“It is the cry of a human being!” said Edith,—­“of a man in distress!”

“It is, indeed,” replied the soldier,—­“of a man in great peril, or suffering.  Remain here on the road; and if anything—­Nay, if you will follow me, it may be better; but let it be at a distance.  If anything happens to me, set spurs to your horses:—­Telie here can at least lead you back to the fort.”

With these words, and without waiting to hear the remonstrances, or remove the terrors of his companions, the young man turned his horse into the wood, and guided by the cries, which were almost incessant, soon found himself in the vicinity of the place from which they proceeded.  It was a thick grove of beeches of the colossal growth of the west, their stems as tall and straight as the pines of the Alleghanies, and their boughs, arched and pendulous like those of the elm, almost sweeping the earth below, over which they cast shadows so dark that scarce anything was visible beneath them, save their hoary and spectral trunks.

As Roland, followed by his little party, approached this spot, the cries of the unknown, and as yet unseen, sufferer, fearful even at a distance, grew into the wildest shrieks of fear, mingled with groans, howls, broken prayers and execrations, and half-inarticulate expressions, now of fondling entreaty, now of fierce and frantic command, that seemed addressed to a second person hard by.

A thousand strange and appalling conceits had crept into Roland’s mind, when he first heard the cries.  One while he almost fancied he had stumbled upon a gang of savages, who were torturing a prisoner to death; another moment, he thought the yells must proceed from some unlucky hunter, perishing by inches in the grasp of a wild beast, perhaps a bear or panther, with which animals it was easy to believe the forest might abound.  With such horrible fancies oppressing his mind, his surprise may be imagined, when, having cocked his rifle and thrown open his holsters, to be prepared for the worst, he rushed into the grove and beheld a spectacle no more formidable than was presented by a single individual,—­a man in a shaggy blanket-coat,—­sitting on horseback under one of the most venerable of the beeches, and uttering those diabolical outcries that had alarmed the party, for no imaginable purpose, as Roland was at first inclined to suspect, unless for his own private diversion.

A second look, however, convinced the soldier that the wretched being had sufficient cause for his clamour, being, in truth, in a situation almost as dreadful as any Roland had imagined.  His arms were pinioned behind his back, and his neck secured in a halter (taken, as it appeared, from his steed), by which he was fastened to a large bough immediately above his head, with nothing betwixt him and death, save the horse on which he sat,—­a young and terrified beast, at whose slightest start or motion, he must have swung off and perished, while he possessed no means of restraining the animal whatever, except such as lay in strength of leg and virtue of voice.