action: for, as the anxious officer had rather wished
than expected, those Indians who had been immediately in
front, and whose proximity he most dreaded, were among
the number of those who dashed into the heart of the
forest--Captain de Haldimar now stood alone, and full
twenty paces in front of the nearest of the savages. For
a moment he played with his mocassined foot to satisfy
himself, of the power and flexibility of its muscles,
and then committing himself to his God, dashed the blanket
suddenly from his shoulders, and, with eye and heart
fixed on the distant soldiery, darted down the declivity
with a speed of which he had never yet believed himself
capable. Scarcely, however, had his fleeing form appeared
in the opening, when a tremendous and deafening yell rent
the air, and a dozen wild and naked warriors followed
instantly in pursuit. Attracted by that yell, the terrible
Wacousta, who had been seeking his victim in a different
quarter, bounded forward to the front with an eye flashing
fire, and a brow compressed into the fiercest hate; and
so stupendous were his efforts, so extraordinary was his
speed, that had it not been for the young Ottawa chief,
who was one of the pursuing party, and who, under the
pretence of assisting in the recapture of the prisoner,
sought every opportunity of throwing himself before, and
embarrassing the movements of his enemy, it is highly
probable the latter would have succeeded. Despite of
these obstacles, however, the fierce Wacousta, who had
been the last to follow, soon left the foremost of his
companions far behind him; and but for his sudden fall,
while in the very act of seizing the arm of his prisoner,