the following night, upon its arrival from the wooded islet, where it was to lie in wait during the day. Timed with the precision of clockwork, they were on hand when the savage army, with muffled paddlestrokes, glided into the sleepy cove that offered a secure hiding-place for the many canoes to be left under the guard of two of their number, while the band filed away with hurrying feet, shielded by the dark and almost unbroken forest which they knew, and could traverse with instinct of wolves, shaping their course toward the village of the doomed Canar sees. Very soon these swift-footed, lynx-eyed assassins, led by their unerring scouts, arrived within striking distance of their victims, and, making a detour, they quickly surrounded the village. Suddenly the mournful howl of a lone wolf was heard to the south, and this was speedily answered by a howl from the north, and shortly after the same lonely cry was echoed and re-echoed to the east and west of the fated village. Instant with the howling signals the hapless Canarsees had taken the alarm, and although most of them had retired, the entire village was at once astir, the inhabitants exhibiting the utmost consternation at the unwonted, untoward disturbance. Before the slightest solution could be offered, the war-cry of the fierce and merciless Mohawks rent the air, on this memorable night of All-Hal low E'en. Simultaneously with the utterance of their resounding war-whoop, the invaders closed in upon the surprised and terrified handful of Canarsees, who, entirely demoralised by the suddenness of the attack, offered no resistance, but sought safety in attempting to flee to some hiding place. Vain hope! The howling Mohawks followed like blood-hounds, leaping upon them with tomahawks and knives; some were pierced with murderous, stone-headed lances, others, upon their knees begging for mercy, fell back with heads crushed by the terrible war-clubs. Regardless of their piteous appeals for mercy, they were dragged from beneath the bushes, from behind fallen logs, from every hiding place, and butchered. The Mohawks rushed from point to point, bounding and howling like ravenous wolves, cutting off retreat. Thus, in a few moments, a tribe was annihilated, men, women and children, from the eldest to the youngest, from the aged man and the infirm squaw to the tiny infant who had numbered but a few short hours; all had perished, pierced with spears, shot with arrows, tomahawked, beat down by the warclub and scalped. Weltering upon the earth they lay in awful silence, while the flames from their burning wigwams lit up the horrid carnival of death with lurid light. Not a single prisoner was reserved, even for the torture, the only fate that awaited captives of the Mohawks. Notwithstanding their ferocious nature, and strange as it may seem, such was their sense of the rights of men that the Iroquois never enslaved their captives, although they sometimes adopted them. In one short hour naught remained where the village had stood, and naught told the tale of terror save the mutilated remains of the dead, charred saplings and tree trunks, and heaps of grey ashes choking the few glowing coals. Thus was the devotion of the Canarsees to their white neighbours visited by the fearful retaliation dealt out by Sine-rong-ni-rese, the dreaded war-chief of the Mohawks, who, after descending upon, and destroying the Canarsees, proceeded to carry into effect the design he had mapped out for this night of horrors. As soon as the last body of the murdered Canarsees was cast into the flames of the burning wigwams, at a given signal the entire band made a hasty retreat in the direction of the home of Lady Moody, the next place fixed upon to be surprised, its inmates murdered, the dwelling sacked and burned. When this was accomplished, they were to swoop down on Lawrence's Neck, several miles distant, and in close proximity to the quiet cove where their canoes were moored awaiting their return to re-cross the Sound and attack the home of Lady Ann Hutchinson, upon Throgg's Neck. The first portion of the programme had been carried out with fearful accuracy. The three most important plantation houses must be laid in ruins ere they returned to their own country, and all the work of a single night. But in striking Lady Moody's house they were to learn that they had reckoned without their host; Sine-rong-ni-rese was doomed to disappointment and was totally unprepared for the unwelcome set-back to his murderous campaign. The surprise and repulse that awaited him was due to the sagacious service of Canady, a friendly Canarsee who had been employed upon Lady Moody's plantation, and to whom the eccentric Quakeress had been uniformly kind and generous, and for whom, in return, the grateful Indian felt a strong and faithful attachment. Both the Moody and Lawrence plantations owed their preservation to the good offices of this wily Canady, whose cunning had saved his own life. When surrounded, and after every one of his ill fated people had perished at the hands of the Mohawks, he attempted escape by flight, but received a blow from a tomahawk that had wellnigh spent its force. Feigning to be hard hit, he fell headlong into a thick coppice of hazelnut bushes, and crept rapidly away until outside the danger line, when he rose to his feet and darted away in the direction of the Moody house. Being one of the swiftest runners of his tribe, he was in time to give the alarm, and to tell the awful fate that had overtaken his people. CHAPTER XXXVI A CAPTIVE TO THE MOHAWKS "All that the mind would shrink from of excesses; All by which hell is peopled, or is sad As hell-mere mortals who their power abuse- HE minutes passed slowly, the clock had chimed the half-hour after midnight, and still Major Gordon sat in front of the open window. window. Within the mansion all was still, a deathly silence reigned in the forest, for the wind had lulled to an ominous calm, the King of the Gale was marshalling his forces for a terrific onslaught. The watcher at the window saw nothing of the figure crouching in the thick shadow of a coppice of hemlocks like a tiger in the jungle. Wa-ne-no, avant courier of the horde of warriors so near at hand, had reached the scene, outstripping his fellows on the march, and was lying in wait for a fitting opportunity to strike the man who had, thus unexpectedly, been presented for the accomplishment of the fell design. The night grew more overcast, a strong wind suddenly tossed the fan-like branches of the hemlocks and roared through the leafless branches of oaks and |