Towards evening Metea entered the hut, and approaching Alice, caught hold of her hand,—­the wildest passion gleamed in his glittering eyes, and Alice, shrieking, ran towards the door.  Metea caught her in his arms and pressed her to his bosom.  Again she shrieked, and a descending blow cleft Metea’s skull in sunder, and his blood fell on her neck.  It was the young Indian who advised her liberation in the morning who dealt Metea’s death-blow.  Taking Alice in his arms, he stepped lightly from the hut.  It was a still and starless night, and the sleeping Indians saw them not.  Unloosing a canoe, he placed Alice in it, and pushed softly from the shore.

Before the next sunset Alice was in sight of her home.  Her father and friends knew nothing of what had transpired.  They fancied her at her friend’s house, and terror at her peril and joy at her return followed in the same breath.  Mary threw a timid, yet kind glance on the Indian warrior who had saved her darling Alice, and Kenneth pressed the hand of him who restored his child.  In a few minutes William Douglas joined the happy group, and she repeated her escape on his bosom.  That night Kenneth Gordon’s prayer was longer and more fervent than usual.  The father’s thanks arose to the throne of grace for the safety of his child; he prayed for her deliverer, and for pardon for the hatred he had nurtured against the murderers of his children.  During the prayer the Indian stood apart, his arms were folded, and deep thought was marked on his brow.  When it was finished, Mary’s children knelt and received Kenneth’s blessing, ere they retired to rest.  The Indian rushed forward, and, bursting into tears, threw himself at the old man’s feet—­he bent his feathered head to the earth.  The stern warrior wept like a child.  Oh! who can trace the deep workings of the human heart?  Who can tell in what hidden fount the feelings have their spring?  The forest chase—­the bloody field—­the war dance—­all the pomp of savage life passed like a dream from the Indian’s soul; a cloud seemed to roll its shadows from his memory.  That evening’s prayer, and a father’s blessing, recalled a time faded from his recollection, yet living in the dreams of his soul.  He thought of the period when he, a happy child like those before him, had knelt and heard the same sweet words breathed o’er his bending head:  he remembered having received a father’s kiss, and a mother’s smile gleamed like a star in his memory; but the fleeting visions of childhood were fading again into darkness, when Kenneth arose, and, clasping the Indian wildly to his breast, exclaimed, “My son, my son! my long lost Charles!” The springs of the father’s love gushed forth to meet his son, and the unseen sympathy of nature guided him to “The Lost One.”  ’Twas indeed Charles Gordon, whom his father held to his breast, but not as he lived in his father’s fancy.  He beheld him a painted savage, whose hand was yet stained with blood; but Kenneth’s fondest