The Mohegan Maiden — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 THE MOHEGAN MAIDEN. | CHAPTER VI. THE CLIFF CHAMBER. Ere long the young man heard sounds far below him which indicated the presence of the savage. horde looking for his body. The howl of rage and anguish which accompanied their search, revealed the moment when the mangled bodies of their comrades were stumbled upon in the darkness. Their voices were heard up and down the gorge as they signaled one another. Now was the time for escape, if, indeed, escape from that perilous position were possible. The scout’s idea was to try and recover the crest of the chasm, and, in the darkness, to elude pursuit. But no movement was possible so long as his wrist remained clasped by the thongs, and yet, to remove the thongs was no easy task in that constrained and most painful position. Drawing the body up to where his locked arms were held by the friendly pine, Archibald pro- ceeded to gnaw at the leather string, and, in a few minutes, had so far succeeded as to feel his wrists parting. At the same moment he heard the sound of voices above and near him, and he clung more closely to the little tree which was now his ark of safety. Three or four savages, failing to find his body below, had again come to the brink of the precipice for observation. Seeing nothing in the deep darkness they shouted to those below, and hurled down stones to indicate the spot where the body must have fallen; but to no purpose, apparently, for soon all was silent below. Would the Indians leave the vicinity before dawn, to give him a further chance of his life? was now Archibald’s most anxious mental inquiry. If not, his case was hopeless indeed. | For another half-hour he awaited, his hands now wholly free, but painfully swollen and lacerated by rough usage.’ With — much effort and care he dropped down the body of the tree — to strike the bank from which it grew. He found it to be a tall, slender pine, whose roots were many feet below the crest of the chasm. It must, therefore, spring from a shelf of rock. comichooks.com