A flush of joy shot over De Catinat as his fingers closed round the pistol.  Here was indeed a key to unlock the gates of peace.  Adele laid her cheek against his shoulder and laughed with pleasure.

“You will forgive me, dear,” he whispered.

“Forgive you!  I bless you, and love you with my whole heart and soul.  Clasp me close, darling, and say one prayer before you do it.”

They had sunk on their knees together when three warriors entered the hut and said a few abrupt words to their country-woman.  She rose with a smile.

“They are waiting for me,” said she.  “You shall see, White Lily, and you also, monsieur, how well I know what is due to my position.  Farewell, and remember Onega!”

She smiled again, and walked from the hut amidst the warriors with the quick firm step of a queen who sweeps to a throne.

“Now, Amory!” whispered Adele, closing her eyes, and nestling still closer to him.

He raised the pistol, and then, with a quick sudden intaking of the breath, he dropped it, and knelt with glaring eyes looking up at a tree which faced the open door of the hut.

It was a beech-tree, exceedingly old and gnarled, with its bark hanging down in strips and its whole trunk spotted with moss and mould.  Some ten feet above the ground the main trunk divided into two, and in the fork thus formed a hand had suddenly appeared, a large reddish hand, which shook frantically from side to side in passionate dissuasion.  The next instant, as the two captives still stared in amazement, the hand disappeared behind the trunk again and a face appeared in its place, which still shook from side to side as resolutely as its forerunner.  It was impossible to mistake that mahogany, wrinkled skin, the huge bristling eyebrows, or the little glistening eyes.  It was Captain Ephraim Savage of Boston!

And even as they stared and wondered a sudden shrill whistle burst out from the depths of the forest, and in a moment every bush and thicket and patch of brushwood were spouting fire and smoke, while the snarl of the musketry ran round the whole glade, and the storm of bullets whizzed and pelted among the yelling savages.  The Iroquois’ sentinels had been drawn in by their bloodthirsty craving to see the prisoners die, and now the Canadians were upon them, and they were hemmed in by a ring of fire.  First one way and then another they rushed, to be met always by the same blast of death, until finding at last some gap in the attack they streamed through, like sheep through a broken fence, and rushed madly away through the forest, with the bullets of their pursuers still singing about their ears, until the whistle sounded again to recall the woodsmen from the chase.