He had dropped into a great armchair beside the window, and, lost in his speculations, he took no note of the flight of time until midnight tolled from the old clock bell.

Rousing from his reverie, he was in the act of closing the shutter when a hazy object, flitting upon the edge of the forest, attracted his attention, whether human or beast he could not determine.

Wolves were plentiful in the woods. It might be a prowling stray from a pack, it might be a shuffling bear, but while he strained his gaze the dark shadow vanished, and the doleful hoot of an owl from the direction in which the object had disappeared convinced him that it was but the low, heavy flight of the night bird that had deceived him.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE WAR PARTY

"Each at the head

Levell'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend."

S the shadows of evening were wrapping
the dying day in the funereal robes of
night, a strange but not unusual sight

at the period of which we write might have been witnessed along the banks of the lower Hudson at a point just above Manhattan Island.

From the western bank of the noble river a dense and almost impenetrable forest of cypress, spruce and hemlock stretched away in boundless expanse to the north and west. As the daylight gave place to the gloom of night, and darkness lay over all, save for the glimmering light of the stars, silent witnesses with twinkling eyes, there appeared a horde of tall, sinewy, athletic Indians, dark of visage, with aspect fierce and grim in the hideous war-paint, moving like figures in a ghostly panorama, and bearing upon their shoulders two-score or more birchen canoes.

Silently as the dark waters of the river before them rolled on its course, unvexed, to the sea, they moved, and, unbetrayed by a sound, deposited their buoyant burdens upon the bosom of the placid

waters.

When the last canoe was floating in the sedgy waters laving the shore, the group of figures sank down like shadows, to lie in wait in the murky night.

Presently from out the blackness of the opposite shore, at a point some distance below, came the clear, plaintive call of the coluber. Again, and yet again, was the signal repeated, distinctly heard by the crouching figures across the hushed expanse of waters, and from the throat of a prostrate warrior on the western bank, who placed his lips close to the ground, came the answering call, in the same plaintive note.

Within a few moments thereafter a weird and startling phenomenon was seen.

At a point on the east side of the river, from whence the call of the serpent had come, a crescent moon was seen to rise, but casting no beams or illuminating rays, showing only a blue, phosphorescent light.

When it had risen to the height of a man of full stature, it became stationary, quickly grew into a full moon, and then slowly waned and faded from sight.

Instantly upon its disappearance the dusky forms crouched upon the opposite bank rose and stealthily they took their places in the canoes, which, under powerful strokes, sped athwart the waters of the Hudson, and ere long were swallowed up in the shadowless gloom across the river, at the spot where the rayless moon had waxed and waned. Here they were met by two of their clan, advance scouts who, by sundry grunts and guttural gurglings, assured their brethren that the coast was clear.

Without further delay the canoes were once more transferred to the shoulders of the tawny marauders, and the journey to reach the headwaters of Long Island Sound before daybreak was resumed.

This course was taken to avoid the white settle

'Coluber.-Black snake.

ments at the southern end of Manhattan Island and the adjacent shores opposite.

It was past the hour of midnight when another pantomime of phantoms was enacted in this wild drama of a night. To a point in the East River known as "Hell-Gate," where the Harlem emptied its hurrying waters into the surging, angry maelstrom of dangerous and rock-ribbed, swirling shallows and seething, eddying whirlpools that gave the wildly picturesque locality the name, the light, silent, phantom fleet swept until the friendly shadows of the overhanging cliffs of Sea-wan-ha-ka were gained, then the prows of the entire number were turned sharply to the eastward and continued their course until they arrived at one of the many small densely wooded islands that dotted the headwaters of the Sound. Here the voyagers disembarked, and lifting their light canoes, strode away with cat-like tread beneath the sheltering trees, and were lost to view amid the fastnesses of the wooded islet, leaving behind but a single trail that might easily have been mistaken for the track of a colony of beavers, and the entire party was safely ensconced before the first grey streaks of dawn shot up in the eastern horizon.

They remained inactive until night fell, but as the shades gathered and blotted out the fatal day, a council of war was held on the tiny islet. The council pipe had been smoked with becoming gravity, but no council fire had been lighted, for they were in an enemy's country, and about to wreak a dire vengeance upon their unsuspecting victims, the Canarsees, for withholding the tribute they were under to their relentless conquerors, and to leave a trail of pillage and murder wherever they could surprise and strike the hated whites.

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