a
warm and cheering blaze. Owen now reloaded the pistol, just as he had
found it. There was a sense of duty in his mind to follow out every
instruction he received, and deviate in nothing. This done, he held his
numbed fingers over the blaze, and bared his chest to the warm glow of
the fire.

The sudden change from the cold night-air to the warmth of the cabin
soon made him drowsy. Fatigue and watching aiding the inclination to
sleep, he was obliged to move about the hut, and even expose himself to
the chill blast, to resist its influence. The very purpose on which he
was bent, so far from dispelling sleep, rather induced its approach;
for, strange as it may seem, the concentration with which the mind
brings its powers to bear on any object will overcome all the interest
and anxiety of our natures, and bring on sleep from very weariness.

He slept, at first, calmly and peacefully--exhaustion would have its
debt acquitted--and he breathed as softly as an infant. At last, when
the extreme of fatigue was passed, his brain began to busy itself with
flitting thoughts and fancies,--some long-forgotten day of boyhood, some
little scene of childish gaiety, flashed across him, and he dreamed of
the old mountain-lake, where so often he watched the wide circles of
the leaping trout, or tracked with his eye the foamy path of the wild
water-hen, as she skimmed the surface. Then suddenly his chest heaved
and fell with a strong motion, for with lightning's speed the current
of his thoughts was changed; his heart was in the mad tumult of a
faction-fight, loud shouts were ringing in his ears, the crash of
sticks, the cries of pain, entreaties for mercy, execrations and
threats, rung around him, when one figure moved slowly before his
astonished gaze, with a sweet smile upon her lips, and love in her
long-lashed eyes. She murmured his name; and now he slept with a
low-drawn breath, his quivering lips repeating, "Mary!"

Another and a sadder change was coming. He was on the mountains, in
the midst of a large assemblage of wild-looking and haggard men, whose
violent speech and savage gestures well suited their reckless air. A
loud shout welcomed him as he came amongst them, and a cry of "Here's
Owen Connor--Owen at last!" and a hundred hands were stretched out to
grasp his, but as suddenly withdrawn, on seeing that his hands were not
bloodstained nor gory.

He shuddered as he looked upon their dripping fingers; but he shuddered
still