The Indian lifted
his weeping prisoner from the canoe, and motioned to her to move forward
along the narrow path that led to the camp, about twenty yards higher up
the bank, where there was a little grassy spot enclosed, with shrubby
trees--the squaws tarried at the lake-shore to bring up the paddles and
secure the canoe.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an enemy, but doubly so,
when that enemy is a stranger to the language in which we would plead for
mercy--whose God is not our God, nor his laws those by which we ourselves
are governed. Thus felt the poor captive as she stood alone, mute with
terror among the half-naked dusky forms with which she now found herself
surrounded. She cast a hurried glance round that strange assembly, if by
chance her eye might rest upon some dear familiar face, but she saw not
the kind but grave face of Hector, nor met the bright sparkling eye of her
cousin Louis, nor the soft, subdued, pensive features of the Indian girl,
her adopted sister--she stood alone among those wild gloomy-looking men;
some turned away their eyes as if they would not meet her woe-stricken
countenance, lest they should be moved to pity her sad condition; no wonder
that, overcome by the sense of her utter friendliness, she hid her face
with her fettered hands and wept in despair.
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