A thought is rising on the troubled and agitated mind of the lawyer, like a moon soaring above the horizon. He trembles, and does not take his eyes for a moment from the young man's face.
"A fountain—Indians?" he mutters, almost inarticulately.
"Yes, yes!" says Verty, with dreamy eyes, and crouching, so to speak, Indian fashion, until his tangled chestnut curls half cover his cheeks—"yes, yes!—there again!—why it is magic—there! I see it all—I remember it! I must have seen it! Redbud!" he said, turning to the young girl with a frightened air, "am I dreaming?"
Redbud would have spoken. Mr. Rushton, with a sign, bade her be silent. He looked at the young man with the same strange look, and said in a low tone:
"Must have seen what?"
"Why, this!" said Verty, half extending his arm, and pointing toward a far imaginary horizon, on which his dreamy eyes were fixed—"this! don't you see it? My tribe! my Delawares—there in the woods! They attack the house, and carry off the child in the garden playing with the necklace. His nurse is killed—poor thing! her blood is on the fountain! Now they go into the great woods with the child, and an Indian woman takes him and will not let them kill him—he is so pretty with his long curls like the sunshine: you might take him for a girl! The Indian woman holds before him a bit of looking-glass, stolen from the house! Look! they will have his life—oh!"
And crouching, with an exclamation of terror, Verty shuddered.
"Give me my rifle!" he cried; "they are coming there! Back!"
And the young man rose erect, with flashing eyes.
"The woman flies in the night," he continues, becoming calm again; "they pursue her—she escapes with the boy—they come to a deserted lodge—a lodge! a lodge! Why, it is our lodge in the hills! It's ma mere! and I was that child! Am I mad?"