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I had but one nap of five minutes' duration, leaning against a tree, when it occurred to me that Jacques Richard, whom I sent under escort half-drunk to the tent, was not the most admirable companion for that poor visionary Lecamus, who had been accommodated there. I roused myself, therefore, though unwillingly, to see whether these two, so discordant, could agree. I met Lecamus at the tent-door.
He washed panful after panful, slowly, carefully, collectedly. Suddenly he stood up, swore softly, and flung the half-washed dirt of the last pan on the rocks. "I'm a nut!" he exclaimed. "This livin' in civilization has been puttin' my intellec' to the bad. Too much Eastern sassiety." And with this inexplicable self-arraignment he stooped at the tent-door, buckled on his gun, and started upstream.
These people are poor dissemblers; if they intend to obstruct, they do it clumsily and hesitatingly: in this instance the Lama first made up to my people, and, being coolly received, kept gradually edging up to my tent-door, where, after an awkward salute, he delivered himself with a very bad grace of his mission, which was from the Lassoo Kajee to stop my progress.
He had scarce stepped from the tent-door before there arose on the sudden, and at no great distance from the square over which he was hurrying his precious burden, a horrible din, a stamping, snorting, galloping and neighing of horses, as if a dozen famished bears or wolves had suddenly made their way into the Indian pinfold, carrying death and distraction into the whole herd.
As he spoke he pressed the affectionate youth to his breast, and, warmly grasping the hands of his three other friends, bade them an earnest adieu. Bothwell lingered a moment at the tent-door, and looking back, "Let your first plan be, that to-morrow you lead us to Lord Soulis' quarters, to teach the traitor what it is to be a Scot and a man!"
Forty pieces of cannon bristled along the oval summit; the musketry and swordmen were placed on the hillside and outstretching plain. The encampment presented an appearance unusual in warfare. At the tent-door of each captain the ensign of the Covenant was unfurled. On the banner was inscribed in letters of gold the soul-stirring motto: FOR CHRIST'S CROWN AND COVENANT.
It was she, the Beam of the Morning, the self-made widow of the young Mohawk, whose hand had wrought so fearful a vengeance on the treacherous destroyer of her brother. She stood there, at the tent-door, arrayed in her bridal robes, as on the day when she received her death-doomed victim.
They closed the tent-door to keep out the terrible blaze of the sun, stretched themselves on the mats, and slept until just now, when the night-wind began to come. Now they can sit outside the tent and enjoy the evening, and the mother brings out dates and little hard cakes of bread, with plenty of butter made from goats' milk.
She would only scream, and that would do no good, and might do much harm. If it were a bear, and they kept still, he might go away and leave them. Yet, if it were a bear, Tom must know it in some way. All these thoughts passed through Gypsy's mind in that one instant, while she sat listening to the panting of the brute without. Then she rose quickly and went on tiptoe to the tent-door.
The odour was in his nostrils now as he sat at the tent-door, and he did not dream that it sweated from the sun-smitten pines. It was all memory to his fancy, and the voice went shrilling 'Paul! among the timber-stacks, and was lost in the cavernous shed at the far-end of the yard.
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