Throughout this dialogue Pathfinder had kept his body covered, lest a treacherous shot should be aimed at the loop; and he now directed Cap to ascend to the roof in order to be in readiness to meet the first assault.  Although the latter used sufficient diligence, he found no less than ten blazing arrows sticking to the bark, while the air was filled with the yells and whoops of the enemy.  A rapid discharge of rifles followed, and the bullets came pattering against the logs, in a way to show that the struggle had indeed seriously commenced.

These were sounds, however, that appalled neither Pathfinder nor Cap, while Mabel was too much absorbed in her affliction to feel alarm.  She had good sense enough, too, to understand the nature of the defences, and fully to appreciate their importance.  As for her father, the familiar noises revived him; and it pained his child, at such a moment, to see that his glassy eye began to kindle, and that the blood returned to a cheek it had deserted, as he listened to the uproar.  It was now Mabel first perceived that his reason began slightly to wander.

“Order up the light companies,” he muttered, “and let the grenadiers charge!  Do they dare to attack us in our fort?  Why does not the artillery open on them?”

At that instant the heavy report of a gun burst on the night; and the crashing of rending wood was heard, as a heavy shot tore the logs in the room above, and the whole block shook with the force of a shell that lodged in the work.  The Pathfinder narrowly escaped the passage of this formidable missile as it entered; but when it exploded, Mabel could not suppress a shriek, for she supposed all over her head, whether animate or inanimate, destroyed.  To increase her horror, her father shouted in a frantic voice to “charge!”

“Mabel,” said Pathfinder, with his head at the trap, “this is true Mingo work —­ more noise than injury.  The vagabonds have got the howitzer we took from the French, and have discharged it ag’in the block; but fortunately they have fired off the only shell we had, and there is an ind of its use for the present.  There is some confusion among the stores up in this loft, but no one is hurt.  Your uncle is still on the roof; and, as for myself, I’ve run the gauntlet of too many rifles to be skeary about such a thing as a howitzer, and that in Indian hands.”

Mabel murmured her thanks, and tried to give all her attention to her father, whose efforts to rise were only counteracted by his debility.  During the fearful minutes that succeeded, she was so much occupied with the care of the invalid that she scarcely heeded the clamor that reigned around her.  Indeed, the uproar was so great, that, had not her thoughts been otherwise employed, confusion of faculties rather than alarm would probably have been the consequence.