“Do you think me a fool, Captain de Haldimar,” he observed, sneeringly, “that you expect so paltry a tale to be palmed successfully on my understanding?  An English officer is not very likely to run the risk of breaking his neck by having recourse to such a means of exit from a besieged garrison, merely to intrigue with an Indian woman, when there are plenty of soldiers’ wives within, and that too at an hour when he knows the scouts of his enemies are prowling in the neighbourhood.  Captain de Haldimar,” he concluded, slowly and deliberately, “you have lied.”

Despite of the last insult, his prisoner remained calm.  The very observation that had just been made afforded him a final hope of exculpation, which, if it benefited not himself, might still be of service to the generous Oucanasta.

“The onus of such language,” he observed coolly and with dignity, “falls not on him to whom it is addressed, but on him who utters it.  Yet one who professes to have been himself a soldier, must see in this very circumstance a proof of my innocence.  Had I been sent out as a spy to reconnoitre the movements, and to overhear the councils of our enemies, the gate would have been open for my egress; but that rope is in itself an evidence I must have stolen forth unknown to the garrison.”

Whether it was that the warrior had his own particular reasons for attaching truth to this statement, or that he merely pretended to do so, Captain de Haldimar saw with secret satisfaction his last argument was conclusive.

“Well, be it so,” retorted the savage, while a ferocious smile passed over his swarthy features; “but, whether you have been here as a spy, or have merely ventured out in prosecution of an intrigue, it matters not.  Before the sun has travelled far in the meridian you die; and the tomahawk of your father’s deadly foe—­of—­of—­of Wacousta, as I am called, shall be the first to drink your blood.”

The officer made a final effort at mercy.  “Who or what you are, or whence your hatred of my family, I know not,” he said; “but surely I have never injured you:  wherefore, then, this insatiable thirst for my blood?  If you are, indeed, a Christian and a soldier, let your heart be touched with humanity, and procure my restoration to my friends.  You once attempted my life in honourable combat, why not wait, then, until a fitting opportunity shall give not a bound and defenceless victim to your steel, but one whose resistance may render him a conquest worthy of your arm?”

“What! and be balked of the chance of my just revenge?  Hear me, Captain de Haldimar,” he pursued, in that low, quick, deep tone that told all the strong excitement of his heart:—­“I have, it is true, no particular enmity to yourself, further than that you are a De Haldimar; but hell does not supply a feeling half so bitter as my enmity to your proud father; and months, nay years, have I passed in the hope of such an hour as this.  For