was, he resolved to move undeviatingly forward. At each
step that drew him nearer to his enemy, the beating of
his heart became more violent; and had it not been for
the thick coat of paint in which he was invested, the
involuntary contraction of the muscles of his face must
inevitably have betrayed him. Nay, even as it was, had
the keen eye of the warrior fallen on him, such was the
agitation of the officer, he felt he must have been
discovered. Happily, however, Wacousta, who evidently
took him for some inferior warrior hastening to the point
where his fellows were already assembled, passed without
deigning to look at him, and so close, their forms almost
touched. Captain de Haldimar now quickened his pace. It
was evident there was no time to be lost; for Wacousta,
on finding him gone, would at once give the alarm, when
a hundred warriors would be ready on the instant to
intercept his flight. Taking the precaution to disguise
his walk by turning in his toes after the Indian manner,
he reached, with a beating heart, the first of the numerous
warriors who were collected within the belt of forest,
anxiously watching the movements of the detachment in
the plain below. To his infinite joy he found that each
was too much intent on what was passing in the distance,
to heed any thing going on near themselves; and when he
at length gained the extreme opening, and stood in a line
with those who were the farthest advanced, without having
excited a single suspicion in his course, he could scarcely
believe the evidence of his senses.

Still the most difficult part of the enterprise remained