If I could not win Mademoiselle, as I now felt assured from his boastful speech I could not, I might at least work for her greater safety and comfort; and there was much I could do to help in burying my own disappointment.
For all that, it was a night to live long in the memory,--that last night we spent at Dearborn.

It remains a rare jumble in my mind,--its varied incidents crowding so fast upon each other as to leave small room for thought regarding any one of them.

Without, the dim black plain stretched away in unbroken solemnity and silence; nor did the sentinels posted along the walls catch glimpse of so much as a skulking Indian form amid the grass and sand.

A half-moon was in the sky, with patches of cloud now and then shadowing it, and in the intervals casting its faint silver over the lonely expanse and tipping the crest of the waves as they crept in upon the beach.

The great Indian village to the westward was fairly ablaze with fires; while the unending procession of black dots that flitted past them, together with the echo of constant uproar, showed that the savages were likewise astir in eager preparation for the morrow.