every
fibre of my frame at that moment. The opportunity I had long sought was
at length arrived; and already, in anticipation, I enjoyed the conquest
his fall would occasion to my enemy. I rushed within a few feet of my
victim; but the bullet aimed at his heart was received in the breast of
a faithful soldier, who had flown to intercept it. How I cursed the
meddler for his officiousness!"

"Oh, that soldier was your nephew," eagerly interrupted Clara, pointing
towards her companion, who had fallen into a profound slumber, "the
husband of this unfortunate woman. Frank Halloway (for by that name was
he alone known in the regiment) loved my brother as though he had been
of the same blood. He it was who flew to receive the ball that was
destined for another. But I nursed him on his couch of suffering, and
with my own hands prepared his food and dressed his wound. Oh, if pity
can touch your heart (and I will not believe that a heart that once
felt as you say yours has felt can be inaccessible to pity), let the
recollection of your nephew's devotedness to my mother's child disarm
you of vengeance, and induce you to restore us!"

"Never!" thundered Wacousta,--"never! The very circumstance you have
now named is an additional incentive to my vengeance. My nephew saved
the life of your brother at the hazard of his own; and how has he been
rewarded for the generous deed? By an ignominious death, inflicted,
perhaps, for some offence not more dishonouring than those which have
thrown me an outcast upon these wilds; and that at the command and in
the presence of the father of him whose life he was fool enough to
preserve. Yet, what but ingratitude of the grossest nature could a
Morton expect at the hands of the false family of De Haldimar! They
were destined to be our bane, and well have they fulfilled the end for
which they were created."

"Almighty Providence!" aspirated the sinking Clara, as she turned her
streaming eyes to heaven; "can it be that the human heart can undergo
such change? Can this be the being who once loved my mother with a
purity and tenderness of affection that angels themselves might hallow
with approval; or is all that I have heard but a bewildering dream?"

"No, Clara," calmly and even solemnly returned the warrior; "it is no
dream, but a reality--a sad, dreadful, heart-rending reality; yet, if I
am that altered being, to whom is the change to be ascribed? Who turned
the generous current of my blood into