ely refused the pressing request of Wacousta, in
regard to some present enterprise which the latter had just suggested,
the precise nature of which, however, Captain de Haldimar could not
learn. Meanwhile, the rapid flitting of numerous forms to and from the
encampment, arrayed in all the fierce panoply of savage warfare, while
low exclamations of excitement occasionally caught his ear, led the
officer to infer, strange and unusual as such an occurrence was, that
either the detachment already engaged, or a second, was advancing on
their position. Still, this offered little chance of security for
himself; for more than once, during his long conference with Ponteac,
had the fierce Wacousta bent his eye in ferocious triumph on his
victim, as if he would have said,--"Come what will--whatever be the
result--you, at least, shall not escape me." Indeed, so confident did
the latter feel that the instant of attack would be the signal of his
own death, that, after the first momentary and instinctive cheering of
his spirit, he rather regretted the circumstance of their approach; or,
if he rejoiced at all, it was only because it afforded him the prospect
of immediate death, instead of being exposed to all the horror of a
lingering and agonising suffering from the torture.

While the chiefs were yet earnestly conversing, the alarm cry,
previously uttered by Wacousta, was repeated, although in a low and
subdued tone, by several of the Indians who stood on the brow of the
eminence. Ponteac started suddenly to the same point; but Wacousta
continued for a moment or two rooted to the spot on which he stood,
with the air of one in doubt as to what course he should pursue. He
then abruptly raised his head, fixed his dark and menacing eye on his
captive, and was already in the act of approaching him, when the
earnest and repeated demands for his presence, by the Ottawa chief,
drew him once more to the outskirt of the wood.

Again Captain de Haldimar breathed freely. The presence of that fierce
man had been a clog upon the vital functions of his heart; and, to be
relieved from it, even at a moment like the present, when far more
important interests might be supposed to occupy his mind, was a
gratification, of which not even the consciousness of impending death
could wholly deprive him. From the continued pressing of the Indians
towards one particular point in the clearing, he now conjectured, that,
from that point, the advance of the troops