saw the hand of the red man upon the sill, the hatchet descended, under an impulse scarcely her own. She struck too quickly. The blow was given with all her force, and would certainly have separated the hand from the arm had it taken effect. But the quick eye of the Indian caught a glimpse of her movement at the very moment in which it was made, and the hand was withdrawn before the hatchet descended. The steel sank deep into the soft wood-so deeply that she could not disengage it. To try at this object would have exposed her at once to his weapon, and leaving it where it stuck, she sunk back again into shadow. What now was she to do? To stay where she was would be of little avail; but to cry out to those below, and seek to fly, was equally unproductive of good, besides warning the enemy of the defencelessness of their condition, and thus inviting a renewal of the attack. The thought came to her with the danger; and without a word she maintained her position, in waiting for the progress of events. As the Indian had also sunk from sight, and some moments had now elapsed without his reappearance, she determined to make another effort for the recovery of the hatchet. She grasped it by the handle, and in the next moment the hand of the savage was upon her own. He felt that his grasp was on the fingers of a woman, and in a brief word and something of a chuckle, while he still maintained his hold upon it, he conveyed intelligence of the fact to those below. But it was a woman with a man's spirit with whom he contended, and her endeavor was successful to disengage herself. The same success did not attend her effort to recover the weapon. In the brief struggle with her enemy it had become disengaged from the wood, and while both strove to seize it, it slipped from their mutual hands, and sliding over the sill, in another instant was heard rattling through the intervening bushes. Descending upon the ground below, it became the spoil of those without, whose murmurs of gratulation she distinctly heard. But now came the tug of difficulty. The Indian, striving at the entrance, was necessarily encouraged by the discovery that his opponent was not a man; and assured, at the same time, by the forbearance on the part of those within to strike him effectually down from the tree, he now resolutely endeavored to effect his entrance. His head was again fully in sight of the anxious woman-then his shoulders; and at length, taking a firm grasp upon the sill, he strove to elevate himself by muscular strength, so as to secure him sufficient purchase for the entrance at which he aimed. What could she do--weaponless, hopeless? The prospect was startling and terrible enough; but she was a strong-minded woman, and impulse served her when reflection would most probably have taught her to fly. She had but one resource; and as the Indian had gradually thrust one hand forward for the hold upon the sill, and raised the other up to the side of the window, she grasped the one nighest to her own. She grasped it firmly with all her might, and to advantage, as, having lifted himself on tiptoe for the purpose of ascent, he had necessarily lost much of the control which a secure hold for his feet must have given him. Her grasp sufficiently assisted him forward to lessen still more greatly the security of his feet, while at the same time though bringing him still farther into the apartment, placing him in such a position—half in air as to defeat much of the muscular exercise which his limbs would have possessed in any other situation. Her weapon now would have been all-important; and the brave woman mentally deplored the precipitancy with which she had acted in the first instance, and which had so unhappily deprived her of its use. But self-reproach was unavailing now, and she was satisfied if she could be able to retain her foe in his present position; by which, keeping him out, or in and out, as she did, she necessarily excluded all other foes from the aperture which he so completely filled up. The intruder, though desirous enough of entrance before, was rather reluctant to obtain it now, under existing circumstances. He strove desperately to effect a retreat, but had advanced too far, however, to be easily successful; and, in his confusion and disquiet, he spoke to those below in his own language, explaining his difficulty and directing their movement to his assistance. A sudden rush along the tree indicated to the conscious sense of the woman the new danger, in the approach of additional enemies, who must not only sustain, but push forward, the one with whom she contended. This warned her at once of the necessity of some sudden procedure, if she hoped to do anything for her own and the safety of those around her-the women and the children, whom, amid all the contest, she had never once alarmed. Putting forth all her strength, therefore, though nothing in comparison with that of him whom she opposed, had he been in a condition to exert it, she strove to draw him still farther across the entrance, so as to exclude, if possible, the approach of those coming behind him. She hoped to gain time-sufficient time for those preparing the ladder to come to her relief; and with this hope for the first time she called aloud to Grayson and her husband. The Indian, in the meanwhile, derived the support for his person as well from the grasp of the woman as from his own hold upon the sill of the window. Her effort necessarily drawing him still farther forward, placed him so completely in the way of his allies that they could do him little service while things remained in this situation; and, to complete the difficulties of his predicament, while they busied themselves in several efforts at his extrication, the branches of the little tree, resting against the dwelling, yielding suddenly to the unusual weight upon ittrembling and sinking away at last-cracked beneath the burden, and VOL. VI.-18 snapping off from its several holds, fell from under them, dragging against the building in the progress down; thus breaking their fall, but cutting off all their hope from this mode of entrance, and leaving their comrade awkwardly poised aloft, able neither to enter nor to depart from the window. The tree finally settled heavily upon the ground; and with it went the three savages who had so readily ascended to the assistance of their comrade-bruised and very much hurt; while he, now without any support but that which he derived from the sill, and what little his feet could secure from the irregular crevices between the logs of which the house had been built, was hung in air, unable to advance except at the will of his woman opponent, and dreading a far worse fall from his eminence than that which had already happened to his allies. Desperate with his situation, he thrust his arm, as it was still held by the woman, still farther into the window, and this enabled her with both. hands to secure and strengthen the grasp which she had originally taken upon it. This she did with a new courage and strength, derived from the voices below, by which she understood a promise of assistance. Excited and nerved, she drew the extended arm of the Indian, in spite of all his struggles, directly over the sill, so as to turn the elbow completely down upon it. With her whole weight thus employed, bending down to the floor to strengthen herself to the task, she pressed the arm across the window until her ears heard the distinct, clear crack of the boneuntil she heard the groan, and felt the awful struggles of the suffering wretch, twisting himself round with all his effort to obtain for the shattered arm a natural and relaxed position, and with this object leaving his hold upon everything, only sustained, indeed, by the grasp of his enemy. But the movement of the woman had been quite too sudden, her nerves too firm, and her strength too great, to suffer him to succeed. The jagged splinters of the broken limb were thrust up, lacerating and tearing through flesh and skin, while a howl of the acutest agony attested the severity of that suffering which could extort such an acknowledgment from the American savage. He fainted in his pain, and as the weight increased upon the arm of the woman, the nature of her sex began to resume its sway. With a shudder of every fibre, she released her hold upon him. The effort of her soul was over-a strange sickness came upon her; and she was just conscious of a crashing fall of the heavy body among the branches of the tree at the foot of the window, when she staggered back fainting in the arms of her husband, who just at that moment ascended to her relief. Oh! never more, to cheer The mariner, who holds his course alone On the Atlantic, through the weary night, With the sweet-loving certainty of light, The upward-looking shepherd on the hills And, from his dreary watch along the rocks, So natural to his sight! And lone, Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone, Brood the once happy circle of bright stars: How should they dream, until her fate was known, That they were ever confiscate to death? That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars, And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath, Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die,— All their concerted springs of harmony Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone! Ah! still the strain Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky; Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest! Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone From the lone sphere they blest! THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT. THE burden of the Desert, The Desert like the deep, That from the south in whirlwinds I see the spoiler spoiling, I hear the strife of blows; Up, watchman, to thy heights and say What hear'st thou from the desert ?— "A sound, as if a world Were from its axle lifted up And to an ocean hurled; The roaring as of waters, The rushing as of hills, And lo! the tempest-smoke and cloud, That all the desert fills." What seest thou on the desert ?- And now a lion darteth From out the cloud, and he Looks backward ever as he flies, What, watchman, of the horsemen ?- The horsemen heed them naught, The foe with whom they fought." |