But the glare of the sun was so reflected into my eyeballs, that it left me almost blind in the semi-gloom beneath that dark roof, and I could distinguish no object with certainty.
Surely, nothing moved within; and I drew myself slowly forward, until half my body lay extended upon the beaten dirt-floor.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of a face peering at me from out the shadows,--the face of Toinette; and, alas for my eager hopes of surprising her heart and solving its secrets! the witch was actually laughing in silence at my predicament.

The sight made my face flush in sudden indignation; but before I could find speech, she had hastily accosted me.
"Good faith, Master Wayland! but I greet you gladly!" she said, and her soft hand was warm upon mine; "yet it truly caused me to smile to observe the marvellous caution with which you came hither." "It must have been indeed amusing," I answered, losing all my vain aspirations in a moment under her raillery; "though it is not every prisoner in an Indian camp who could find like cause for merriment." Her eyes grew sober enough as they rested inquiringly on my face, for all that they still held an irritatingly roguish twinkle in their depths.
"It was the expression upon your face which so amused me," she explained.

"I am not indifferent to all that your coming means, nor to the horrors this camp has witnessed.

More than that, you appear to me like one risen from the dead.