Matilda Montgomerie; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled

by Major Richardson

  CHAPTER VII.

  Many of our readers will doubtless bear in mind the spot calledElliott's Point, at the western extremity of Lake Erie, to which we havealready introduced them. At a considerable distance beyond that again(its intermediate shores washed by the silver waves of the Erie)stretches a second, called also, from the name of its proprietor,Hartley's Point. Between these two necks are three or four farms; one ofwhich, and adjoining Hartley's, was, at the period of which we treat,occupied by an individual of whom, unfortunately for the interests ofCanada, too many of the species had been suffered to take root withinher soil.

  This person had his residence near Hartley's Point. Unlike those howeverwhose dwellings rose at a distance, few and far between, hemmed in bythe fruits of prosperous agriculture, he appeared to have paid butlittle attention to the cultivation of a soil, which in every part wasof exceeding fertility. A rude log hut, situated in a clearing of theforest, the imperfect work of lazy labor, was his only habitation, andhere he had for years resided without its being known how he contrivedto procure the necessary means of subsistence; yet, in defiance of theapparent absence of all resources, it was subject of general remark,that he not only never wanted money, but had been enabled to bestowsomething like an education on a son, who had, at the epoch opened byour narrative, been absent from him upwards of five years. From hisfrequent voyages, and the direction his canoe was seen to take, it wasinferred by his immediate neighbors, that he dealt in contraband,procuring various articles on the American coast, which he subsequentlydisposed of in the small town of Amherstburg (one of the principalEnglish posts) among certain subjects domiciliated there, who weresuspected of no very scrupulous desire to benefit the revenue of thecountry. So well and so wisely however, did he cover his operations,that he had always contrived to elude detection--and, although suspicionattached to his conduct, in no instance had he openly committed himself.The man himself, tall, stout, and of a forbidding look, was of afearless and resolute character, and if he resorted to cunning, it wasbecause cunning alone could serve his purposes in a country, the laws ofwhich were not openly to be defied.

  For a series of years after his arrival, he had contrived to evadetaking the customary oaths of allegiance; but this, eventually awakeningthe suspicions of the magistracy, brought him more immediately undertheir surveillance, when year after year, he was compelled to a renewalof the oath, for the imposition of which, it was thought, he owed morethan one of those magistrates a grudge. On the breaking out of the war,he still remained in undisturbed possession of his rude dwelling,watched as well as circumstances would permit, it is true, but not sonarrowly as to be traced in his various nocturnal excursions by water.Nothing could be conceived more uncouth in manner and appearance thanthis man--nothing more villanous than the expression of his eye. No oneknew from what particular point of the United States he had come, andwhether Yankee or Kentuckian, it would have puzzled one of that race ofbeings, so proverbial fer acumen--a Philadelphia lawyer--to havedetermined.

  The day following that of the capture of the American detachment wasjust beginning to dawn, as two individuals appeared on the skirt of therude clearing in which the hut of the man we have just described, hadbeen erected. The persons of both these, wrapped in blue militarycloaks, reposed upon the dark foliage in a manner to enable them toobserve, without being themselves seen, all that passed within theclearing, from the log hut to the sand of the lake shore. There had beenan indication by one of these of a design to step forth from hisconcealment into the clearing, and advance boldly towards the house; butthis had been checked by his companion, who, laying his hand upon hisshoulder, arrested the movement, pointing out at the same time, theleisurely but cautious advance of two men from the hut towards theshore, on which lay a canoe half drawn up on the sands. Each, on issuingfrom the hut, had deposited a rifle against the rude exterior of thedwelling, the better to enable them to convey a light mast, sail,paddles, several blankets and a common corn-bag, apparently containingprovisions, with which they proceeded towards the canoe.

  "So," said the taller of the first party, in a whisper, "there is thatd----d rascal Desborough setting out on one of his contrabandexcursions. He seems to have a long absence in view, if we may judgefrom the contents of his provision sack."

