"Bless ye for these very words!" exclaimed the trembling Munro; "I shall then receive my babes spotless and angel-like, as I lost them!"
"I know not that their delivery is at hand," returned the doubting David; "the leader of these savages is possessed of an evil spirit that no power short of Omnipotence can tame. I have tried him sleeping and waking, but neither sounds nor language seem to touch his soul."
"Where is the knave?" bluntly interrupted the scout.
"He hunts the moose to-day, with his young men; and to-morrow, as I hear, they pass farther into these forests, and nigher to the borders of Canada. The elder maiden is conveyed to a neighboring people, whose lodges are situate beyond yonder black pinnacle of rock; while the younger is detained among the women of the Hurons, whose dwellings are but two short miles hence, on a table-land, where the fire has done the office of the axe, and prepared the place for their reception."
"Alice, my gentle Alice!" murmured Heyward; "she has lost the consolation of her sister's presence!"
"Even so. But so far as praise and thanksgiving in psalmody can temper the spirit in affliction, she has not suffered."
"Of the graver and more solemn character; though it must be acknowledged that, in spite of all my endeavors, the maiden weeps oftener than she smiles. At such moments I forbear to press the holy songs; but there are many sweet and comfortable periods of satisfactory communication, when the ears of the savages are astounded with the upliftings of our voices."
"And why are you permitted to go at large, unwatched?"
David composed his features into what he intended should express an air of modest humility, before he meekly replied--
"Little be the praise to such a worm as I. But, though the power of psalmody was suspended in the terrible business of that field of blood through which we passed, it has recovered its influence even over the souls of the heathen, and I am suffered to go and come at will."
The scout laughed, and tapping his own forehead significantly, he perhaps explained the singular indulgence more satisfactorily when he said--
"The Indians never harm a non-composser. But why, when the path lay open before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings to Edward?"