from amid the waste of the wilderness, and the glad music of human
voices awoke the silence of the forest.

'Now! God of mercy, behold the change! Under the shadow of a
pretext--under the sanctity of the name of God--invoking the Redeemer to
their aid, do these foreign hirelings slay our people! They throng our
towns; they darken our plains; and now they encompass our posts on the
lonely plain of Chadd's Ford.

"The effect was electric. The keen eye of the in-trepid Wayne flashed
fire. The neighboring sentinels, who had paused to listen, quickened
their pace, with a proud tread and a nervous feeling, impatient for
vengeance on the vandal foe.

"Gathering strength once more, he checked the choking sensations his own
recital had caused, and continued:

"'They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.'

"Brethren, think me not unworthy of belief, when I tell you that the
doom of the Britisher is near! Think me not vain, when I tell you that
beyond the cloud that now enshrouds us, I see gathering, thick and fast,
the darker cloud and the blacker storm of a Divine retribution!

'They may conquer us on the morrow! Might and wrong may prevail, and we
may be driven from this field--but the hour of God's own vengeance will
surely come!

'Ay, if in the vast solitudes of eternal space, if in the heart of the
boundless universe, there throbs the being of an awful God, quick