the pain was becoming more unbearable with each succeeding moment.

Upon examination it was found that the arrow had pierced the shoulder below the armpit, and had struck the point of the blade. That the arrow had been poisoned the swelling and telltale purplish hue of the skin attested, Captains How and Gardiner both averred, and finally old Ascassasatic, who had just been saved from a horrible death at the stake, was summoned to the cabin to look at the wound and prescribe.

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Arrow poison-no coup, 11 2 was all he said. Then pressing the swollen incision between the thumb and index finger of each hand, and pressing it gently, but firmly, he began sucking the wound with a power that made the patient groan with pain.

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Keep your nerve, lad!" exclaimed Gardiner. "I know the old buck has the right of it! Ne'er a fear that the operation is an experiment with him."

Meanwhile the Indian had succeeded in extracting a quantity of heavy black blood from the now gaping, bleeding wound, and after a time he desisted and desired some tobacco, with which he made a poultice and applied it to the wounded part, which soon had a soothing effect.

This done, the old Indian explained that the wound would not be dangerous, as the bone had stopped the arrow, and the surrounding tissues did not readily absorb the poison.

In due time the Gerfalcon, which was accounted a good sailor, having held her wind and aided by a strong flood tide, had reached her destined haven, standing in well, for the water there was very bold. The brig was brought to the wind two cables' length

2 Coup.-Kill.

from the shore, and the village of the Montauks was abeam.

Tacks and sheets were lighted, braces were slackened, topsails were clewed up, and the Gerfalcon lay off-and-on while a boat was lowered and manned to land the three Montauks who had been rescued from the Narragansetts.

When this was accomplished the vessel was again hauled on the wind with her port tacks aboard, to run over to Man-cho-nock, where in due time she was rounded-to and cast anchor in the offing adjacent to Gardiner Hall, and the Captain, with his chivalrous guest, returned to shore to recount to their friends the stirring events of the voyage.

CHAPTER XXVII

""TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY"

"Why did she love him? Curious fool! be still;
Is human love the growth of human will?"

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, tho' for no transgression,
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left."

HE weeks glided past, summer had merged into autumn, and the brief Indian summer came, glorious October days when nature, attired in her gorgeous robes of crimson, orange, russet, and the few remaining touches of the summer's tender green, appears in her most lovely and enticing aspect.

It was not until Colonel Lawrence had been a guest at Gardiner Hall for days that Damaris Gordon discovered the poetic, tender nature hidden beneath his usually cold, but courteous manner, and insensibly she began to yield admiration to the subtle charm of his personality.

A spirit worship for all that was grand and ennobling had ever been a trait in the character of the young girl, a sort of hero worship which the worldly, ambitious nature of Guy Kingsland had failed to satisfy.

Betrothed in childhood, no thought of escaping the bonds forged for her had ever crossed in her mind. And Kingsland, aware of her loyalty of heart

and her strict, almost morbid sense of duty, and with naught but a thoroughly selfish love actuating his conduct, never dreamed of danger from the companionship of his fiancée with this sedate, self-contained man, so many years her senior, and with a degree of reserve, even stiffness of manner, that was by no means calculated to attract a young and sensitive girl whom the gay Lieutenant treated with such flattery as he would have bestowed upon a spoiled child, whispering soft words and highly seasoned compliments in the pretty pink ear, which, truth to tell, palled upon her appetite, but were received as a matter of course, as they had been from her childhood.

And so it came to pass that Guy, at length believing Heather Flower heedless of the past, forgot his fears and rowed almost daily to Montauk, where he followed the chase or whiled away his hours in the sport of fishing, in reality feeling vastly relieved of what he had come to consider the rather irksome duty of entertaining his betrothed; while she, all unconscious of danger, beguiled the tedious hours of the Colonel's convalescence from the illness induced by his wound, by reading or conversation.

In truth she had been his nurse and companion, for the Major, indolent by nature, and with a brain filled with schemes for his own benefit, had evaded the monotony of a life within doors, while Captain Gardiner, the most active of individuals, had a perfect horror of a sick room, contenting himself with morning and evening calls, and a tender of all the hall afforded; and Mrs. Gardiner, busied with the superintendence of her household and the welfare of her children, had scant time for the care of the invalid, gladly delegating to Damaris what she considered a trifling duty.

And Damaris, ere she was aware, began to remember the hours spent in the sick room as something to to be looked forward to, a pleasure rather than a duty.

There was a depth of intellect, a brilliancy, a vivid imagination, a poetic soul hidden beneath Colonel Lawrence's reserve that stirred her young heart like a strain of martial music and awakened the melody dormant in her own soul like the hand of a master spirit. By degrees the beauties of his grand character were revealed, the strength of principle, the wealth of intellect, the tenderness underlying the outward hauteur came to the surface.

She had thought him cold and impassive; he had regarded her as a child, petted and spoiled, a mere butterfly basking in the sunlight of affection, beautiful-he acknowledged that, but frivolous and thoughtless, with no depth of character, and fitted only to grace a drawing-room, as became the wife of precisely such a man as he knew Guy Kingsland to be.

And in this mistaken estimate of each other their great danger lay, and had not fate sufficed to draw them in daily companionship they might never have understood each other.

But the hours passed in the seclusion of the lowceiled, commodious drawing-room at the hall, or in rambling in the leafy avenues intersecting the forest, after the Colonel was sufficiently convalescent to admit of out-of-door exercise, revealed the knowledge that was like a thunderbolt.

The maiden he had deemed so frivolous he found to be loving, spirited, tender and truthful. His eyes were opened and he knew why that dwelling in the wilderness had been suddenly transformed to a paradise, that forest-shadowed, sea-girt spot to an Eden. Then it was that his nobility of soul asserted itself;