ed, was the disposition to divert them from their cruelties.

The day seemed a month by Mabel's computation, and the only part of it
that did not drag were the minutes spent in prayer. She had recourse to
this relief from time to time; and at each effort she found her spirit
firmer, her mind more tranquil, and her resignation more confirmed. She
understood the reasoning of June, and believed it highly probable that
the blockhouse would be left unmolested until the return of her father,
in order to entice him into an ambuscade, and she felt much less
apprehension of immediate danger in consequence; but the future offered
little ground of hope, and her thoughts had already begun to calculate
the chances of her captivity. At such moments, Arrowhead and his
offensive admiration filled a prominent place in the background: for
our heroine well knew that the Indians usually carried off to their
villages, for the purposes of adoption, such captives as they did not
slay; and that many instances had occurred in which individuals of her
sex had passed the remainder of their lives in the wigwams of their
conquerors. Such thoughts as these invariably drove her to her knees and
to her prayers.

While the light lasted the situation of our heroine was sufficiently
alarming; but as the shades of evening gradually gathered over the
island, it became fearfully appalling. By this time the savages had
wrought themselves up to the point of fury, for they had possessed
themselves of all the liquor of the English; and their outcries and
gesticulations were those of men truly possessed by evil spirits.
All the efforts of their French leader to restrain them were entirely
fruitless, and he had wisely withdrawn to an adjacent island, where
he had a sort of bivouac, that he might keep at a safe distance from
friends so apt to run into excesses. Before quitting the spot,
however, this officer, at great risk to his own life, had succeeded in
extinguishing the fire, and in securing the ordinary means to relight
it. This precaution he took lest the Indians should burn the blockhouse,
the preservation of which was necessary to the success of his future
plans. He would gladly have removed all the arms also, but this he found
impracticable, the warriors clinging to their knives and tomahawks with
the tenacity of men who regarded a point of honor as long as a faculty
was left; and to carry off the rifles, and leave behind him the very
weapons that were g