seaward, and had failed to notice the brig looming up like a dim ghost under the faint light of the stars and the young moon floating upon the very edge of the western horizon like a fairy boat.

A second volley was poured in on flank and rear, and with howls of rage the brawny warriors leaped back from the circle of light into the gloom.

With a ringing shout Colonel Lawrence led in the fray upon the right, Captain Gardiner on the left, as the assailants burst from their covert and rushed, with drawn cutlasses, upon the panic-stricken horde.

CHAPTER XXVI

A PARTHIAN SHOT

"He is a soldier, fit to stand by Cæsar
And give direction."

T was a terrific battle that raged for the space of five minutes around that circle of fire-brands that had been scattered in

the brushwood, where the flames caught in the resinous pine needles and ran riot among the dry leaves and creeping vines carpeting the earth, shrivelling the green foliage and darting dragontongued, hither and thither as the spears of tall grass or brown twigs fed and determined their

course.

Animated by the ringing shouts of their leaders, the white men fought with a fury that was irresistible, and one after another the red men went down beneath the murderous sweep of the broadsword and cutlass, wielded by stout arms, their tufted heads cloven by the weapons against which their knives were but a sorry defence.

The whiz of arrows, the crash of descending tomahawks and murderous war-clubs, the spiteful bark of the English bulldogs,1 the hiss of the circling broadswords, mingled with the groans of the wounded and dying.

In five minutes, upon the spot where the deathfire had been kindled, there remained only a few smouldering embers and half-consumed boughs, 1English bulldogs.-Pistols of heavy calibre.

blackened, and emitting little puffs of pungent smoke. The trees to which the prisoners had been bound stood with scorched branches, the green withes with which they had been secured lay coiled about the roots. The prisoners had vanished, for, at the first onset the broadsword in the hands of a marine had severed the bonds, and the scorched prisoners had fled like hares in the direction of the boats to which the soldier pointed, and were safe in the light ship's boat floating upon the water, waiting for the human freight.

Through all the carnage the tall, lordly Lawrence passed unscathed, his sword flashing in circles or descending like a lightning bolt, beneath which many a plumed warrior sank.

Panic-stricken, the surviving Narragansetts fled into the denser depths of the fastnesses, scattering like a pack of wolves driven frightened from their prey, their inhuman yells stilled, their hideous orgies ended.

The field was won, but as Henry Lawrence turned to gather his followers an arrow sped, almost as noiselessly as a dead leaf falls, from an unseen marksman concealed in a tangle of dwarf alders. A keen pain darted through his frame as the blunt arrowhead was buried in his shoulder.

It was a Parthian shot from Ninigret's bow, and with a loud yell of defiance the chief bounded away after his flying savages, the swift crashing of brush and brake telling of the speed of his flight.

It would have been madness to follow, and the little detachment of white men made their way to the waiting boats, two bearing a dead comrade, others assisting the Colonel and the three sailors who had been wounded, leaving the dead and wounded Narragansetts prone upon the battlefield, beneath the

stars now paling in a murky cloud settling low above the tree tops, and darkening the azure heavens as if a storm lay embosomed in a circumscribed space above the shore line.

A lively pull brought the boats alongside the Gerfalcon, and obedient to the surgeon's orders the wounded were conveyed below, and the dead sailor was taken to a sheltered portion of the deck and wrapped in a roll of sail-cloth.

"Poor Crowell, he'll never reef sail again," sighed Captain How. "He was as fine a hand and as brave a lad as ever sailed the seas!"

'Dead as Pharaoh," answered the mate. "His head was crushed in by a blow from a war-club at the very last moment before the devils broke and run."

"Ye gods and little fishes! There's an encampment on that slope beyond the pine belt, and the wigwams are ablaze! What the devil, man! did you set their lodges afire?" exclaimed Captain How.

"Faith! not we!" returned Captain Gardiner, indignantly. "There was too much of that kind of work when the Pequot fort was burned, and women and children perished miserably in the flames. Good God, see! Look at the squaws and papooses yon, running like partridges!" he continued as a volume of flame shot above the tree tops, dancing and swirling in red sheets that lit up the scene with frightful distinctness.

It was owing to their preoccupation on board the Gerfalcon that none had noticed the smoke on shore, and guessed nothing of the truth.

"Thank God we had nothing to do with that work!" called the Colonel. "They set their own fire when they lighted the funeral pyre yon, and it must be that when we scattered the burning brands the

fire caught the pine needles; the woods are dry as tinder at this season, and the blaze they set with their own hands is burning them out."

A breeze that suddenly sprang up was driving the flame shoreward, the conflagration lighting up the green, foam-fringed waves as it swept rapidly toward the water's edge.

"An' ye had naught to do with the setting o' the fire, we have naught to do with the quenching," declared Captain How.

The errand upon which they had landed was accomplished, and as soon as all the ship's crew were aboard and accounted for, it was decided to return to Gardiner Hall on account of the wound sustained by Colonel Lawrence.

"Get the brig under weigh, Mr. Morle!" called Captain How, to the mate.

Aye, aye, sir!" responded the mate.

A moment later all hands were piped to quarters by the boatswain's whistle, then came the order, bawled from the quarterdeck.

"Be lively, there, my hearties! man the braces, stand by your halyards! Hoist away on your jib and flying jib! Pay her off to port, and then haul close to the wind!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" was the hearty response, and in an incredibly short time the Gerfalcon, that had been under spanker and forestay sail while Lawrence and his men had gone to the rescue of the Montauks, was bowling along, close-hauled, with her starboard tacks aboard, careening to the strong breeze that had sprung up from the southwest at the early morn, with the high headland of Montauk bearing ahead.

Meanwhile the arrow-head wound in Henry Lawrence's shoulder was giving him no little pain, and was a source of the greatest apprehension, as