The Mohegan Maiden — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

60 THE MOHEGAN MAIDEN. | But he had seen enough to repay the risk. ‘A young gavage was suspended in the air, not ten feet above, endeayvor-— ing to reach the ledge by a rope of thongs. Archibald’s— resolye was instantly made to grapple the foe, and hurl him from the shelf Crouching down close in his little cave, he- was somewhat surprised to perceive a fissure in the wall at_ his back, which darkness hitherto had hidden. It was large enough to admit his body, but should he use it? If penned — | up there the Indian would have easy work in dispatching him, so he crouched still lower; and the swaying body of © the Narragansett now half appeared before the hidden cham- — ber. The scout now perceived that the savage held on to the rope by his hands, which, therefore, could not be disen- | gaged until the Indian’s feet touched the shelf. In his girdle” stuck his knife and tomahawk. It was evident, at a glance, that the young brave was lacking in the caution of experience, or he never would have made that descent, with his weapons in his belt, and his hands fully employed in sustaining his own weight. A pang of pity smote the young white’s bosom. To kill one so young seemed inhuman, indeed. ‘To refrain from killing him might be to doubly peril his own. life. He had no time for mental debate. The young bravye’s feet neared the shelf. Rising from his crouching attitude, as the Indian’s neck came into view, Archibald seized the throat in his vice-like grasp, and drew the writhing body into the little chamber. So rapid and still was the movement, that those above and below never suspected what had happened. The thong swung loosely over the shelf, as if the brave had reached his goal in safety. | His safety was in the repose of death; for, ere the white man’s grasp was released, life was extinct. “Ah me, this is too horrible—to kill one so young; yet it must be, where my own safety is in, the balance,” Archibald said to himself, as he proceeded to relieve the body of the beautiful new knife and tomahawk — evidently never yet stained with a white man’s blood. “ What must be the Nar- ragansett’s thirst for slaughter when such young braves as, this are permitted to take the war-path!” thought the scout. Taking the body, Archibald proposed to crowd it in the fis- sure, when, to his astonishment, he found it to lead to an comicbooks.conn