“It is false!” vociferated the warrior, who, now he had gained all that was essential to the elucidation of his doubts, quitted the shoulder he had continued to press with violence in his nervous hand, and once more extended himself at his length; “in me you behold the uncle of your husband.  Yes, Ellen Clayton, you have been the wife of two Reginald Mortons.  Both,” he pursued with unutterable bitterness, while he again started up and shook his tomahawk menacingly in the direction of the fort,—­“both have been the victims of yon cold-blooded governor; but the hour of our reckoning is at hand.  Ellen,” he fiercely added, “do you recollect the curse you pronounced on the family of that haughty man, when he slaughtered your Reginald.  By Heaven! it shall be fulfilled; but first shall the love I have so long borne the mother be transferred to the child.”

Again he sought to encircle the waist of her whom, in the strong excitement of his rage, he had momentarily quitted; but the unutterable disgust and horror produced in the mind of the unhappy Clara lent an almost supernatural activity to her despair.  She dexterously eluded his grasp, gained her feet, and with tottering steps and outstretched arms darted through the opening of the tent, and piteously exclaiming, “Save me! oh, for God’s sake, save me!” sank exhausted, and apparently lifeless, on the chest of the prisoner without.

To such of our readers as, deceived by the romantic nature of the attachment stated to have been originally entertained by Sir Everard Valletort for the unseen sister of his friend, have been led to expect a tale abounding in manifestations of its progress when the parties had actually met, we at once announce disappointment.  Neither the lover of amorous adventure, nor the admirer of witty dialogue, should dive into these pages.  Room for the exercise of the invention might, it is true, be found; but ours is a tale of sad reality, and our heroes and heroines figure under circumstances that would render wit a satire upon the understanding, and love a reflection upon the heart.  Within the bounds of probability have we, therefore, confined ourselves.

What the feelings of the young Baronet must have been, from the first moment when he received from the hands of the unfortunate Captain Baynton (who, although an officer of his own corps, was personally a stranger to him,) that cherished sister of his friend, on whose ideal form his excited imagination had so often latterly loved to linger, up to the present hour, we should vainly attempt to paint.  There are emotions of the heart, it would be mockery in the pen to trace.  From the instant of his first contributing to preserve her life, on that dreadful day of blood, to that when the schooner fell into the hands of the savages, few words had passed between them, and these had reference merely to the position in which they found themselves, and whenever Sir Everard felt he could, without indelicacy