ne went to every loophole,
not a sign of the presence of a living being on the island was at first
to be seen, themselves excepted. There was a smothered fire on the spot
where M'Nab and his comrades had cooked, as if the smoke which curled
upwards from it was intended as a lure to the absent; and all around the
huts had been restored to former order and arrangement. Mabel started
involuntarily when her eye at length fell on a group of three men,
dressed in the scarlet of the 55th, seated on the grass in lounging
attitudes, as if they chatted in listless security; and her blood
curdled as, on a second look, she traced the bloodless faces and glassy
eyes of the dead. They were very near the blockhouse, so near indeed
as to have been overlooked at the first eager inquiry, and there was
a mocking levity in their postures and gestures, for their limbs were
stiffening in different attitudes, intended to resemble life, at which
the soul revolted. Still, horrible as these objects were to those near
enough to discover the frightful discrepancy between their assumed and
their real characters, the arrangement had been made with so much art
that it would have deceived a negligent observer at the distance of a
hundred yards. After carefully examining the shores of the island, June
pointed out to her companion the fourth soldier, seated, with his feet
hanging over the water, his back fastened to a sapling, and holding a
fishing-rod in his hand. The scalpless heads were covered with the
caps, and all appearance of blood had been carefully washed from each
countenance.

Mabel sickened at this sight, which not only did so much violence to all
her notions of propriety, but which was in itself so revolting and so
opposed to natural feeling. She withdrew to a seat, and hid her face in
her apron for several minutes, until a low call from June again drew her
to a loophole. The latter then pointed out the body of Jennie seemingly
standing in the door of a hut, leaning forward as if to look at the
group of men, her cap fluttering in the wind, and her hand grasping
a broom. The distance was too great to distinguish the features very
accurately; but Mabel fancied that the jaw had been depressed, as if to
distort the mouth into a sort of horrible laugh.

"June! June!" she exclaimed; "this exceeds all I have ever heard, or
imagined as possible, in the treachery and artifices of your people."

"Tuscarora very cunning," said June, in a way to sho