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“Has anything happened to father?” demanded Judith, as her foot touched the platform, speaking quick, for her nerves were in a state to be easily alarmed.

Hetty seemed concerned, and she looked furtively about her, as if unwilling any one but a child should hear what she had to communicate, and even that she should learn it abruptly.

“You know how it is with father, sometimes, Judith,” she said. “When overtaken with liquor he doesn’t always know what he says or does; and he seems to be overtaken with liquor, now.”

“That is strange! Would the savages have drunk with him, and then leave him behind? But ’tis a grievous sight to a child, Hetty, to witness such a failing in a parent, and we will not go near him till he wakes.”

A groan from the inner room, however, changed this resolution, and the girls ventured near a parent, whom it was no unusual thing for them to find in a condition that lowers a man to the level of brutes. He was seated, reclining in a corner of a narrow room, with his shoulders supported by the angle, and his head fallen heavily on his chest. Judith moved forward with a sudden impulse, and removed a canvas cap that was forced so low on his head as to conceal his face, and, indeed, all but his shoulders. The instant this obstacle was taken away, the quivering and raw flesh, the bared veins and muscles, and all the other disgusting signs of mortality, as they are revealed by tearing away the skin, showed he had been scalped, though still living.

CHAPTER XXI

���Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone

And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,—

But nothing he’ll reck, if they’ll let him sleep on

In the grave where a Briton has laid him.”

Wolfe

THE READER MUST IMAGINE the horror that daughters would experience at unexpectedly beholding the shocking spectacle that was placed before the eyes of Judith and Esther, as related in the close of the last chapter. We shall pass over the first emotions, the first acts of filial piety, and proceed with the narrative, by imagining rather than relating most of the revolting features of the scene. The mutilated and ragged head was bound up, the unseemly blood was wiped from the face of the sufferer, the other appliances required by appearances and care were resorted to, and there was time to inquire into the more serious circumstances of the case. The facts were never known until years later, in all their details, simple as they were; but they may as well be related here, as it can be done in a few words. In the struggle with the Hurons, Hutter had been stabbed by the knife of the old warrior, who had used the discretion to remove the arms of every one but himself. Being hard pushed by his sturdy foe his knife settled the matter. This occurred just as the door was opened and Hurry burst out upon the platform, as has been previously related. This was the secret of neither party’s having appeared in the subsequent struggle; Hutter having been literally disabled, and his conqueror being ashamed to be seen with the traces of blood about him, after having used so many injunctions to convince his young warriors of the necessity of taking their prisoners alive. When the three Hurons returned from the chase, and it was determined to abandon the castle and join the party on the land, Hutter was simply scalped, to secure the usual trophy, and was left to die by inches, as has been done in a thousand similar instances by the ruthless warriors of this part of the American continent. Had the injury to Hutter been confined to his head, he might have recovered, however; for it was the blow of the knife that proved mortal. 1

There are moments of vivid consciousness, when the stern justice of God stands forth in colors so prominent as to defy any attempts to veil them from the sight, however unpleasant they may appear, or however anxious we may be to avoid recognizing it. Such was now the fact with Judith and Hetty, who both perceived the decrees of a retributive Providence, in the manner of their father