A heavy storm of wind and rain--the precursor of the coming winter--raged round the little settlement for several days, during which the party sat round their fire, talking of the past and the future, and learning to know each other more and more intimately.
Charles recovered rapidly from the loss of blood and the fever weakness. His constitution triumphed easily over his recent illness, and he was only longing to be on the road, that he might the sooner stand face to face with the foe.
And now the storm was abating. The sun began to shine out through the driving wrack of clouds. The woodland tracks might be wet, but little reeked the travellers of that.
They bound upon their backs as much provision as would suffice for their immediate needs. They looked well to their arms and ammunition. They had mended their clothes, and were strong and fresh and full of courage.
The journey before them seemed as nothing to the pair who had traversed so many thousands of miles of wood and water. And the settlers had friends at the other end who would remember them, and have tears of sympathy to shed at hearing their terrible tale.
The brothers stood looking their last upon the clearing which had for so long been their home. In Humphrey's eyes there was an unwonted moisture; but Charles's face was set and stern, and his lips twitched with the excess of restrained emotion. His eyes were fixed upon the mound which hid from his view the corpses of wife and children. Suddenly he lifted his clinched hand towards heaven.
"Strengthen, O Lord, this right hand of mine, that it may be strong against the nation whose crimes bring desolation upon Thy children. Be with us in the hour of vengeance and victory. Help us to render unto them even as they have rendered to us."
Julian and Fritz had withdrawn themselves a little, respecting the inevitable emotion which must come to men at such a moment. Humphrey turned away, and took a few uncertain steps, half blinded by the unwonted smart of tears in his eyes. He had come almost to hate this place of terrible associations; and yet it wrung his heart for a moment to leave those nameless graves, and that little lonely spot where so many peaceful and happy hours had been spent.
Julian's hand was on his arm, and his voice spoke in his ear.
"I know what it feels like; I have been through it. The smart is keen. But it helps us to remember that we are but strangers and pilgrims. It is perhaps those who have no abiding city here who most readily seek that which is theirs above."