  "Hist," rejoined his companion, "there is more here than meets the eye.In the first instance, remove the pistols from the case, and be preparedto afford me assistance, should I require it."

  "What the devil are you going to do?" asked the first speaker, followinghowever the hint that had been given him, and removing a pair ofduelling pistols from their mahogany case.

  While he was in the act of doing this, his companion had, withoutreplying, quitted his side, and cautiously and noiselessly advanced tothe hut. In the course of a few minutes he again appeared at the pointwhence he had started, grasping in either hand the rifles so recentlydeposited there.

  "Well, what is the meaning of this feat? you do not intend, Yankeefashion, to exchange a long shot with poor Molineux, I hope--if so, mydear fellow, I cry off, for upon my honor, I cannot engage in anythingthat is not strictly orthodox."

  He, thus addressed, could scarcely restrain a laugh at the serious tonein which his companion expressed himself, as if he verily believed hehad that object in view.

  "Would you not like," he asked, "to be in some degree instrumental inbanishing wholly from the country a man whom we all suspect of treason,but are compelled to tolerate from inability to prove his guilt--thissame notorious Desborough?"

  "Now that you no longer speak and act in parables, I can understand you.Of course I should, but what proof of his treason are we to discover inthe mere fact of his departing on what he may choose to call a huntingexcursion? even admitting he is speculating in the contraband, _that_cannot banish him; and if it could, we would never descend to becomeinformers."

  "Nothing of the kind is required of us--his treason will soon unfolditself, and that in a manner to demand, as an imperative duty, that wesecure the traitor. For this have I removed the rifles which may, in amoment of desperation, be turned at backwoodsman's odds against ourpistols. Let us steal gently towards the beach, and then you shallsatisfy yourself; but I had nearly forgotten--suppose the other partyshould arrive?"

  "Then they must in their turn wait for us. They have already exceededtheir time ten minutes."

  "Look," exclaimed his companion, as he slightly grasped the shoulder onwhich his hand had rested, "he is returning for the rifles."

  Only one of the two men now retrod his steps from the beach towards thehut, but with a more hurried action than before. As he passed where thefriends still lingered, he gave a start of surprise, apparently producedby the absence of the rifles. A moment's reflection seeming to satisfyhim it was possible his memory had failed him, and that they had beenleft within the building, he hurried forward to assure himself. After afew moments of apparently ineffectual search, he again made hisappearance, making the circuit of the hut to discover his lost weapons,but in vain; when in the fierceness of his anger, he cried aloud, with abitterness that gave earnest of sincerity.

  "By ----. I wish I had the curst British rascal who played me thistrick, on t'other shore--if I wouldn't tuck my knife into his b----ygizzard, then is my name not Jeremiah Desborough. What the h--ll's to bedone now?"

  Taking advantage of his entrance into the hut, the two individuals,first described, had stolen cautiously under cover of the forest, untilthey arrived at its termination, within about twenty yards of the shore,where however there was no outward or visible sign of the individual whohad been Desborough's companion. In the bows of the canoe were piled theblankets, and in the centre was deposited the provision bag that hadformed a portion of their mutual load. The mast had not been hoisted,but lay extended along the hull, its sail loosened and partiallycovering the before-mentioned article of freightage. The bow half of thecanoe pressed the beach, the other lay sunk in the water, apparently inthe manner in which it had first approached the
land.

  Still uttering curses, but in a more subdued tone, against "the fellerwho had stolen his small bores," the angry Desborough retraced his stepsto the canoe. More than once he looked back to see if he could discoverany traces of the purloiner, until at length his countenance seemed toassume an expression of deeper cause for concern, than even the loss ofhis weapons.

  "Ha, I expect some d----d spy has been on the look out--if so, I mustcut and run I calculate purty soon."

