impediment to his joining the companions of his exile before nightfall.

His measures were taken accordingly. His baggage-horses, under the charge
of the younger of the two negroes, were sent on with the band; the other,
an old and faithful slave of his father, being retained as a useful
appendage to a party containing his kinswoman, from whom he, of course,
saw no reason to be separated. To Edith herself, the delay was far from
being disagreable. It promised a gay and cheerful gallop through the
forest, instead of the dull, plodding, funeral-like march to which she
had been day after day monotonously accustomed. She assented, therefore,
to the arrangement, and, like her kinsman, beheld, in the fresh light of
sun-rise, without a sigh, without even a single foreboding of evil, the
departure of the train of emigrants, with whom she had journeyed in
safety so many long and weary leagues through the desert.

They set out in high spirits, after shaking hands with their hosts at the
gates, and saluting them with cheers, which they repeated in honour of
their young captain; and, in a few moments, the whole train had vanished,
as if swallowed up by the dark forest.




CHAPTER VI.


Within an hour after the emigrants had set out, the sky, which had
previously been clear and radiant, began to be overcast with clouds,
dropping occasional rains, which Roland scarcely observed with regret,
their effect on the sultry atmosphere being highly agreeable and