402 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



looking on the unaccountable spectacle. When the body 

 was hurled to the ground they paused a little, and then 

 crept up to it, leaning over it and examining it. One 

 pointed out with his finger the little blue spot under the 

 arm that a rifle bullet makes. A guttural " ugh !" pro- 

 claimed their assent and surprise. They lifted up their 

 dead comrade and retired to the dwelling-house, setting 

 him up against its walls, and held a long consultation. 



Lou crept up to the edge of the lantern and peered down 

 through the crevices. She saw the dead warrior, and 

 the council of the survivors, and their revengeful glances 

 at the tower. She looked all around for the source of 

 the rifle shot, but could see no living or moving thing. 

 The same crash of waves on the one side, and the same 

 monotonous line of coast and bay on the other. The 

 little island stood off the shore, its palmetto bushes rust- 

 ling and waving in the wind. The cocoa-nut tree beut 

 and twisted, and far out at sea, past the Babel of noise 

 and the tumbling waves, a happy white-sailed ship stood 

 immovably on the horizon, passing from the north to 

 some of the summer ports of the Indian islands. 



A movement among the Indians announced the ter- 

 mination of the conference, and another attempt on the 

 tower. A young man came out with his rifle hung over 

 his back with a sling. Like his predecessor, he was 

 naked to the waist, only dressed in his leathern breeches, 

 and as he walked he drew off his moccasins. Another 

 Indian climbed up on the roof of the house, and with his 

 rifle resting on the chimney seemed to keep guard over 