  This apprehension was expressed as he arrived opposite the point wherethe forest terminated. A slight rustling among the underwood reducedthat apprehension to certainty. He grasped the handle of his huge knifethat was thrust into the girdle around his loins, and riveting his gazeon the point whence the sound had proceeded, retreated in that attitude.Another and more distinct crush of underwood, and he stood still withsurprise, on finding himself face to face, with two officers of thegarrison.

  "We have alarmed you, Desborough," said the younger, as they bothadvanced leisurely to the beach. "Do you apprehend danger from ourpresence?"

  A keen searching glance flashed from the ferocious eye of the ruffian.It was but momentary. Quitting his firm grasp of the knife, he sufferedhis limbs to relax their tension, and aiming at carelessness, observedwith a smile, that was tenfold more hideous from its being forced:

  "Well now, I guess, who would have expected to see two officers so furaway from the fort at this early hour of the mornin'?"

  "Ah," said the taller of the two, availing himself of the first openingto a pun which had been afforded, "we are merely out on a _shooting_excursion."

  Desborough gazed doubtingly on the speaker. "Strange sort of a dressthat for shootin' I guess--them cloaks must be a great tanglement in thebushes."

  "They serve to keep our _arms_ warm," continued Middlemore, perpetratinganother of his execrables.

  "To keep your arms warm! well sure-_ly_, if that arn't droll. It may besome use to keep the primins dry, I reckon; but I can't see the use ofkeepin' the fowlin' pieces warm. Have you met with any game yet,officers? I expect as how I can point you out a purty spry place forpattridges and sich like."

  "Thank you, my good fellow; but we have appointed to meet our _game_here."

  The dry manner in which this was observed had a visible effect on thesettler. He glanced an eye of suspicion around, to see if other than thetwo officers were in view, and it was not without effort that he assumedan air of unconcern, as he replied:

  "Well, I expect I have been many a long year a hunter, as well as otherthings, and yet, dang me if I ever calculated the game would come to me.It always costs me a purty good chase in the woods."

  "How the fellow _beats_ about the _bush_ to find what _game_ we aredriving at," observed Middlemore, in an under tone, to his companion.

  "Let him alone for that," returned he whom our readers have doubtlessrecognised for Henry Grantham. "I will match his punning against yourcunning any day."

  "The truth is, he is _fishing_ to discover our motive for being here,and to find out if we are in any way connected with the disappearance ofhis rifles."

  During this conversation _apart_, the Yankee had carelessly approachedhis canoe, and was affecting to make some alteration in the dispositionof the sail. The officers, the younger especially, keeping a sharplook-out upon his movements, followed at some little distance, untilthey, at length, stood on the extreme verge of the sands. Their nearapproach seemed to render Desborough impatient.

  "I expect, officers," he said, with a hastiness that, at any othermoment, would have called down immediate reproof, if not chastisement,"you will only be losin' time here for nothin'; about a mile beyondHartley's there'll be plenty of pattridges at this hour, and I am jistgoin to start myself for a little shootin' in the Sandusky river."

  "Than I presume," said Grantham, with a smile, "you are well providedwith silver bullets, Desborough; for, in the hurry of departure, youseem likely to forget the only medium through which leaden ones can bemade available--not a rifle or a shot-gun do I see."

  The man fixed his eyes for a moment, with a penetrating expression, onthe youth, as if he would have sought a meaning deeper than the wordsimplied. His reading seemed to satisfy him that all was right.

  "What," he observed, with a leer, half cunning, half insolent, "if Ihave hid my rifle near the Sandusky swamp, the last time I huntedthere?"

  "In that case," observed the laughing Middlemore, to whom theopportunity was irresistible, "you are going out on a _wild goose chase_indeed. Your prospects for a good hunt, as you call it, cannot be saidto _be sure as a gun_; for in regard to the latter, you may depend someone has discovered and _rifled_ it before this."

  "You seem to have laid in a store of provisions for this trip,Desborough," remarked Henry Grantham; "how long do you purpose beingabsent?"

