“The Panther Cub has long legs. He shall carry the Night Walker’s words,” said the chief, sententiously.
“Good. Let him run to General St. Leger, and warn him that his rear will be attacked,” said the spy. “For the rest, back to Burgoyne. Tell the General his foes are gathering. He must spring like the wild-cat, or he will be trapped like the beaver. Tell him I will bring him more news by way of the lakes, and that—”
“Ha! ha! ha! ha! I gather them in! I gather them in!”
The interruption was sudden and startling. A loud, harsh voice, with an accent of indescribably triumphant mockery, shouted these words from the midst of the intense darkness, which had crept over the scene during the short conference, since sunset. At the same moment, out of the opening of a hollow tree that stood near the fire, a bright, crimson glare of flame proceeded, in the midst of which appeared an unearthly figure of gigantic hight, but lean and attenuated as a skeleton.
The appearance of this figure was singularly fearful, for it was clothed in some tight black dress with steely gleams, that covered it from head to foot, a pair of short, upright horns projecting from the close skull-cap, and only leaving exposed a face of deathly pallor, with great, burning black eyes, and a mustache that pointed upwards in true diabolical fashion.
There was but a moment to examine this figure, as it stood in the cavity, outlined against the red glow. In one hand it brandished a single javelin, in the other a bundle of similar darts. A second later the red glow disappeared, and the figure with it, leaving the usually stolid Indians and their companion struck aghast with astonishment and awe.
Then, ere a word could be spoken, the same demoniac laugh rung out, and the gigantic apparition, with a bound, was in the midst of their little fire, which it scattered in all directions with a single kick.
Through the thick darkness that ensued, the white man heard the noise of a confused struggle, that seemed to endure for about half a minute. Firm and determined as was the spy, he recoiled in ungovernable terror to the side of his horse, and snatched from the holsters his pistols, one of which he fired in the direction of the sounds of battle.
By the flash of the pistol he distinguished the terrible figure, in an attitude of mad glee, brandishing its darts over the prostrate bodies of three Indians, the fourth striving to rise, and transfixed with a dart, while the fifth was fleeing for his life toward the spy. Instinctively the white man climbed on his horse in the darkness, as a wild peal of laughter greeted his shot.
He had seen the demon leaping toward him!