It was while they were thus happily engaged one afternoon, when Henrich was slowly recovering his strength, that the elder and his young audience were startled by wild and discordant sounds, mingled with cries of fear, which proceeded from the outskirts of the straggling village, and seemed to be approaching.  Henrich raised himself on his bed, and a look of terror overspread his countenance, as he exclaimed:  ’It is the war cry of the savages!  O!  I know it well!  Go, Mr. Brewster, fly! save my mother.  I will follow you.’

And the brave boy tried to leap from the couch, and reach his father’s sword, which hung against the wooden walls of his chamber.  But it was in vain; the wounded leg refused to bear his weight, and he was forced to relinquish his design.  Brewster, however, snatched the sword, and drawing it, rushed from the hut, leaving Edith and Ludovico clinging with trembling hands around their brother.

Henrich’s fears proved but too true.  No sooner had the elder traversed the enclosure that surrounded Maitland’s dwelling, than he beheld Helen, and several of the other women who had gone out to assist their husbands in the lighter parts of their agricultural labors, flying in terror and confusion to their huts, while the men were engaged in close combat with a party of native Indians.  The same war-cry which had rung on their ears in the first encounter told Rodolph and his comrades that these savages were of the same tribe, and probably the same individuals from whom they had escaped with such difficulty on that occasion.  They were right; for it was indeed a band of the Nausetts, who, headed by their Chief, had come to seek revenge for the loss they had sustained at their former meeting.  The warrior whom Rodolph’s musket had laid low was Tekoa, the only son of the Nausett chief; and he was resolved that the white man’s blood should flow, to expiate the deed.  He knew that the son of the stranger who had slain his young warrior had been wounded, and, as he hoped, mortally; but that did not suffice for his revenge, and he had either suddenly attacked the settlement, in the hope of securing either Rudolph himself or some of his comrades, that he might shed the white man’s blood on the grave of his son, and tear off their scalps as trophies of victory.

The settlers who now contended with the savages were but few in number, for many of the men lay sick, and many had died; and they were mostly unarmed, except with their agricultural implements.  Rudolph and a few others had short swords, or dirks, attached to their girdles, and with these they dealt blows that told with deadly effect on the half-naked bodies of their foes; and the good broad-sword that Brewster quickly placed in Maitland’s hand, was not long in discomfiting several of the Indians, who had singled him out, at the command of their Chief, as the special object of their attack.  Meanwhile, many of the women, and such of the invalids as had power to rise,