  "I guess three or four days," was the sullen reply.

  "Three or four days! why your bag contains"--and the officer partlyraised a corner of the sail, "provisions for a week, or, at least, for_two_ for half that period."

  The manner in which the _two_ was emphasised did not escape theattention of the settler. He was visibly disconcerted, nor was he at allreassured when the younger officer proceeded:

  "By the bye, Desborough, we saw you leave the hut with a companion--whathas become of him?"

  The settler, who had now recovered his self-possession, met the questionwithout the slightest show of hesitation:

  "I expect you mean, young man," he said, with insufferable insolence, "ahelp as I had from Hartley's farm, to assist gittin' down the things. Hetook home along shore when I went back to the hut for the small bores."

  "Oh ho, sir! the rifles are not then concealed near the Sandusky swamp,I find?"

  For once the wily settler felt his cunning had overreached itself. Inthe first fury of his subdued rage, he muttered something amounting to adesire that he could produce them at that moment, as he would well knowwhere to lodge the bullets--but, recovering himself, he said aloud:

  "The rale fact is, I've a long gun hid, as I said, near the swamp, butmy small bore I always carry with me--only think, jist as I andHartley's help left the hut, I pit my rifle against the outside wall,not being able to carry it down with the other things, and when I wentback a minute or two after, drot me if some tarnation rascal hadn'tstole it."

  "And if you had the British rascal on t'other shore, you wouldn't belong in tucking a knife into his gizzard, would you?" asked Middlemore,in a nearly verbatim repetition of the horrid oath originally uttered byDesborough. "I see nothing to warrant our interfering with him," hecontinued in an under tone to his companion.

  Not a little surprised to hear his words repeated, the man lost somewhatof his confidence as he replied, "Well now, sure-_ly_, you officersdidn't think nothin' o' that--I expect I was in a mighty rage to find mysmall bore gone, and I did curse a little heart_y_, to be sure."

  "The small bore multiplied in your absence," observed Grantham; "when Ilooked at the hut there were two."

  "Then may be you can tell me who was the particular d----d rascal thatstole them," said the settler eagerly.

  Middlemore laughed heartily at his companion who observed:

  "The particular d----d rascal who removed, not stole them thence, standsbefore you."

  Again the settler looked disconcerted. After a moment's hesitation hecontinued, with a forced grin that gave an atrocious expression to hiswhole countenance:

  "Well now, you officers are playing a purty considerable sprytrick--it's a good lark, I calculate--but you know, as the saying is,enough's as good as a feast. Do tell me, Mr. Grantham," and hisdiscordant voice became more offensive in its effort at a tone ofentreaty, "Do tell me where you've hid my small bore; you little think,"he concluded, with an emphasis then unnoticed by the officers, butsubsequently remembered to have been perfectly ferocious, "what reason Ihave to vally it."

  "We never descend to larks of the kind," coolly observed Grantham; "butas you say you value your rifle
, it shall be restored to you on onecondition."

  "And what may that be?" asked the settler, somewhat startled at theserious manner of the officer.

  "That you show us what your canoe is freighted with. Here in the bows, Imean."

  "Why," rejoined the Yankee quickly, but, as if without design,intercepting the officers' near approach, "that bag, I calculate,contains my provisions, and these here blankets that you see, peepin'like from under the sail, are what I makes my bed of while out huntin'."

  "And are you quite certain there is nothing under those blankets?--naydo not protest--you cannot answer for what may have occurred while yourback was turned, on your way to the hut for the rifle."

  "By hell," exclaimed the settler, blusteringly, "were any man to tellme, Jeremiah Desborough, that there was anythin' beside them blankets inthe canoe, I would lick him into a jelly, even though he could whip hisown weight in wild cats."

  "So is it? Now then, Jeremiah Desborough, although I have never yettried to whip my own weight in wild cats, I tell you there is somethingmore than those blankets; and what is more, I insist upon seeing whatthat something is."

