n of
the whole nation. He deputed Captain Stuart and Captain Demere to offer
these terms to the Upper towns, and let them know that they were
admitted to this clemency solely in consideration of the regard of the
government for Atta-Kulla-Kulla. This chieftain, the half-king of the
Cherokee tribe, had deprecated, it was understood, the renewal of the
war, since he had signed the last treaty at the Congarees, and having
shown himself friendly on several occasions to the British people his
majesty's government esteemed him as he deserved.

The two officers gazed silently at one another. Montgomery was obviously
entirely unaware of their situation. Here they were, penned up in this
restricted compass, besieged by an enemy so furious that even a hat
showing but for one moment above the palisades,--for the soldiers had
tried the experiment of poising an old busby on the point of a
bayonet,--would be riddled in an instant. Often a well-directed bullet
would enter the small loop-holes for musketry, and thus, firing from
ambush, endanger the sentinel as he stood within the strong defenses.
More than once arrows, freighted with inflammable substances, all
ablaze, had been shot into the fort with the effort to fire the houses;
it was dry weather mostly, with a prospect of a long drought, and the
flames thus started threatened a conflagration, and required the
exertions of the entire garrison to extinguish them. This proclivity
necessitated eternal vigilance. Ever and anon it was requisite that the
cannon should renew their strong, surly note of menace, and again send
the balls crashing through the forest, and about the ears of the
persistent besiegers. Only the strength of the primitive work saved the
garrison from instant massacre, with the women and children and the
settlers who had sought safety behind those sturdy ramparts. Of the
ultimate danger of starvation the officers did not dare to think. And
from this situation to be summoned to send forth threats of sword and
fire, and to offer arrogant terms of peace, and to demand the surrender,
to the justice of the gibbet, of the principal transgressors in the
violation of the treaty!

There were no words that could express what they felt. They could only
look at one another, each conscious of the other's sympathy, and say
nothing.

Outside, Odalie, Belinda, and Ensign Whitson were singing a trio, the
parts somewhat at haphazard, the fugue-like effects coming in like the
cade