A deluge of tears was the only answer of the wretched girl.  They were the first she had shed,—­the first marks of consciousness she had exhibited.  Hitherto her heart had been oppressed; every fibre of her brain racked almost to bursting, and filled only with ghastly flitting visions of the dreadful horrors she had seen perpetrated, she had continued, since the moment of her fainting in the block-house, as one bereft of all memory of the past, or apprehension of the present.  But now, the full outpouring of her grief relieved her overcharged brain and heart, even while the confused images floating before her recollection acquired a more tangible and painful character.  She raised herself a moment from the chest on which her burning head reposed, looked steadfastly in the face that hung anxiously over her own, and saw indeed that it was her brother.  She tried to speak, but she could not utter a word, for the memory of all that had occurred that fatal morning rushed with mountain weight upon her fainting spirit, and again she wept, and more bitterly than before.

The young man pressed her in silence to his chest; nor was it until she had given full vent to her grief, that he ventured to address her on the subject of his own immediate sorrows.  At length, when she appeared somewhat more calm, he observed, in a voice broken by emotion,—­

“Clara, dearest, what account have you to give me of Madeline?  Has she shared the fate of all? or have you reason to suppose her life has been spared?”

Another burst of tears succeeded to these questions, for coupled with the name of her cousin arose all the horrid associations connected with her loss.  As soon, however, as she could compose herself, she briefly stated all she had witnessed of the affair, from the moment when the boat of the schooner was seen to meet the strange looking object on the water, to that when she had beheld her ill-fated cousin borne away apparently lifeless in the arms of the tall Indian by whom she had been captured.

During this recital, the heart of Captain de Haldimar, —­for it was he,—­beat audibly against the cheek that still reposed on his breast; but when his sister had, in a faint voice, closed her melancholy narrative with the manner of her cousin’s disappearance, he gave a sudden start, uttering at the same time an exclamation of joy.

“Thank God, she still lives!” he cried, pressing his sister once more in fondness to his heart; then turning to his companion, who, although seemingly abstracted, had been a silent and attentive witness of the scene,—­“By Heaven!  Valletort, there is yet a hope.  She it was indeed whom we saw borne out of the fort, and subsequently made to walk by the cruel Indian who had charge of her.”

“Valletort, Valletort,” murmured Clara unconsciously, her sick heart throbbing with she knew not what.  “How is this, Frederick?—­Where, then, is Captain Baynton? and how came you here?”