  The settler stood confounded. His eye rolled rapidly from one to theother of the officers, at the boldness and determination of thislanguage. Singly, he could have crushed Henry Grantham in his gripe,even as one of the bears of the forest, near the outskirt of which theystood; but there were two, and while attacking the one, he was sure ofbeing assailed by the other--nay, what was worse, the neighborhood mightbe alarmed. Moreover, although they had kept their cloaks carefullywrapped around their persons, there could be little doubt that bothofficers were armed, not, as they had originally given him tounderstand, with fowling pieces, but with (at the present close quartersat least) far more efficient weapons--pistols. He was relieved from hisembarrassment by Middlemore exclaiming:

  "Nay, do not press the poor devil, Grantham; I dare say the story of hishunting is all a hum, and that the fact is, he is merely going to earnan honest penny in one of his free commercial speculations--a littlecontraband," pointing his finger to the bows, "is it not, Desborough?"

  "Why now, officer," said the settler, rapidly assuming a dogged air, asif ashamed of the discovery that had been so acutely made, "you won'thurt a poor feller for doin' a little in this way. Drot me, these arehard times, and this here war jist beginnin' quite pits one to one'sshifts."

  "This might do, Desborough, were your present freight an arrival insteadof a departure, but we all know that contraband is imported, notexported."

  "Mighty cute you are, I guess," replied the settler warily, withsomething like the savage grin of the wild cat to which he had sorecently alluded; "but I expect it would be none so strange to havepacked up a few dried hog skins to stow away the goods I am goin' for."

  "I should like to try the effect of a bullet among the skins," saidGrantham, leisurely drawing forth and cocking a pistol, after havingwhispered something in the ear of his companion.

  "Nay, officer," said Desborough, now for the first time manifestingserious alarm, "you sure-_ly_ don't mean to bore a hole through theminnocent skins?"

  "True!" said Middlemore, imitating. "If he fires, the hole will besomething more than _skin_ deep, I reckon--these pistols, to myknowledge, send a bullet through a two inch plank at twenty paces."

  As Middlemore thus expressed himself, both he and Grantham saw, orfancied they saw, the blankets slightly agitated.

  "Good place for a _hide_ that!" said the former, addressing his pun tothe settler, on whom it was totally lost, "show us those said skins, mygood fellow, and if we find they are not filled with anything it wouldbe treason in a professed British subject to export thus clandestinely,we promise that you shall depart without further hindrance."

  "Indeed, officer," muttered Desborough sullenly and doggedly, "I shan'tdo no sich thing. You don't belong to the custom-house, I reckon, and soI wish you a good day, for I have a considerable long course to run, andmust be movin'." Then seizing the paddles that were lying on the sand,he prepared to shove the canoe from the beach.

  "Not at least before I have sent a bullet to ascertain the true qualityof your skins," said Grantham, levelling his pistol.

  "Sure-_ly_," said Desborough, as he turned and drew himself to the fullheight of his bony and muscular figure, while his eye measured theofficer from head to foot, with a look of concentrated but suppressedfury, "you wouldn't _dare_ to do this--you wouldn't dare to fire into mycanoe--besides, consider," he said, in a tone somewhat deprecating,"your bullet may go through her, and you would hardly do a feller theinjury to make him lose the chance of a good cargo."

  "Then why provoke such a disaster by refusing to show us what is beneaththose blankets?"

  "Because it's my pleasure to do so," fiercely retorted the other, "and Iwon't show them to no man."

  "Then it is my pleasure to fire," said Grantham. "The injury be on yourown head, Desborough--one--two--"

  At this moment the sail was violently agitated--something, strugglingfor freedom, cast the blankets on one side, and presently the figure ofa man stood upright in the bows of the canoe, and gazed around him withan air of stupid astonishment.

