'll just take a dip at him,
anngelliferous madam, jist to wash the mud off our shoes; and then,
'tarnal death to me, farewell to old Salt, and the abbregynes
together--cock-a-doodle-doo!"

With this comfortable assurance, and such encouragement as he could
convey in the lustiest gallicantation ever fetched from lungs of man or
fowl, the worthy Stackpole, who had slackened his steps, but without
stopping while he spoke, turned his face again to the descent; when--as
if that war-cry had conjured up enemies from the very air,--a rifle
bullet, shot from a bush not six yards off, suddenly whizzed through
his hair, scattering a handful of it to the winds; and while a dozen or
more were, at the same instant, poured upon other members of the
unfortunate party, fourteen or fifteen savages rushed out from their
concealment among the grass and bushes, three of whom seized upon the
rein of the unhappy Edith, while twice as many sprang upon Captain
Forrester, and, before he could raise an arm in defence, bore him to the
earth, a victim or a prisoner.

So much the astounded horse-thief saw with his own eyes; but before he
could make good any of the numberless promises he had volunteered, during
the morning journey, of killing and eating the whole family of North
American Indians, or exemplify the unutterable gratitude and devotion he
had as often professed to the fair Virginian, four brawny barbarians, one
of them rising at his side and from the very bush whence the bullet had
been discharged at his head, rushed against him, flourishing their guns
and knives, and yelling with transport, "Got you _now_, Cappin Stackpole,
steal-hoss! No go steal no hoss no more! roast on great big fire!"

"'Tarnal death to me!" roared Stackpole, forgetting everything else in
the instinct of self-preservation; and firing his piece at the nearest
enemy, he suddenly leaped from the path into the bushes on its lower
side, where was a precipitous descent, down which he went rolling and
crashing with a velocity almost equal to that of the bullets that were
sent after him. Three of the four assailants immediately darted after in
pursuit, and their shouts growing fainter and fainter as they descended,
were mingled with the loud yell of victory, now uttered by a dozen savage
voices from the hill-side.

It was a victory, indeed, in every sense, complete, almost bloodless, as
it seemed, to the assailants, and effected at a moment when the hopes of
the travell