While the solitary child, pure as the unnamed crystal that hung from the cave in which she had been so long immured, gave expression to that untutored tenderness which she felt was to be a dream of the past, the sagamore suddenly started forward, and pointed to a high rock by the margin of the falls, upon which appeared the tall figure of Acashee. Hope saw her with a faint smile, which was not lost upon her lover.
A moment more, and a group of amazed and horror-stricken warriors occupied the shore by her side. They lifted up their hands aghast at the fearful spectacle—they leaped from rock to rock in fierce efforts to extinguish the fatal blaze, but in vain. The burning hemlock towered in fearful splendor, sending forth jets of flame, an object of beauty no less than of terror. And now the Saco warriors, rushing from their ambush, dealt sure destruction upon all but Acashee, who stood unmoved and unharmed. In vain did she invite the blow, by chanting in a voice which rose above the roar of the falls and the roar of the beacon-fire, her fiery death-song—she stood unharmed.
CHAPTER XXII.
BELOW THE FALLS.
Meanwhile the beacon-fire had flamed far and wide, and wakened the warriors to the anticipated work of destruction. The Terrentines, far up at the great bend of the Androscoggin, were ready with blackened faces, and armed with war-club, tomahawk and arrow, to wreak their utmost vengeance upon the tribes of the Saco; and no sooner did the gleam of the beacon-fire stream luridly up the moonless sky, than they launched their canoes and descended the stream.
The Androscoggins also, with their little navy above Still-Water, floated downward with the very flower of the tribe, and before the sun should arise, the Sagamore of Saco, and his band of warriors, should be no more known than the cloud which yesterday dimmed the horizon, or the vapor which lost itself in the far-off ocean. Such was their thought.
With light and measured dip of paddle, onward came the airy fleet, light as the spray, and buoyant with exultant hearts. The vast woods swayed fitfully; the night-bird wheeled in ghostly circles, and went screaming away to deeper solitudes. The bark of the fox and the howling of the wolf mingled with the screeching of the owl, and the voices of a thousand ill-omened echoes screamed from the recesses of rock, mountain and river, and yet onward swept the fleet, unconscious of danger.
The scouts, whose duty it had been to light the beacon at Still-Water, above the falls, started to their feet with horror, as canoe after canoe emerged from the shadow of the river-bank, and floated onward—past the level stream, past the village lights, and were caught in the descending flood.
Nearing the village above the falls, the women and children, suddenly conscious of the danger, rushed with wild shouts and gestures of warning.
Too late—too late! The rapid and insidious current could not be resisted. As well might a straw be hoped to bridge Niagara, as the stoutest arm of the warrior hope to stay the downward swoop of the frail canoe, caught in the fierce tide of the roaring waters.