  "What," exclaimed Middlemore, retreating back a pace or two, inunfeigned surprise; "has that pistol started up, like the ghost inHamlet, Ensign Paul Emilius Theophilus Arnoldi, of the United StatesMichigan Militia--a prisoner on his parole of honor? and yet attemptinga clandestine departure from the country--how is this?"

  "Not this merely," exclaimed Grantham, "but a traitor to his country,and a deserter from our service. This fellow," he pursued, in answer toan inquiring look of his companion, "is a scoundrel, who deserted threeyears since from the regiment you relieved. I recognised him yesterdayon his landing, as my brother Gerald, who proposed making his report tothe general this morning, had done before. Let us secure both,Middlemore; for, thank heaven, we have been enabled to detect thetraitor at last in that which will excuse his final expulsion from thesoil, even if no worse befall him. I have only tampered with him thuslong to render his conviction more complete."

  "Secure me! secure Jeremiah Desborough?" exclaimed the settler, withrage manifest in the clenching of his teeth and the tension of everymuscle of his iron frame, "and that for jist tryin' to save acountryman--well, we'll see who'll have the best of it."

  Before Grantham could anticipate the movement, the active and powerfulDesborough had closed with him in a manner to prevent his making use ofhis pistol, had he even so desired. In the next instant it was wrestedfrom him, and thrown far from the spot on which he struggled with hisadversary, but at fearful odds against himself. Henry Grantham, althoughwell and actively made, was of slight proportion, and yet in boyhood.Desborough, on the contrary, was in the full force of a vigorousmanhood. A struggle, hand to hand, between two combatants sodisproportioned, could not, consequently, be long doubtful as to itsissue. No sooner had the formidable settler closed with his enemy, thanpressing the knuckles of his iron hand, which met round the body of theofficer, with violence against his spine, he threw him backward withforce upon the sands. Grasping his victim with one hand as he lay uponhim, he seemed, as Grantham afterwards declared, to be groping for hisknife with the other. He was evidently anxious to despatch one enemy, inorder that he might fly to the assistance of his son, for it was he whomMiddlemore, with a powerful effort, had dragged from the canoe to thebeach. While his right hand was still groping far the knife--an objectwhich the powerful resistance of the yet unsubdued, though prostrate,officer rendered somewhat difficult of attainment--the report of apistol was heard, fired evidently by one of the other combatants.Immediately the settler looked up to see who was the triumphant party.Neither had fallen, and Middlemore, if anything, had the advantage ofhis enemy; but to his infinite dismay, Desborough beheld a horseman,evidently attracted by the report of the pistol, urging his course withthe rapidity of lightning, along the firm sands, and advancing withcries and vehement jesticulations to the rescue.

  Spring
ing with the quickness of thought from his victim, the settler wasin the next moment at the side of Middlemore. Seizing him from behind byfor arm within his nervous grasp, he pressed the latter with suchprodigious force as to cause him to relinquish, by a convulsivemovement, the firm hold he had hitherto kept of his adversary.

  "In, boy, to the canoe for your life," he exclaimed, hurriedly as,following up his advantage, he spun the officer round, and sent himtottering to the spot where Grantham lay, still stupified and halfthrottled. The next instant saw him heaving the canoe from the shore,with all the exertion called for by his desperate situation. And allthis was done so rapidly, in so much less time than it will take ourreaders to trace it, that before the horseman, so opportunely arriving,had reached the spot, the canoe, with its inmates, had pushed from theshore.

  Without pausing to consider the rashness and apparent impracticabilityof his undertaking, the strange horseman, checking his rein, and buryingthe rowels of his spurs deep into the flanks of his steed, sent himbounding and plunging into the lake, in pursuit of the fugitives.

