sight, a dozen warriors sprang to the spot, and fastened their gaze upon it with all the childish wonder and curiosity of men in a savage state.  One, more eager and restless than his fellows, stooped over it to feel with his hand of what it was composed.  At that moment it burst, and limbs, and head, and entrails, were seen flying in the air, with the fragments of the shell, and prostrate and struggling forms lay writhing on every hand in the last, fierce agonies of death.

A yell of despair and a shout of triumph burst at the same moment from the adverse parties.  Taking advantage of the terror produced, by this catastrophe, in the savages, Captain Erskine caused the men bearing the corpse to retreat, with all possible expedition, under the ramparts of the fort.  He waited until they got nearly half way, and then threw forward the wheeling sections, that had covered this movement, once more into single file, in which order he commenced his retreat.  Step by step, and almost imperceptibly, the men paced backwards, ready, at a moment’s notice, to reform the square.  Partly recovered from the terror and surprise produced by the bursting of the shell, the Indians were quick in perceiving this movement:  filled with rage at having been so long baulked of their aim, they threw themselves once more impetuously from their cover; and, with stimulating yells, at length opened their fire.  Several of Captain Erskine’s men were wounded by this discharge; when, again, and furiously the cannon opened from the fort.  It was then that the superiority of the artillery was made manifest.  Both right and left of the retreating files the ponderous shot flew heavily past, carrying death and terror to the Indians; while not a man of those who intervened was scathed or touched in its progress.  The warriors in the forest were once more compelled to shelter themselves behind the trees; but in the bomb-proof, where they were more secure, they were also more bold.  From this a galling fire, mingled with the most hideous yells, was now kept up; and the detachment, in their slow retreat, suffered considerably.  Several men had been killed; and, about twenty, including Lieutenant Johnstone, wounded, when again, one of those murderous globes fell, hissing in the very centre of the bomb-proof.  In an instant, the Indian fire was discontinued; and their dark and pliant forms were seen hurrying with almost incredible rapidity over the dilapidated walls, and flying into the very heart of the forest, so that when the shell exploded, a few seconds afterwards, not a warrior was to be seen.  From this moment the attack was not renewed, and Captain Erskine made good his retreat without farther molestation.

“Well, old buffers!” exclaimed one of the leading files, as the detachment, preceded by its dead and wounded, now moved along the moat in the direction of the draw-bridge, “how did you like the grip of them black savages?—­I say, Mitchell, old Nick will scarcely know the face of you, it’s so much altered by fright.—­Did you see,” turning to the man in his rear, “how harum-scarum he looked, when the captain called out to him to come off?”