The address of the officer, touching and impressive as language ever is that comes from the heart, was not altogether without effect on the Indian.  Several times he interrupted him with a short, quick, approving “Ugh!” and when he at length received the assurance that he was no longer a prisoner, he raised his eyes rapidly, although without moving his head, to the countenance of his deliverer.  Already were his lips opening to speak for the first time, when the attention of the group around him was arrested by his giving a sudden start of surprise.  At the same moment he raised his head, stretched his neck, threw forward his right ear, and, uttering a loud and emphatic “Waugh!” pointed with his finger over the bows of the vessel.

All listened for upwards of a minute in mute suspense; and then a faint and scarcely distinguishable sound was heard in the direction in which he pointed.  Scarcely had it floated on the air, when a shrill, loud, and prolonged cry, of peculiar tendency, burst hurriedly and eagerly from the lips of the captive; and, spreading over the broad expanse of water, seemed to be re-echoed back from every point of the surrounding shore.

Great was the confusion that followed this startling yell on the decks of the schooner.  “Cut the hell-fiend down!”—­“Chuck him overboard!”—­” We are betrayed!”—­“Every man to his gun!”—­“Put the craft about!” were among the numerous exclamations that now rose simultaneously from at least twenty lips, and almost drowned the loud shriek that burst again from the wretched Clara de Haldimar.

“Stop, Mullins!—­Stop, men!” shouted Captain de Haldimar, firmly, as the excited boatswain, with two or three of his companions,—­now advanced with the intention of laying violent hands on the Indian.  “I will answer for his fidelity with my life.  If he be false, it will be time enough to punish him afterwards; but let us calmly await the issue like men.  Hear me,” he proceeded, as he remarked their incredulous, uncertain, and still threatening air;—­“this Indian saved me from the tomahawks of his tribe not a week ago; and, even now, he has become our captive in the act of taking a note from me to the garrison, to warn them of their danger.  But for that slumbering fool,” he added, bitterly, pointing to Fuller, who slept when he should have watched, “your fort would not now have been what it is,—­a mass of smoking ruins.  He has an ocean of blood upon his soul, that all the waters of the Huron can never wash out!”

Struck by the vehement manner of the officer, and the disclosure he had just made, the sailors sunk once more into inaction and silence.  The boatswain alone spoke.

“I thought, your honour, as how Jack Fuller, who sartainly is a better hand at a snooze than a watch, had got into a bit of a mess; but, shiver my topsails, if I think it’s quite fair to blame him, neither, for clapping a stopper on the Indian’s cable, seeing as how he was expecting a shot between wind and water.  Still, as the chap turns out to be an honest chap, and has saved your honour’s life above all, I don’t much care if I give him a grip.  Here, old fellow, tip us your fist!”