whoop of triumph resounded through the air, elevating his voice to a tone like thunder, added, "he is weak and faint; my tribe will not let him die like a woman; let him rest and eat to-night, so that to-morrow he may sing his death-song like a warrior."

"Have you, Joscelyn, deserted me?" said Melancourt in accents of despair; but he spoke to ears that were closed to entreaty. "Is this your gratitude ?" added he, grasping the robe of the Chief, as a fierce-looking savage proceeded to bind his arms with a taunting laugh.

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May God help me," exclaimed he, as Onwawisset turned upon him a countenance that seemed hardened into marble, so destitute was it of sympathy or hope, "for I am indeed helpless."

The proposition of the Sachem, although it deferred the hour when they could glut their ferocious feelings, seemed to have found favour in the eyes of the savages, and accordingly Melancourt was again thrust, bound hand and foot, in the cavern. He was now in utter darkness, the Indians having firmly blocked the entrance, and a prey to those emotions natural to a man severed from all human help, and in the power of those, than whom the wild beasts were not more blood-thirsty and merciless.

In the meanwhile the frequent whoops and bursts of irregular, but solemn chanting, proclaimed that the dance by which these children of Nature celebrated their triumph in the possession of their victim was now progressing, and soon the wild shouts and loud laughs of savage merriment also showed that they had plunged in those unrestrained and drunken orgies that usually ended the terrific ceremony. The rude food which had been placed before the captive was left untouched, and his blood curdled as he listened to the boisterous din without, which he knew was the prelude to those tortures he was to endure at the dawn. Hour after hour crept by-the sounds had long since ceased-the chirp of the cricket and the occasional rustle of some reptile only echoing in the stillness of the cavern, and he was fast sinking in the apathy of despair. Was it fancy, or did he hear the sound of a voice in the darkness? The next, a hand fell upon his shoulder, and as he started, expecting the blow of the tomahawk, the tones of the young Sachem fell upon his ear.

"Is my brother awake?"

"Away, cruel and ungrateful savage!" answered Melancourt in resentful accents. "Leave me to my fate; or if you have come for that purpose, sink at once your hatchet into my brain; that will at least save me from the hands of yon ferocious demons, who bear the forms but not the hearts of men."

"The brother of Joscelyn is angry with him. Does he think," added the young Sachem, in broken accents of the deepest reproach,

"that Joscelyn would leave him to die? Does he think that the days when we were both young and happy are hid from the soul of Onwawisset? No!" cried he, as he cut with the greatest rapidity the thongs from the hands and feet of the captive; "my brother shall not die while Joscelyn lives. I thought," continued he in a tone of anguish," when my warriors whooped, that I heard the cry of your gray-haired father calling for his son. Onwawisset's heart is not rock; I felt it melt within me. The eyes of a Chief," wringing the hand of Melancourt, "were wet like a woman's when she clasps her dying child. But enough; Joscelyn's heart is his brother's, it will protect him; his blood is his brother's, it will flow for him. Listen;" thrusting a rifle into his hands, "the warriors of the Eagle have drank the fire-water till they sleep like bears in the season of snows. Joscelyn will lead out his brother, and no eye will

be open to see. He will take him to the stone lodge of his people by the great lake, where he will be safe. Onwawisset is the Sachem of his tribe, but Joscelyn is the slave of his brother."

"I thought the salt waves had long since closed over your head and my white father's," continued the Chief, as he led Melancourt along the windings of the cavern in a direction opposite to the entrance. Melancourt in a few words informed him of the false report concerning the death of his father and himself.

"Do the winters fly lightly over the white hair?" resumed Onwawisset in tones of the deepest affection; "is the old oak bowed?” The Virginian again satisfied the faithful Indian by assuring him of his father's prosperity from the last tidings he had received.

They had now arrived at the opening, and it was with a feeling of grateful joy that Melancourt felt the cool breeze once more breathing over his cheek, bringing with it the certainty of liberty.

It was night, and the moon was in her zenith, quenching the near stars in her excess of splendor, and casting her sprinkled silver through the thick embowering foliage of the forest. Scattered here and there, some in the chequered light and some in shadow, were the forms of the savages, stretched in the lethargy caused by their copious intoxicating libations. Through this array of enemies was the path of the Sachem and his friend. Cautiously Onwawisset passed amid the group, followed by Melancourt, hardly breathing in the excitement and anxiety of the moment. They had passed but a short distance, and the Virginian had but just stepped over a huge cluster of roots that lay massed in the darkness cast by the leaves overhead, when to his astonishment and consternation the supposed cluster sprang from the earth with a loud whoop. Catching Melancourt by the arm, Onwawisset darted on one side to a deep hollow formed by the falling of a huge trunk, and black with the sha

dow thrown by the broad mass of roots imbedded in the earth torn from its surface by the fall. Casting themselves prostrate, they heard the scene, late so silent, re-echo with shouts and yells in every direction. Apparently the truth had not yet been fully ascertained, for the savage, awakened by the foot of Melancourt, had not sufficiently recovered from his surprise to identify to a certainty the fugitives before they were hidden from his view. But it was soon to be discovered. Not daring to stir from the cover, Onwawisset was peeping through the fern fringe on the side of the hollow, when he grasped the arm of the Virginian, who, looking in the direction where the Sachem was pointing, saw the flashing of torches around the mouth of the cavern. The yells had in a measure ceased in front, but a loud burst of whoops, sent from around the cave, announced that the flight of the captive was discovered. Then, as the torches glided rapidly towards the concealment, Onwawisset whispering, "to the ravine and hide," sprang to his feet, followed by his companion, and together they fled through the forest in front. A fresh burst of yells to the left and in the rear added wings to their footsteps. They had now reached the open space where the moonlight, spread over like a silver carpet, dis played the blackened ashes of the block-house and the scattered remains of Melancourt's unfortunate hand, but offering no friendly shadow to conceal the flight of the fugitives. But beyond this. broad sheet of light was the ravine, spreading its edges of dark. ness. So rapid had been their flight, they had apparently distanced their pursuers; and the heart of Melancourt warmed by the prospect of safety seemingly afforded by the abyss. They had now reached the ravine at the point indicated by the young soldier in the opening of this chapter.

