but he held himself proudly
and refused to ask for mercy. It was resolved that he should die. The
father's scorn for his daughter, that she should thus consort with an
enemy, was so great that he was on the point of offering her as a joint
sacrifice with her lover, when she fell on her knees before him and began
a fervent appeal, not for herself, but for the prisoner. She would do
anything to prove her strength, her duty, her obedience, if they would
set him free. He had done injury to none. What justice lay in putting him
to the torture?

Half in earnest, half in humor, the chief answered, "Suppose we were to
set him on the farther shore of the Potomac, do you love him well enough
to swim to him?"

"I do."

"The river is wide and deep."

"I would drown in it rather than that harm should come to him."

The old chief ordered the captive, still bound, to be taken to a point on
the Virginia shore, full two miles away, in one of their canoes, and when
the boat was on the water he gave the word to the girl, who instantly
plunged in and followed it. The chief and the father embarked in another
birch--ostensibly to see that the task was honestly fulfilled; really,
perhaps, to see that the damsel did not drown. It was a long course, but
the maid was not as many of our city misses are, and she reached the
bank, tired, but happy, for she had saved her lover and gained him for a
husband.

THE MOANING SISTERS

Above Georgetown, on the Potomac River, are three rocks, known as the
Three Sisters, not merely because of their resemblance to each other--for
they are parts of a submerged reef--but because of a tradition that, more
than a hundred years ago, a boat in which three sisters had gone out for
a row was swung against one of these rocks. The day was gusty and the
boat was upset. All three of the girls were drowned. Either the sisters
remain about this perilous spot or the rocks have prescience; at least,
those who live near them on the shore hold one view or the other, for
they declare that before every death on the river the sisters moan, the
sound being heard above the lapping of the waves. It is different from
any other sound in nature. Besides, it is an unquestioned fact that more
accidents happen here than at any other point on the river.

Many are the upsets that have occurred and many are the swimmers who have
gone down, the dark forms of the sisters being the last shapes that their
water-blurred eyes have