fort itself, burst
from his vast chest, and rolled in prolonged echoes through the forest.
It was faintly answered from the encampment, and met by deep but
noiseless curses from the exasperated soldiery, whom the sight of their
murdered officer was momentarily working into frenzy.

"Kill him not, for your lives!--I command you, men, kill him not!"
muttered Captain Blessington with suppressed passion, as his troops
were preparing to immolate him on their clustering bayonets. "Such a
death were, indeed, mercy to such a villain."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Wacousta in bitter scorn; "who is there of all your
accursed regiment who will dare to take him alive?" Then brandishing
his tomahawk around him, to prevent their finally closing, he dealt his
blows with such astonishing velocity, that no unguarded point was left
about his person; and more than one soldier was brought to the earth in
the course of the unequal struggle.

"By G--d!" said Captain Erskine, "are the two best companies of the
regiment to be kept at bay by a single desperado? Shame on ye, fellows!
If his hands are too many for you, lay him by the heels."

This ruse was practised with success. In attempting to defend himself
from the attack of those who sought to throw him down, the warrior
necessarily left his upper person exposed; when advantage was taken to
close with him and deprive him of the play of his arms. It was not,
however, without considerable difficulty, that they succeeded in
disarming and binding his hands; after which a strong cord being
fastened round his waist, he was tightly lashed to a gun, which,
contrary to the original intention of the governor, had been sent out
with the expedition. The retreat of the detachment then commenced
rapidly; but it was not without being hotly pursued by the band of
warriors the yell of Wacousta had summoned in pursuit, that they
finally gained the fort: under what feelings of sorrow for the fate of
an officer so beloved, we leave it to our readers to imagine.

CHAPTER XII.

The morning of the next day dawned on few who had pressed their
customary couches--on none, whose feverish pulse and bloodshot eye
failed to attest the utter sleeplessness in which the night had been
passed. Numerous groups of men were to be seep assembling after the
reveille, in various parts of the barrack square--those who had borne a
part in the recent expedition commingling with those who had not, and
recounting to the latter, wi