of bark canoes lying dry and
upturned on the beach.

"It is an unusual hour for their war dance," observed Captain
Blessington. "My experience furnishes me with no one instance in which
it has not been danced previous to their retiring to rest."

"Unless," said Lieutenant Boyce, "they should have been thus engaged
all night; in which case the singularity may be explained."

"Look, look," eagerly remarked Lieutenant Johnstone--"see how they are
flying to their canoes, bounding and leaping like so many devils broke
loose from their chains. The fire is nearly deserted already."

"The schooner--the schooner!" shouted Captain Erskine. "By Heaven, our
own gallant schooner! see how beautifully she drives past the island.
It was her gun we heard, intended as a signal to prepare us for her
appearance."

A thrill of wild and indescribable emotion passed through every heart.
Every eye was turned upon the point to which attention was now
directed. The graceful vessel, with every stitch of canvass set, was
shooting rapidly past the low bushes skirting the sands that still
concealed her hull; and in a moment or two she loomed largely and
proudly on the bosom of the Detroit, the surface of which was slightly
curled with a north-western breeze.

"Safe, by Jupiter!" exclaimed the delighted Erskine, dropping the glass
upon the rampart, and rubbing his hands together with every
manifestation of joy.

"The Indians are in chase," said Lieutenant Boyce; "upwards of fifty
canoes are following in the schooner's wake. But Danvers will soon give
us an account of their Lilliputian fleet."

"Let the troops be held in readiness for a sortie, Mr. Lawson," said
the governor, who had joined his officers just as the schooner cleared
the island; "we must cover their landing, or, with this host of savages
in pursuit, they will never effect it alive."

During the whole of this brief but exciting scene, the heart of Charles
de Haldimar beat audibly. A thousand hopes and f