length ceased, and the despairing Amanda, too proud
to vainly beg for her release from her stubborn captors, drew the
hood again over her face, and in the double darkness called upon
Heaven to be her protector and deliverer. That Claude had heard
her cries she felt assured; that he had pursued a portion of her
abductors towards Montreal, and would continue his efforts, with
those of her guardian and the inmates of Stillyside, to find and
recover her she did not doubt; but in the meantime what might she
not have to endure? And shrinking from the contemplation of the
uncertain gulf before her, she was at length recalled to a sense
of external things, by a sudden change of sound, from that of the
clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard road, to one like the roll
of a distant peal of thunder, and telling her they were crossing
a rude wooden bridge, that led from the Island to the main. Then
for the first time the riders permanently abated their speed, and
their prisoner enquired of them whither they were carrying her.

"Never mind that, my pretty passenger pigeon," replied the elder
with a ghoul-like grin; "you will not require to find your way back
this year." And the foaming, exhausted animals, relieved from the
trying gallop, dropped into a feeble trot or lazy canter, whilst
Amanda gazed wistfully around to discover some glimpse of dawn.
No certain sign of it, however, could she perceive on the circle
of the horizon, though all around there showed the whitened eaves
of the roof of gloomy clouds. Her companions, too, casting jealous
glances at each other in the obscurity, had become more mutually
taciturn; and the wind, that during the previous part of their
flight had risen, as if to be in keeping with the current violence,
had now fallen to a calm; and, proceeding thus, she continued to
tell the terrors of her situation, as they alternately glided
through the gloom of the clearing, or plunged into the denser
darkness of the forest; till at last she was startled by something
leaping against her feet, followed by the pleased but stifled
barking of a huge hound close by her, and at the same instant she
saw a woman bearing a lighted candle in her hand, emerge from a
hovel on the road side. The next moment the party were halted before
it, and the woman, holding up her light, shed its beams upon the
face and form of Amanda, whose arrival she seemed to have been
expecting; and after having fixed her eyes searchingly upon he