“Why will Edith drive one who adores her to these extremities?  Let her smile but as she smiled of yore, and all will yet be well.  One smile secures her deliverance from all that she dreads, her restoration to her home and to happiness.  With that smile, the angel again awakes in my bosom, and all is love and tenderness.”

“Heaven help me!” iterated the trembling girl, struggling to shake off Braxley’s hand.  But she struggled feebly and in vain; and Braxley, in the audacity of his belief that he had frightened her into a more reasonable mood, proceeded the length of throwing an arm around his almost insensible victim.

But heaven was not unmindful of the prayer of the desolate and helpless maid.  Scarce had his arm encircled the waist of the captive, when a pair of arms, long and brawny, infolded his body as in the hug of an angry bear, and in an instant he lay upon his back on the floor, a knee upon his breast, a hand at his throat, and a knife, glittering blood-red in the light of the fire, flourished within an inch of his eyes:  while a voice, subdued to a whisper, yet distinct as if uttered in tones of thunder, muttered in his ear,—­“Speak, and thee dies!”

The attack, so wholly unexpected, so sudden and so violent, was as irresistible as astounding; and Braxley, unnerved by the surprise and by fear, succumbing as to the stroke of an avenging angel, the protector of innocence, whom his villany had conjured from the air, lay gasping upon the earth without attempting the slightest resistance, while the assailant, dropping his knife and producing a long cord of twisted leather, proceeded, with inexpressible dexterity and speed, to bind his limbs, which he did in a manner none the less effectual for being so hasty.  An instant sufficed to secure him hand and foot; in another, a gag was clapped in his mouth and secured by a turn of the rope round his neck; at the third, the conqueror, thrusting his hand into his bosom, tore from it the stolen will, which he immediately after buried in his own.  Then, spurning the baffled villain into a corner, and flinging over his body a pile of skins and blankets, until he was entirely hidden from sight, he left him to the combined agonies of fear, darkness, and suffocation.

Such was the rapidity, indeed, with which the whole affair was conducted, that Braxley had scarce time to catch a glimpse of his assailant’s countenance; and that glimpse, without abating his terror, took but little from his amazement.  It was the countenance of an Indian,—­or such it seemed,—­grimly and hideously painted over with figures of snakes, lizards, skulls, and other savage devices, which were repeated upon the arms, the half-naked bosom, and even the squalid shirt of the victor.  One glance, in the confusion and terror of the moment, Braxley gave to his extraordinary foe; and then the mantles piled upon his body concealed all objects from his eyes.