catch him.'

"'What do you mean then--what have you seen?'" I asked
in the same low whisper, the policy of which his action
had enjoined on me.

"'Lookee dare, Massa Geral, lookee dare?'

"Following the direction in which he pointed, I now saw,
but very indistinctly, a canoe in which was a solitary
individual stealing across the lake to the impulsion of
an apparently muffled paddle; for her course,
notwithstanding the stillness of the night, was utterly
noiseless. The moon, which is in her first quarter, had
long since disappeared, yet the heavens, although not
particularly bright, ware sufficiently dotted with stars
to enable me, with the aid of a night telescope, to
discover that the figure, which guided the cautiously
moving bark, had nothing Indian in its outline. The crew
of the gun boat (the watch only excepted) had long since
turned in; and even the latter lay reposing on the
forecastle, the sentinels only keeping the ordinary look
out. So closely moreover did we lay in shore, that but
for the caution of the paddler, it might have been assumed
she was too nearly identified with the dark forest against
which her hull and spars reposed, to be visible. Curious
to ascertain her object, I watched the canoe in silence,
as, whether accidentally or with design, I know not, she
made the half circuit of the gun boat and then bore away
in a direct line for the Canadian shore. A suspicion of