320 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
she gazed round at me, she struck desperately at my breass 
with the knife. I warded off the blow, and she dropped it! 
Then, with a still more harrowing cry, she fainted across the 
body. 
Never was horror amplified to a more intolerable extreme 
of fear and dread than now, in all my experience before or 
since. She was crazed,—we were nearly out of food of ary 
kind !—and could I dare, even if able, to go out and leave her 
here alone? It seemed just as shocking to me to confine her 
with thongs as to leave her alone. What might not the 
furious strength of a maniac accomplish ? 
Here was a climax! I acknowledge, I felt in no hurry to 
restore her from her fainting fit. Murder, madness, stupor 
and starvation, all rose in appalling succession before me. 
“What could I do? What should Ido? I bowed my head 
upon my hands and wept,—completely overcome by this 
tragic combination of fearful extremities. 
A loud hurrah, accompanied by the clatter of horses’ feet 
now broke the stifling stillness, and springing ur, I rushed 
forward, or rather hobbled earnestly towards the door to see 
if it was yet secure. 
As I reached it, it was burst open violently, and in rushed 
wy friend C , the planter! followed by several negros. 
He was a good-humored, vehement, boisterous man, and ex- 
claimed, in a loud voice, as his eye fell upon me :— 
“ Caught at last !—Why what’s all this, my good fellow?” 
looking round him, in astonishment and horror. ‘ What 
sort of a d——l’s den is this you've fallen into ?—have you 
been playing the ‘Kilkenny cats’ out here in this droll-look- 
ing place? Are those two people dead? What’s been happen- 
ing ?” 
‘We've been having a brush with the Cherokees,—these 
persons are wounded !” 
“Hah! the very fellows I’ve just been drubbing. They 
carried the bodies of several killed and wounded. You must 
