yell
burst forth, while the unfortunate inmates started from sleep at the
sound of horror. Mercy for them there was none; the relentless savage
knew it not; but the shout of delight rose louder as they saw the flames
dance higher o'er their victims; and Silas looked on all--but Leemah's
eye was on his--he knew his slightest movement was death to her as well
as to himself. Like a demon through the flame leaped the ghastly form of
the Red Eagle, (he to whom Leemah had been espoused) and with searching
glance glared on his victims, but saw not there the one he sought with
deeper vengeance than the others--'twas Silas he looked for; and, with
the speed of a winged fiend, he bounded to where Leemah stood, and
accused her of having aided in his escape. She acknowledged she had, and
pointed to the far-off forest as his hiding place. In an instant his
glittering tomahawk cleft the hand she raised off at the wrist. Silas
knew no more. Leemah's hot blood fell upon his brow, and he fainted
through excess of agony, but like Mazeppa, he lived to repay the Red
Eagle in after-years for that night of horror--when his eyes had been
blasted with the burning fort, his ears stunned with the shrieks of his
murdered friends, and his brain scorched through with Leemah's life
blood.

Long years after, when he had forsaken the hunter's path, and fought as
a loyalist in the British ranks, among their Indian allies who smoked
with them the pipe of peace and called them brothers, was one, in whose
wild and withered features he recalled the stern Red Eagle; blood called
for blood; he beguiled the Indian now with copious draughts of the white
man's fire-water, and he and another (brother of one of the murdered
hunters) killed him, and placing him in his own canoe with the paddle in
his hand, sent the fearful corpse down the rapid stream, bearing him
unto his home. The wild dog and wolf howled on the banks as it floated
past, and the raven and eagle hovered over it claiming it as their prey.
The tribe, at the death of their Sagamore, withdrew from their allies,
and, following the track of the setting sun, waged war indiscriminately
with all.

And long after, though more than half a century had elapsed since the
death of the Red Eagle, and when the snows of eighty winters had
whitened the dark tresses of the young hunter, and bowed the tall form
of the loyalist soldier; when he who had trod the flowery paths of the
prairie, and slept in the orchard