It was the loud laugh of the soldiery, who, collected along the line of rampart in front, were watching the progress of the ball-players.  Cheered by the welcome sounds, she raised herself from the bed to satisfy her eye her ear had not deceived her.  The windows of both bed-chambers looked immediately on the barrack square, and commanded a full view of the principal entrance.  From that at which she now stood, the revived but still anxious girl could distinctly see all that was passing in front.  The ramparts were covered with soldiers, who, armed merely with their bayonets, stood grouped in careless attitudes—­some with their wives leaning on their arms—­others with their children upraised, that they might the better observe the enlivening sports without—­some lay indolently with their legs overhanging the works—­others, assuming pugilistic attitudes, dealt their harmless blows at each other,—­and all were blended together, men, women, and children, with that heedlessness of thought that told how little of distrust existed within their breasts.  The soldiers of the guard, too, exhibited the same air of calm and unsuspecting confidence; some walking to and fro within the square, while the greater portion either mixed with their comrades above, or, with arms folded, legs carelessly crossed, and pipe in mouth, leant lazily against the gate, and gazed beyond the lowered drawbridge on the Indian games.

A mountain weight seemed to have been removed from the breast of Clara at this sight, as she now dropped upon her knees before the window, and raised her hands in pious acknowledgment to Heaven.

“Almighty God, I thank thee,” she fervently exclaimed, her eye once more lighting up, and her cheek half suffused with blushes at her late vague and idle fears; while she embraced, at a single glance, the whole of the gladdening and inspiriting scene.

While her soul was yet upturned whither her words had gone before, her ears were again assailed by sounds that curdled her blood, and made her spring to her feet as if stricken by a bullet through the heart; or powerfully touched by some electric fluid.  It was the well-known and devilish war-cry of the savages, startling the very air through which it passed, and falling like a deadly blight upon the spirit.  With a mechanical and desperate effort at courage, the unhappy girl turned her eyes below, and there met images of death in their most appalling shapes.  Hurry and confusion and despair were every where visible; for a band of Indians were already in the fort, and these, fast succeeded by others, rushed like a torrent into the square, and commenced their dreadful work of butchery.  Many of the terrified soldiers, without thinking of drawing their bayonets, flew down the ramparts in order to gain their respective block-houses for their muskets:  but these every where met death from the crashing tomahawk, short rifle, or gleaming knife;—­others who had presence of mind sufficient to avail themselves of their only