seen, and, though in that moment I had no wits to count them, Shalah
told me afterwards they must have numbered little short of a thousand.
Some very old fellows were there, with lean, hollow cheeks, and scanty
locks, but the most were warriors in their prime. I could see it was a
big war they were out for, since some of the horses carried heavy loads
of corn, and it is never the Indian fashion to take much provender for
a common raid. In all Virginia's history there had been no such
invasion, for the wars of Opechancanough and Berkeley and the fight of
Bacon against the Susquehannocks were mere bickers compared with this
deliberate downpour from the hills.

As we lay there, scarce daring to breathe, I saw that we were in deadly
peril. The host was so great that some marched on the very edge of our
thicket. I could see through the leaves the brown Skins not a yard
away. The slightest noise would bring the sharp Indian eyes peering
into the gloom, and we must be betrayed.

In that moment, which was one of the gravest of my life, I had happily
no leisure to think of myself. My whole soul sickened with anxiety for
the girl. I knew enough of Indian ways to guess her fate. For Shalah
and myself there might be torture, and at the best an arrow in our
hearts, but for her there would be things unspeakable. I remembered the
little meadow on the Rapidan, and the tale told by the grey ashes.
There was only one shot in my pistol, but I determined that it should
be saved for her. In such a crisis the memory works wildly, and I
remember feeling glad that I had stood up before Grey's fire. The
thought gave me a comforting assurance of manhood.

Those were nightmare minutes. The girl was very quiet, in a stupor of
fatigue and fear. Shalah was a graven image, and I was too tensely