turned smoothly. "I have performed my part of the contract, or am prepared; the merchandise is in yon ship awaiting your pleasure-shall I have it brought ashore at once?"

"Ninigret much sorry-like keep squaw-take her to lodge-Ninigret's wife-then Montauk fight with Narragansett brothers, drive away pale-faces," replied the Sachem, moodily.

"But the great chief of the Narragansetts has promised, surely he will not break his word! claimed Gordon, his lips twitching nervously.

"Ninigret is a great chief-white man make promise-forget-wind blow away his word, like this! Pouf!" he puffed spitefully. Narragansett not forget-but sorry much sorry-never lie; let my white brother bring the ransom and take away the squaw." The Major was angry, nettled, chagrined, but disguising his ill-humour, he asked:

"She is here?"

Squaw in lodge," answered the chief, pointing towards the wigwam.

"And has received neither insult nor injury except such inconvenience as was unavoidable under the circumstances?" questioned Gordon.

"Ninigret is not a pale-face, he is not a serpent to speak with a forked tongue! He is a great Sachem. He made a promise-he has kept it-Ninigret owe no more debt to white brother!

The proud chieftain spoke sternly, drawing up his figure to its stateliest height.

Without further comment Gordon signalled the ship, and presently a second boat was lowered, a quantity of freight stowed, and heavily-laden it was propelled to shore.

The crew lifted the burden from the boat and bore it up across the rugged rocks, depositing it in the

centre of the encampment, a labour which Ninigret's warriors disdained.

Within the circle of savages at whose girdles hung the freshly taken scalps of the Montauks, some of which Gordon recognised as those of white-haired warriors whom he had known, half a dozen white men were engaged in unbinding the articles they had brought, while the Narragansetts crouched upon the ground, their eyes eagerly bent upon the cask they knew contained the fire-water so much coveted.

"Will my white brother sleep in the lodge of the Narragansetts?" asked the Sachem, with native hospitality.

But neither the Major or his boat's crew cared to remain ashore, a witness to the orgies that would follow after the fiery liquor had transformed the red men into maniacs; and, truth to tell, the Major feared to trust himself under the protection of even so powerful a personage as the Sachem.

No, we must be away as soon as possible-it would not be consistent with our professions to remain; therefore let my red brother deliver the squaw into our possession, and we will go on board ship at once when the sun rises the young squaw must be in her father's lodge," replied Gordon.

Heather Flower was seated upon a pile of mats where the shadows fell thickest within the lodge, her face buried in her hands, her long hair unbound and veiling neck and bust. She was bearing her suffering with the dumb endurance so characteristic of her Indian blood, true to her birth and breeding.

A light touch aroused her and she sprang to her feet, looking in the face of her captor with fierce, feverish eyes.

"Come! Why does the daughter of a chief bow herself and cry like a pale-face papoose?" asked Nini

gret, in a harsh tone. "Is it because her father is a squaw, his warriors dogs that crouch and whine when the arrows of their enemies fly through the air?"

"The Narragansett is a thief! Heather Flower is the daughter of a great chief, she is not afraid! she disdains to ask mercy of the snake who crawls upon an unarmed enemy and makes war upon squaws and papooses! A Montauk would scorn to wear the scalp of a squaw or a papoose at his belt!" exclaimed the proud Indian maiden, pointing significantly at the scalps he displayed at his girdle, and speaking in accents of such withering contempt that even the fierce Narragansett could not repress a thrill of shame.

"Does Wyandance ever forget to take vengeance for a wrong? His only answer to insult is death! His warriors will lie in ambush, and when Ninigret is their captive, they will give him to be the sport of their women of burden! The aged squaws shall take his scalp as he has taken these!

She pointed to the long, raven tresses, the scalps of her murdered maidens, and the soft fringes torn from papooses slung at their mothers' backs.

Dog of a Narragansett, why does he not slay Heather Flower, that he may hang another scalp of a squaw at his belt? Is it because the blood of the great Warrior King flows hot through his daughter's veins that Ninigret fears to take her life? Strike, crawling serpent with the poisoned teeth that fears to meet the Montauks when the sun shines!" she exclaimed, drawing herself to her fullest stature. "Heather Flower has not even a bending reed with which to defend herself!"

She had feared that the hated Sachem would make her his wife by force, and death was far preferable, therefore she had striven to taunt him into giving her a death blow. All the fire in her haughty soul

kindled in her flashing eyes and burned in fever spots upon her cheeks, transforming the face that had been so wan and despairing into the lineaments befitting a Boadicea.

She had too nearly succeeded, for, driven to a perfect frenzy of fury by her taunts, the chief snatched his knife from his belt, and in an instant the sharp blade would have pierced the heart of the captive.

"Shame! will the great Sachem of the Narragansetts let the words of a squaw make him forget that he is a warrior?"

The deep, stern voice of Major Gordon broke the spell. The chief thrust the knife in his belt and turned a scowling visage toward the intruder.

"Take her away!" he hissed, "her tongue has the poison of the rattlesnake, her words are like the hot breath of the fire at the stake! Go! lest the great chief of the Narragansetts forgets that his white brother has paid the ransom, and leaves him nothing but the dead to carry to the enemy of Ninigret!"

Turning upon his heel, without a backward glance or word of parting, the surly chief disappeared in the blackness of a tangled thicket.

If Heather Flower felt surprise that a white man should appear upon the scene at such an opportune moment, she evinced none as she followed her rescuer to the waiting boat, asking no question, but taking her place within the boat that was rowed swiftly to the ship.

It would be hours before the moon, now in its last quarter, would light the scene, but myriads of stars hung their silver lamps in the cloudless blue above and were faintly mirrored in the waters as the craft swiftly ploughed its way, sailing under a fresh breeze toward its point of destination, the grey cliffs of Montauk.

CHAPTER XXII

"BLUE LAWS"

"I think that friars and their hoods,
Their doctrines and their maggots,
Have lighted up too many feuds,
And far too many faggots;

I think, while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,

That there are fifty roads to town,
And rather more to heaven."

RE you for a row over to Maidstone 1 this morning?"

Guy Kingsland asked the question as he entered the breakfast room at Gardiner Hall, where he found Colonel Lawrence, who had accepted the pressing invitation of Lyon Gardiner that he would make the hall his home a portion of the time while he remained in the colonies.

"Really, I have thought nothing about the matter," returned Lawrence, looking up from the pages of a letter he had been reading, with rather a puzzled expression in his fine eyes. "You refer to the case of the Indian squaw, I suppose?"

"Nothing of the sort. Zounds, man! it is a fullfledged warrior who is to be tried in the Court of Sessions for witchcraft. Odd affair, altogether. Gordon is going over with the Captain, I believe, and most of the Captain's henchmen-the rabble always attend anything of the kind here, as in England the middle and lower classes are always to be found at an execution."

1 Maidstone.-Easthampton.