words; "you here! is such a death reserved for you!"
"No, no, no no death, I hope, for any of us, Mr. Edwards," she replied, endeavouring to speak calmly, and rallying her thoughts for the emergency. "There is smoke, but still no fire to harm us. Let us endeavour to retire."
"Take my arm," said Edwards; "there must be an opening in some direction for your retreat. Are you equal to the effort?"
"Certainly. You surely magnify the danger, Mr. Edwards. Lead me out the way you came."
"I will—I will," cried the youth, with a kind of hysterical utterance. "No, no there is no danger—I have alarmed you unnecessarily."
"But shall we leave the Indian—can we leave him here, as he says, to die?"
An expression of painful emotion crossed the face of the young man, who stopped, and cast a longing look at Mohegan; but, dragging his companion after him, even against her will, he pursued his way, with enormous strides, towards the pass by which he had just entered the circle of flame.
"Do not regard him," he said, in those horrid tones that denote a desperate calmness; "he is used to the woods, and such scenes; he will escape up the mountain—over the rock—or he can remain where he is in safety."
"You thought not so this moment, Edwards! Do not leave him there to meet with such a death," cried Elizabeth, fixing a look on the countenance of her conductor, that seemed to distrust his sanity.
"An Indian burn! who ever heard of an Indian dying by fire! an Indian cannot burn; the idea is ridiculous. Hasten, hasten, Miss Temple, or the smoke may incommode you."
