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Updated: June 18, 2025
They kept a watchful eye on him, however; and while they affected an easy indifference of attitude, held themselves in readiness to pounce upon him if he should attempt to escape. But nothing seemed farther from the mind of Keona than such an attempt.
This, however, was not a moment to calculate chances. The captain pulled the trigger, and the crash of the shot was followed by a howl from the savage, as his uplifted arm dropped to his side, and the spear fell across the face of the sleeper. Henry instantly awoke, and sprang up with the agility of a panther. Before he could observe what had occurred, Keona leaped into the bushes disappeared.
Nevertheless, there was good reason for his hesitating; for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred, and the like.
The more she thought, the more she felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt that she could make, either by force or stratagem, to pluck her from the grasp of one so strong and subtle as Keona. At length she resolved to give up thinking of plans altogether and take to prayer instead.
Taking a short cut down into the valley, for she was well acquainted with all the wild and rugged paths of the mountains in the immediate neighbourhood of the settlement, she was so fortunate as to reach a narrow pass, through which Keona and Alice must needs go. Arriving there a short time before they did, she was able to take a few minutes rest before resuming the chase.
It was while all this was doing in the native camp, that Keona, having gone to the nearest mountain top to observe what was going on in the settlement, had fallen in with and been chased by some of those men belonging to the Foam, who had been sent on shore to escape being pressed into the service of the king of England.
On reaching the highest ridge of the mountains, Keona suddenly stopped, placed Alice on a flat rock and went to the top of a peak not more than fifty yards off. Here he lay down and gazed long and earnestly over the country through which they had just passed, evidently for the purpose of discovering, if possible, the position and motions of his enemies.
"Keona began it!" said the savage, angrily. "We thought our wars with the Christians were going to stop. But Keona is bad. He put the war spirit into my people." Mr. Mason knew this to be true. "Then," said he, "Keona deserves punishment." "Let him die," answered the chief; and an exclamation of assent broke from the other natives.
Keona waited a minute or two to ascertain the exact position of his enemies, then he repeated the wail, and swelled it gradually out into a fiendish yell that awoke all the echoes of the place. At the same time, guessing his aim as well as he could, he threw a spear and discharged a shower of stones at the spot where he supposed they stood.
Conspicuous among these truly savage warriors was the form of Keona, with his right arm bound up in a sort of sling. Pain and disappointed revenge had rendered this man's face more than unusually diabolical as he went about among his fellows, inciting them to revenge the insult and injury done to them through his person by the whites.
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