Accordingly, when the cry was repeated, as it soon was, though at the same distance as before, it came echoing among the hollow arches of the woods with a wild and almost unearthly cadence, the utterance, as it-seemed, of mortal agony and despair, that breathed a secret horror through the breasts of all.
"It is the Jibbenainosay!" muttered the shivering Telie: "these are the woods he used to range in most; and they say he screams after his prey! It is not too late:--let us go back!" "An Injun, massa!" said Emperor, stuttering with fright, and yet proceeding both to handle his arms and to give encouragement to his young mistress, which his age and privileged character, as well as the urgency of the occasion, entitled him to do: "don't be afraid, missie Edie; nebber mind;--ole Emperor will fight and die for missie, old massa John's daughter!" "Hist!" said Roland, as another scream rose on the air, louder and more thrilling than before.
"It is the cry of a human being!" said Edith,--"of a man in distress!" "It is, indeed," replied the soldier,--"of a man in great peril, or suffering.

Remain here on the road; and if anything--Nay, if you will follow me, it may be better; but let it be at a distance.

If anything happens to me, set spurs to your horses:--Telie here can at least lead you back to the fort." With these words, and without waiting to hear the remonstrances, or remove the terrors of his companions, the young man turned his horse into the wood, and guided by the cries, which were almost incessant, soon found himself in the vicinity of the place from which they proceeded.

It was a thick grove of beeches of the colossal growth of the west, their stems as tall and straight as the pines of the Alleghanies, and their boughs, arched and pendulous like those of the elm, almost sweeping the earth below, over which they cast shadows so dark that scarce anything was visible beneath them, save their hoary and spectral trunks.
As Roland, followed by his little party, approached this spot, the cries of the unknown, and as yet unseen, sufferer, fearful even at a distance, grew into the wildest shrieks of fear, mingled with groans, howls, broken prayers and execrations, and half-inarticulate expressions, now of fondling entreaty, now of fierce and frantic command, that seemed addressed to a second person hard by.
A thousand strange and appalling conceits had crept into Roland's mind, when he first heard the cries.

One while he almost fancied he had stumbled upon a gang of savages, who were torturing a prisoner to death; another moment, he thought the yells must proceed from some unlucky hunter, perishing by inches in the grasp of a wild beast, perhaps a bear or panther, with which animals it was easy to believe the forest might abound.