whole ceremony was gone through again.

That afternoon many of the Indians visited Isaac in his lodge and
shook their fists at him and pointed their knives at him. They
hissed and groaned at him. Their vindictive faces expressed the
malignant joy they felt at the expectation of putting him to the
torture.

When night came Isaac's guards laced up the lodge-door and shut him
from the sight of the maddened Indians. The darkness that gradually
enveloped him was a relief. By and by all was silent except for the
occasional yell of a drunken savage. To Isaac it sounded like a
long, rolling death-cry echoing throughout the encampment and
murdering his sleep. Its horrible meaning made him shiver and his
flesh creep. At length even that yell ceased. The watch-dogs quieted
down and the perfect stillness which ensued could almost be felt.
Through Isaac's mind ran over and over again the same words. His
last night to live! His last night to live! He forced himself to
think of other things. He lay there in the darkness of his tent, but
he was far away in thought, far away in the past with his mother and
brothers before they had come to this bloodthirsty country. His
thoughts wandered to the days of his boyhood when he used to drive
the sows to the pasture on the hillside, and in his dreamy,
disordered fancy he was once more letting down the bars of the gate.
Then he was wading in the brook and whacking the green frogs with
his stick. Old playmates' faces, forgotten for years, were there
looking at him from the dark wall of his wigwam. There was Andrew's
face; the faces of his other brothers; the laughing face of his
sister; the serene face of his mother. As he lay there with the
shadow of death over him sweet was the thought that soon he would be
reunited with that mother. The images faded slowly away, swallowed
up in the gloom. Suddenly a vision appeared to him. A radiant white
light illumined the lodge and shone full on the beautiful face of
the Indian maiden who had loved him so well. Myeerah's dark eyes
were bright with an undying love and her lips smiled hope.

A rude kick dispelled Isaac's dreams. A brawny savage pulled him to
his feet and pushed him outside of the lodge.

It was early morning. The sun had just cleared the low hills in the
east and its red beams crimsoned the edges of the clouds of fog
which hung over the river like a great white curtain. Though the air
was warm, Isaac shivered a little as the breeze blew