His scheme of attack had been framed to embrace all contingences; and he wasted no further time in deliberation.

A few whispered words conveyed his last instructions to the soldier; who, reflecting that he was fighting in the cause of humanity, remembering his own heavy wrongs, and marking the fiery eagerness that flamed from Nathan's visage, banished from his mind whatever disinclination he might have felt at beginning the fray in a mode so seemingly treacherous and ignoble.

He laid his axe on the brink of the gully at his side, together with his foraging cap; and then, thrusting his rifle through the bushes, took aim at one of the savages at the fire, Nathan directing his piece against the other.

Both of them presented the fairest marks, as they sat wholly unconscious of their danger, enjoying in imagination the tortures yet to be inflicted on the prisoner.

But a noise in the gully,--the falling of a stone loosened by the soldier's foot, or a louder than usual plash of water,--suddenly roused them from their dreams; they started up, and turned their eyes towards the hill.--"Now, friend!" whispered Nathan;--"if thee misses, thee loses thee maiden and thee life into the bargain .-- Is thee ready ?" "Ready," was the reply.
"Right, then, through the dog's brain,--fire!" The crash of the pieces, and the fall of the two victims, both marked by a fatal aim, and both pierced through the brain, were the first announcement of peril to their companions; who, springing up, with yells of fear and astonishment, and snatching at their arms, looked wildly around them for the unseen foe.