While savages sometimes abandoned a siege very soon, they did not show signs of ceasing now.

Perhaps they relied on starving out the besieged, and if they only knew the state of affairs within the cabin theirs was a good reliance.
Their brief dinner over, the two boys sat down on the floor, and from the loopholes on either side watched the forest.

To Paul the whole air and atmosphere of the cabin had now become intolerably oppressive.

At first it had been such a strong, snug place of refuge that he rejoiced, but at last his sensitive spirit was weighed down by the long delay, the gloom, and the silence.

The sight of their limited rations brought to him all the future--the vigilant enemy on guard, the last little piece of food gone, then slow starvation, or a rush on the savage bullets and sure death.