The Sachem and the Virginian sprang together over the chasm upon the jutting ledge; but as Onwawisset was in the act of plunging into the gloom of the ravine, a shot resounded from the opposite thicket, and he saw the form of his friend totter fearfully on the brink of the platform; the next, and the horror-struck Indian beheld him precipitated into the gloom beneath; but a streak of moonlight displays him clinging to a branch. Grasp with all thy ebbing strength, young soldier! for beneath thee are the deadly surges-the spray even now mingles with the gushing blood from thy side-the roar echoes terrifically in thy ears! In vain-in vain; the faithless bough is bending with thy weight-it cracks-it parts! What is that shrill sound which instantly is drowned in the thunderings of the torrent? It is the death-shriek of Melancourt.

Maddened by the sight, as the Indian who had caused the destruction of his friend with a triumphant shout appeared on the edge

of the abyss, Onwawisset again leaped the chasm, and with one blow of his tomahawk laid him dead upon the earth.

Then rearing his form proudly, he shouted to an advancing body of the yelling pursuers as he dashed the plume from his brow

"The warriors of the Eagle are cowards! Onwawisset scorns to be their Sachem; he goes to join his brother in the land of shadows!" and, with a piercing whoop, he leaped into the frightful gloom that rested upon the wild and dashing sepulchre of waters.

Monticello, Sullivan Co., N. Y.

FRAGMENTS FROM THE JOURNAL

OF A SOLITARY MAN.

My poor friend "Oberon”—for let me be allowed to distinguish him by so quaint a name-sleeps with the silent of ages. He died calmly. Though his disease was pulmonary, his life did not flicker out like a wasted lamp, sometimes shooting up into a strange temporary brightness; but the tide of being ebbed away, and the moon of his existence waned till, in the simple phraseology of Scripture, "he was not." The last words he said to me were, "Burn my papers-all that you can find in yonder escritoire; for I fear there are some there which you may be betrayed into publishing. I have published enough; as for the old disconnected journal in your possession -" But here my poor friend was checked in his utterance by that same hollow cough which would never let him alone. So he coughed himself tired, and sunk to slumber. I watched from that midnight hour till high noon on the morrow for his waking. The chamber was dark; till, longing for light, I opened the window-shutter, and the broad day looked in on the marble features of the dead!

I religiously obeyed his instructions with regard to the papers in the escritoire, and burned them in a heap without looking into one, though sorely tempted. But the old journal I kept. Perhaps in strict conscience I ought also to have burned that; but, casting my eye over some half-torn leaves the other day, I could not resist an impulse to give some fragments of it to the public. To do this satisfactorily, I am obliged to twist this thread, so as to string together into a semblance of order my Oberon's "random pearls.”

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If any body that holds any commerce with his fellow-men can be called solitary, Oberon was a solitary man." He lived in a small village at some distance from the metropolis, and never came up to the city except once in three months for the purpose of looking into a book-store, and of spending two hours and a half with me. In that space of time I would tell him all that I could remember of interest which had occurred in the interim of his visits. He would join very heartily in the conversation; but as soon as the time of his usual tarrying had elapsed, he would take up his hat and depart. He was unequivocally the most original person I ever knew. His style of composition was very charming. No tales that have ever appeared in our popular journals have been so generally admired as his. But a sadness was on his spirit; and this, added to the shrinking sensitiveness of his nature, rendered him not misanthropic, but singularly averse to social intercourse. the disease, which was slowly sapping the springs of his life, he first became fully conscious after one of those long abstractions in which he was so wont to indulge. It is remarkable, however, that his first idea of this sort, instead of deepening his spirit with a more melancholy hue, restored him to a more natural state of mind.

Of

He had evidently cherished a secret hope that some impulse would at length be given him, or that he would muster sufficient energy of will to return into the world, and act a wiser and happier part than his former one. But life never called the dreamer forth; it was Death that whispered him. It is to be regretted that this portion of his old journal contains so few passages relative to this interesting period; since the little which he has recorded, though melancholy enough, breathes the gentleness of a spirit newly restored to communion with its kind. If there be any thing bitter in the following reflections, its source is in human sympathy, and its sole object is himself.

"It is hard to die without one's happiness; to none more so than myself, whose early resolution it had been to partake largely of the joys of life, but never to be burthened with its cares. Vain philosophy! The very hardships of the poorest laborer, whose whole existence seems one long toil, has something preferable to my best pleasures.

Merely skimming the surface of life, I know nothing, by my own experience, of its deep and warm realities. I have achieved none of those objects which the instinct of mankind especially prompts them to pursue, and the accomplishment of which must therefore beget a native satisfaction. The truly wise, after all their specu. lations, will be led into the common path, and, in homage to the human nature that pervades them, will gather gold, and till the