insufficient and far from clear account of Margery, and the extraordinary course advised, served to renew ancient distrusts, and to render him reluctant to move.  But of one thing there could be no doubt.  Their present position must be known, for Margery had seen the two strange Indians with her own eyes, and a search might soon be expected.  Under all the circumstances, therefore, our hero reluctantly complied with Margery’s reiterated solicitations, and they all got into the canoes.

“I do not like this movement, Peter,” said le Bourdon, as he shoved his own light craft down the brook, previously to entering the river.  “I hope it may turn out to be better than it looks, and that you can keep us out of the hands of our enemies.  Remember, it is broad daylight, and that red men are plenty two or three miles below us.”

“Yes, know dat; but muss go.  Injin too plenty here, soon.  Yes, muss go.  Bourdon, why you can’t ask bee, now, what bess t’ing for you to do, eh?  Good time, now, ask bee to tell what he know.”

The bee-hunter made no reply, but his pretty wife raised her hand, involuntarily, as if to implore the Indian to forbear.  Peter was a little bewildered; for as yet, he did not understand that a belief in necromancy was not exactly compatible with the notions of the Christian Providence.  In his ignorance, how much was he worse off than the wisest of our race?  Will any discreet man who has ever paid close attention to the power of the somnambule, deny that there is a mystery about such a person that exceeds all our means of explanation?  That there are degrees in the extent of this power—­ that there are false, as well as true somnambules—­all who have attended to the subject must allow; but, a deriding disbeliever in our own person once, we have since seen that which no laws, known to us, can explain, and which we are certain is not the subject of collusion, as we must have been a party to the fraud ourselves, were any such practised.  To deny the evidence of our senses is an act of greater weakness than to believe that there are mysteries connected with our moral and physical being that human sagacity has not yet been able to penetrate; and we repudiate the want of manliness that shrinks from giving its testimony when once convinced, through an apprehension of being derided, as weaker than those who withhold their belief.  We know that our own thoughts have been explained and rendered, by a somnambule, under circumstances that will not admit of any information by means known to us by other principles; and whatever others may think on the subject, we are perfectly conscious that no collusion did or could exist.  Why, then, are we to despise the poor Indian because he still fancied le Bourdon could hold communication with his bees?  We happen to be better informed, and there may be beings who are aware of the as yet hidden laws of animal magnetism—­hidden as respects ourselves, though known to them—­and who fully comprehend various mistakes and misapprehensions connected with our impressions on this subject, that escape our means of detection.  It is not surprising, therefore, that Peter, in his emergency, turned to those bees, in the hope that they might prove of assistance, or that Margery silently rebuked him for the weakness, in the manner mentioned.