For a time, after ascending the rocky bank of the stream and gaining the hill, the renegade and his Indian allies, with their captives, moved silently onward at a fast pace; but at length, slackening his speed somewhat, Girty approached the side of Algernon, who was bound in a manner similar to Younker, with his wrists corded to a cross bar behind his back; and apparently examining them a moment or two, in a sneering tone, said: 

“How-comes it that the bully fighter of the British, under the cowardly General Gates, should be so tightly bound, away out in this Indian country, and a captive to a renegade agent?—­ha, ha, ha!”

The pale features of Algernon, as he heard this taunt, grew suddenly crimson, and then more deadly white than ever—­his fingers fairly worked in their cords, and his respiration seemed almost to stifle him—­so powerfully were his passions wrought upon by the cowardly insults of his adversary; but at last all became calm and stoical again; when turning to Girty, he coolly examined him from head to heel, from heel to head; and then moving away his eyes, as if the sight were offensive to him, quietly said: 

“An honest man would be degraded by condescending to hold discourse with so mean a thing as Simon Girty the renegade.”

At these words Girty started, as if bit by a serpent—­the aspect of his dark sinister features changed to one concentrated expression of hellish rage—­his eyes seemed to turn red—­his lips quivered—­the nostrils of his flat ugly nose distended—­froth issued from his mouth—­while his fingers worked convulsively at the handle of his tomahawk, and his whole frame trembled like a tree shaken by a whirlwind.  For some time he essayed to speak, in vain; but at last he hissed forth, as he whirled the tomahawk aloft: 

“Die!—­dog!—­die!”

Ella uttered a piercing shriek of fear, and sprung forward to arrest the blow; but ere she could have reached the renegade; the axe would have been buried to the helve in the brain of Algernon, had not a tall, powerful Indian suddenly interposed his rifle between it and the victim.

“Is the great chief a child, or in his dotage,” he said to Girty, in the Shawanoe dialect, “that he lets passion run away with his reason?  Is not the Big Knife already doomed to the tortures?  And would the white chief give him the death of a warrior?”

“No, by ——!” cried Girty, with an oath.  “He shall have a dog’s death!  Right!  Mugwaha—­right!  I thank you for your interference—­I was beside myself.  The stake—­the torture—­the stake—­ha, ha, ha!” added he in English, with a hoarse laugh, which his recent passion made sound fiend-like and unearthly; and as he concluded, he smote Algernon on the cheek with the palm of his hand.

The latter winced somewhat, but mastered his feelings and made no reply; and the renegade resuming his former pace, the party again proceeded in silence.