avage or fiend-like as he.

The features of this man were naturally bad: but the paint--for he had
adopted this with every other vile custom of barbarian life--rendered
their expression positively ferocious. The device upon his forehead was
a death's-head and cross-bones--done in white chalk--and upon his breast
appeared the well-imitated semblance of a bleeding scalp--the
appropriate symbols of a cruel disposition.

There was something unnatural in a white skin thus disfigured, for the
native complexion was not hidden: here and there it could be perceived
forming the ground of the motley elaboration--its pallid hue in strange
contrast with the deeper colours that daubed it! It was not the canvas
for such a picture.

Yet there the picture was--in red and yellow, black, white, and blue;
there stood the deep-dyed villain.

I saw not his rival; I looked for him, but saw him not. Perhaps he was
one of those who stood around?--perhaps he had not yet come up? He was
the son of the head-chief--perhaps he was inside the lodge? The last
was the most probable conjecture.

The great calumet was brought forward and lit by the fire; it was passed
around the circle, from mouth to mouth--each savage satisfying himself
with a single draw from its tube.

I knew that this was the inauguration of the council. The trial was
about to proceed.

CHAPTER NINETY FIVE.

MEASURING THE CHANCES.

The situation in which I was placed by chance, could not have been
better had I deliberately chosen it. I had under my eyes the council
fire and council, the groups around--in short, the whole area of the
camp.

What was of most importance, I could see without being seen. Along the
edge of the copse there extended a narrow belt of shadow, similar to
that which had favoured me while in the channel, and produced by a like
cause--for the stream and the selvage of the grove were parallel to each
other. The moonbeams fell obliquely upon the grove; and, under the
thick foliage of the pecans, I was well screened from her light behind--
while the lodge covered me from the glare of the fire in front.

I could not have been better placed for my purpose. I saw the advantage
of the position, and resolved therefore to abide in it.

The observations and reflections thus given in detail occupied me but a
few minutes of time. Thought is quick, and at that crisis mine was more
than usually on the alert. Almost instantaneously did I perceive t