Onawa, standing forgotten at the edge of the bush, cast around her a searching glance. The encampment of her tribe was far distant. The hound had gone out howling. Danger from that quarter was yet to come. She stood in shadow, the moonlight whitening the sand in front and darkening the shapes which hurried to regain their own. No eyes were upon her. She raised her left hand to her right shoulder and with the same ominous motion dropped upon one knee, falling unconsciously into the pose of a goddess of the chase.
The attackers hesitated, knowing the reputation of the man with whom they had to deal. To attempt to scale the palisade at that point meant certain loss, and they were not strong enough to take the risk. Hunted and hunters glared at each other over the pine bars. "Get you round, Jesse," whispered Penfold. "The dog is bold because he knows his back is safe."
Woodfield ran beneath the palisading to a place known to him, where he might scale the fence and so take the priest from behind.
La Salle detected the ruse and taunted his baiters in native French, while his keen eyes sought an opportunity to strike. He bent cautiously and gathered a handful of sand. Hough sprang upon the bars, and for the first time swords were clashed; for the first time also the Puritan realised the power of the priest's wrist. The point escaped his forearm by a mere margin, and La Salle laughed contemptuously.
"Brave Lutherans!" he cried. "Four soldiers against a priest. Advance, soldiers. The point a trifle higher. The elbow close to the side. Now you stand too near together."
"Wait until friend Woodfield comes up," muttered Flower. "Then he shall laugh his last."
As he spoke there came a sound through the moonbeams, as it were the vibrating of the wings of a humming-bird, and to the music of this disturbance Flower flung up his arms with a choking cough and closed his sentence with a gasp of pain. His sword darted to the ground. He swayed to and fro, his eyes wild, his mouth open in a useless endeavour to appeal to his comrades, and then plunged down, like a man diving into the water to swim, and sprawled at their feet, with a rough shaft topped by a crow's feather springing from his back.
A cloud of sand stung the faces of the survivors, and before they could recover their eyesight, or awaken to the knowledge of Woodfield's approaching shout, La Salle was across the bars and bearing down upon them, his cold face branded with its mocking smile. He dashed their opposition aside, and turned, flushed with success, to renew the struggle, the taunts still ringing from his tongue.
But help was near at hand. Before the maddened and half stupefied Englishmen were able to move the night again resounded. Blood had scented the foe and could no longer be restrained. The priest wheeled round when he heard those howls, and escaped into the shadows with Penfold and Woodfield at his heels.
There was indeed one man, and he the most vengeful of his enemies, who might have outstripped the priest, but it so happened that the long-striding Puritan had lost his reason. Obeying the first impulse, he pursued the traitress, mad to avenge the good yeoman who was stretched to his long sleep at the entrance to New Windsor. Nor did he realise his mistake until the shadow, after mocking him for a long mile, flitted into the unknown depths of the bush, and so disappeared.