“Oh, may the cross become as terrible as the crescent!” said Nanette.
“It shall! it shall!” and Kenowatha’s hand stole to Nanette’s, and then they returned to the fire.
When another day had faded, the two avengers glided from the cavern, by an entrance seldom used, and started toward the Ottawa village—intent upon the rescue of Wayne’s intrepid spy.
Effie St. Pierre, than whom woman never possessed a braver heart, was content to remain with the wounded major until their return.
The two avengers fell confident of crowning their extremely hazardous enterprise with success; but could they have foreseen the events which transpired in the cave before dawn, it is doubtful whether they would have went forth.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEATH LEAGUE AT WORK.
A trio of phantom figures gliding cautiously up iron-gray rocks, wearing a ghastly hue in the dim light of the stars. Now and then they pause in the shade of a crag, and listen with upturned faces. But, not a sound comes to their ears; the night overhead is as silent as that which sleeps upon the bosom of the stream a hundred feet below.
At last, when within perhaps thirty feet of the top of the cliff, they halt at the mouth of a cave which seems to nestle far within the rocks, and whose gloomy aspect, now relieved by the song of a nightingale perched over the aperture, is as foreboding as such a spot can well be.
Now the trio place their heads together, and this is what their lips say: