“We’re going to give you more smoke,” was the taunt that Kenowatha threw to the major; “we’re going to cheat you out of the shots you desire, and suffocate you as we would an obstinate bear.”
An oath greeted the youth’s words, and again seizing his coat the soldier sprung from the niche and fought the thick volumes with his old vim. He succeeded in forcing the fiery brush from the cave, and it rolled to the bottom of the ravine. But, the flames had communicated with some of the unburnt undergrowth to the left of the fissure, and again the treacherous wind was driving the demon right into his stronghold.
At this turn of ill-fortune the desperate man cursed the breeze; hurled his chosen anathemas into the face of his Maker, and pressed one of the pistols against his bruised temple.
“Yes, yes, they shall find me dead,” he grated with fiendish triumph, as his finger touched the trigger; but, before the weapon could be discharged, a footstep toward the angle startled him, and turning he beheld, by the light of several burning boughs which had been left in the cave, a figure which he deemed the spirit of Effie St. Pierre.
The face of the figure was as white as the shroud of the departed, and the pistol fell from the noiseless hand of the soldier, as the specter shot forward with a cry, as unnatural as the color of its face.
Something like a petrified bough was raised aloft above the girl’s head; a moment later countless millions of stars danced before the Briton’s face, and he staggered and fell at the foot of the niche.
Over his prostrate form sprung his pale vanquisher, and, an instant later, she sunk upon the rocks beyond the smoke, in the breath of the pure wind!
A cry followed her swoon, and four figures were bending over her, and looking from her pale face into each others’ with astonishment.
“She lives! she lives!” cried Mark Morgan, as he saw the girl’s lids unclose, and while he pressed her to his heart, his companions sprung fearlessly into the fissure, and a moment later reappeared with the senseless form of the British major.
“He’s not going to escape the hangman, after all,” said Kenowatha, as they laid their captive upon the rocks near his almost victim. “He’s badly mangled, but a man who can stand what he has, can stand more.”