never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never be mentioned again in your tribe; it is already forgotten."

As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments. His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for an instant predominated. He arose to his feet and, baring his bosom, looked steadily on the keen, glittering knife that was already upheld by his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart, he even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he anticipated, and fell heavily on his face at the feet of the rigid and unyielding form of Uncas.

The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to the earth, and buried everything in darkness. The whole shuddering group of spectators glided from the lodge like troubled spirits; and Duncan thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an Indian judgment had now become its only tenants.

THE PILOT

From "The Pilot "

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

URING this time, the sea was becoming more agi

DURING

tated, and the violence of the wind was gradually increasing. Still the hardy and experienced mariners who directed her movements held her to the course that was necessary to their preservation, and still Griffith gave forth, when directed by their unknown pilot, those orders that turned her in the narrow channel where alone safety was to be found.

"Now is the time to watch her closely, Mr. Griffith," cried the pilot. "Here we get the true tide and the real danger. Place the best quartermaster of your ship in those chains, and let an officer stand by him and see that he gives us the right water.'

"I will take that office on myself," said the captain. "Pass a light into the weather main chains."

"Stand by your braces!" exclaimed the pilot, with startling quickness. "Heave away that lead!" While deep expectation pervaded the frigate, the piercing cry of the leadsman as he called, "By the mark seven!" rose above the tempest, crossed over the decks, and appeared to pass away to leeward, borne on the blast like the warnings of some water spirit.

""Tis well," returned the pilot, calmly; "try it again."

66

The short pause was succeeded by another cry, “ And a half five."

"She shoals! she shoals!" exclaimed Griffith; "keep her a good full!"

"Ay, you must hold the vessel in command now," said the pilot, with those cool tones that are most appalling in critical moments, because they seem to denote most preparation and care.

The third call, "By the deep four," was followed by prompt direction from the stranger to tack.

Griffith seemed to emulate the coolness of the pilot in issuing the necessary orders to execute this maneuver.

The vessel rose slowly from the inclined position into which she had been forced by the tempest, and the sails were shaking violently, as if to release themselves from their confinement, while the ship stemmed the billows, when the well-known voice of the sailing master was heard shouting from the forecastle :

“Breakers! breakers! dead ahead!

This appalling sound seemed yet to be lingering about the ship, when a second voice cried :

"Breakers on our lee bow!

"We are in the bite of the shoals, Mr. Gray,” cried the commander. "She loses her way; perhaps an anchor

might hold her."

"Clear away the best bower!" shouted Griffith through his trumpet.

"Hold on!" cried the pilot, in a voice that reached the very heart of all who heard him. "Hold on everything!"

The young man turned fiercely to the daring stranger who thus defied the discipline of his vessel, and at once demanded:

"Who is it that dares to countermand my orders? Is it not enough that you run the ship into danger, but you must interfere to keep her there? If another word-"

"Peace, Mr. Griffith," interrupted the captain, bending from the rigging, his gray locks blowing about in the wind, and adding a look of wildness to the haggard care that he exhibited by the light of his lantern; "yield the trumpet to Mr. Gray; he alone can save us.

Griffith threw his speaking trumpet on the deck, and, as he walked proudly away, muttered, in bitterness of feeling :

"Then all is lost, indeed; and among the rest the foolish hopes with which I visited this coast."

There was, however, no time for reply; the ship had been rapidly running into the wind, and as the efforts of the crew were paralyzed by the contradictory orders they had heard, she gradually lost her way, and in a few seconds all her sails were taken aback.

Before the crew understood their situation the pilot had applied the trumpet to his mouth, and, in a voice that rose above the tempest, he thundered forth his orders. Each command was given distinctly, and with precision that showed him to be a master of his profession. The helm was kept fast, and the head-yards swung up heavily against the wind, and the vessel was soon whirling round on her heel, with a retrograde move

ment.

Griffith was too much of a seaman not to perceive that the pilot had seized, with a perception almost intuitive, the only method that promised to extricate the vessel from her situation.

He was young, impetuous, and proud, but he was generous. Forgetting his resentment and his mortification, he rushed forward among the men, and by his presence and example added certainty to the experiment. The ship fell off slowly before the gale, and bowed her yards nearly to the water, as she felt the blast pouring its fury on her broadside, while the surly waves beat violently against her stern, as if in reproach at departing from her usual manner of moving.

When the ship had fallen off dead before the wind, her head-sails were shaken, her afteryards trimmed, and her helm shifted, before she had time to run upon the danger that had threatened as well to leeward as to windward. The beautiful fabric, obedient to her government, threw her bows up gracefully toward the wind again, and, as her sails were trimmed, moved out from among the dangerous shoals on which she had been embayed, as steadily and swiftly as she had approached them.

A moment of breathless astonishment succeeded the accomplishment of this nice maneuver, but there was no time for the usual expressions of surprise. The stranger still held the trumpet, and continued to lift his voice amid the howlings of the blast, whenever prudence or skill required any change in the management of the ship. For an hour longer there was a fearful struggle for their preservation, the channel becoming at each step more complicated, and the shoals thickening around the mariners on every side. The lead was cast rapidly, and the quick eye of the pilot seemed to pierce the darkness with a keenness of vision that exceeded human power.