  He himself evinced every symptom of one in a state of intoxication.Brandishing a stout cudgel over his head, and pealing forth a shout ofdefiance, he rolled from side to side on his spirited charger, like somelaboring bark careering to the violence of the winds, but ever, likethat bark, regaining an equilibrium that was never thoroughly lost.Shallow as the lake was at this point for a considerable distance, itwas long before the noble animal lost its footing; and thus had itsrider been enabled to arrive within a few paces of the canoe, at thevery moment when the increasing depth of the water, in compelling thehorse to the less expeditious process of swimming, gave a proportionateadvantage to the pursued. No sooner, however, did the Centaur-like riderfind that he was losing ground, than, again darting his spurs into theflanks of his charger, he made every effort to reach the canoe. Maddenedby the pain, the snorting beast half rose upon the calm element, likesome monster of the deep, and, making two or three desperate plungeswith his fore feet, succeeded in reaching the stem. Then commenced ashort but extraordinary conflict. Bearing up his horse as he swam, withthe bridle in his teeth, the bold rider threw his left hand upon thestern of the vessel, and brandishing his cudgel in the right, seemed toprovoke both parties to the combat. Desborough, who had risen from thestern at his approach, stood upright in the centre, his companion stillpaddling at the bows; and between these two a singular contest nowensued. Armed with the formidable knife which he had about his person,the settler made the most desperate and infuriated efforts to reach hisassailant; but in so masterly a manner did his adversary use his simpleweapon, that every attempt was foiled, and more than once did the hardiron-wood descend upon his shoulders, in a manner to be heard from theshore. Once or twice the settler stooped to evade some falling blow,and, rushing forward, sought to sever the hand which still retained itshold of the stern; but, with an activity remarkable in so old a man ashis assailant, for he was upwards of sixty years of age, the hand wasremoved--and the settler, defeated in his object, was amply repaid forhis attempt, by a severe collision of his bones with the cudgel. Atlength, apparently enjoined by his companion, the younger removed hispaddle, and, standing up also in the canoe, aimed a blow with itsknobbed handle at the head of the horse, at a moment when his rider wasfully engaged with Desborough. The quick-sighted old man saw the action,and, as the paddle descended, an upward stroke from his own heavy weaponsent it flying in fragments in the air, while a rapid and returning blowfell upon the head of the paddler, and prostrated him at length in thecanoe. The opportunity afforded by this diversion, momentary as it was,was not lost upon Desborough. The horseman, who, in his impatience toavenge the injury offered to the animal, which seemed to form a part ofhimself, had utterly forgotten the peril of his hand; and before hecould return from the double blow that had been so skilfully wielded, tohis first enemy, the knife of the latter had penetrated his hand, which,thus rendered powerless, now relinquished its grasp. Desborough, whoseobject--desperate character as he usually was--seemed now rather to flythan to fight, availed himself of this advantage to hasten to the bowsof the canoe, where, striding across the body of his insensiblecompanion, he with a few vigorous strokes of the remaining paddle, urgedthe lagging bark rapidly ahead. In no way intimidated by his disaster,the courageous old man, again brandishing his cudgel, and vociferatingtaunts of defiance, would have continued the pursuit; but panting as hewas, not only with the exertion he had made, but under the weight of hisimpatient rider, in an element in which he was supported merely by hisown buoyancy, the strength and spirit of the animal began nowperceptibly to fail him, and he turned, despite of every effort toprevent him, towards the shore. It was fortunate for the former thatthere were no arms in the canoe, or neither he nor the horse would, inall probability, have returned alive; such was the opinion, at least,pronounced by those who were witnesses of the strange scene, and whoremarked the infuriated but impotent gestures of Desborough, as the oldman, having once more gotten his steed into depth, slowly pursued hiscourse to the shore, but with the same wild brandishing of his enormouscudgel, and the same rocking from side to side, until his body was oftenat right angles with that of his jaded, but sure-footed beast. As he is,however, a character meriting rather more than the casual notice we havebestowed, we shall take the opportunity, while he is hastening to thediscomfited officers on the beach, more particularly to describe him.