his greatest pleasure to climb to the summit of a neighboring hill, which was crowned by a few ancient and majestic pines, and there to look in wonder and admiration at the scenery around him.  To the west, a vast and trackless forest spread as far as the eye could reach, unbroken save by some distant lakes, that shone like clear mirrors in their dark green setting.  Trees of gigantic growth rose high above their brethren of the wood, but wild luxuriant creepers, many of them bearing clusters of bright blossoms, had climbed ambitiously to their summits, seeking the light of day, and the warmth of the sunbeams, which could not penetrate the thick underwood that was their birth-place.  It was a sea of varied and undulating foliage, beautiful and striking, but almost oppressive to the spirit; and Henrich gazed sadly over the interminable forest, and thought of the weeks, and months—­and, possibly, the years that this wilderness was to be his home.  Escape, under present circumstances, he felt to be impossible; and he endeavored to reconcile himself to his fate, and to look forward with hope to a dim and uncertain future.  Could his parents and Edith but have been assured of his safety, he thought he could have borne his captivity more cheerfully; but to feel that they were mourning him as dead, and that, perhaps, they would never know that his blood had not been cruelly shed by his captors, was hard for the affectionate boy to endure.

To Oriana, alone, could he tell his feelings, and pour out his griefs and anxieties; and Edith herself could not have listened to him with more attention and sympathy than was shown by the young Indian girl.  When her domestic duties were accomplished, she would accompany her new friend to his favorite retreat on the hill-top; and there, seated by his side beneath the tall pines, she would hold his hand, and gaze into his sorrowful countenance, and listen to his fond regrets for his distant home, and all its dearly-loved inmates, till tears would gather in her soft black eyes, and she almost wished that she could restore him to his countrymen.  But this she was powerless to do, even if she could have made up her mind to the sacrifice of her ‘white brother,’ as she called him.  She had, indeed, wrought upon her father so far as to save his life, and have him adopted into their tribe and family; but she well knew that nothing would ever induce him to give up his possession of Rodolph’s son, or suffer his parents to know that he lived.

All this she told to Henrich; and his spirit, sanguine as it was, sickened at the prospect of a lengthened captivity among uncivilized and heathen beings.  He gazed mournfully to the east; he looked over the wide expanse of country that he had lately traversed, and his eye seemed to pierce the rising hills, and lofty forests, that lay between him and his cherished home; and in the words of the Psalmist he cried, ’Oh that I had wings as a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest!’