m. "You must not leave
me, Hope--do you not love me?"

She answered only by a low wail, that was more affecting than any
words; and when the Sagamore pressed her again to his heart, she
answered, calling him John Bonyton, as she used to call him in the
days of her childhood.

"Little Hope is a terror to herself, John Bonyton. Her heart is all
love--all lost in yours; but she is a child, a child just as she was
years ago; but you, you are not the same--more beautiful--greater;
poor little Hope grows fearful before you;" and again her voice was
lost in tears.

The sun now began to tinge the sky with his ruddy hue; the birds
filled the woods with an out-gush of melody; the rainbow, as ever,
spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were
fragments of canoes, and still more ghastly fragments telling of the
night's destruction. The stratagem of the girl had been entirely
successful--deluded by the false beacon, the unhappy savages had
drifted on with the tide, unconscious of danger, till the one terrible
pang of danger, and the terrible plunge of death came at the one and
same moment.

Upon a headland overlooking the falls stood the group of the cavern,
stirred with feelings to which words give no utterance, and which find
expression only in some deadly act. Ascashe descended stealthily along
the bank, watching intently the group upon the opposite shore, in the
midst of which floated the white, abundant locks of Bridget Vines,
visible at a great distance. She now stood beside the Sagamore,
saying,

"Forget poor little Hope, John Bonyton, or only remember that her life
was one long, long thought of thee."

She started--gave one wild look of love and grief at the Sagamore--and
then darted down the bank, marking her path with streams of blood, and
disappeared under the falls. The aim of the savage had done its work.

"Ascashe is revenged, John Bonyton," cried a loud voice--and a dozen
arrows stopped it in its utterance. Fierce was the pursuit, and
desperate the flight of the few surviving foes. The "Sagamore of Saco"
never rested day nor night till he and his followers had cut off the
last vestige of the Terrantines, and avenged the blood of the unhappy
maiden. Then for years did he linger about the falls in the vain hope
of seeing once more her wild spectral beauty--but she appeared no more
in the flesh; though to this, men not romantic nor visionary declare
they have seen a figure, slight and beau