Unconscious of pain, Zulmiera darted through the thorniest thickets, turned not aside for any impediment; but borne up by the hopes of revenge, she outstripped the most active of the party. Knowing, as she did, that the inmates of government house were prepared for the attack, she felt assured that few, if any, of the Caribs would escape; but completely altered in disposition, from the effects of the horrible scenes she had gone through, she experienced no compunctious feelings for the event. Her only wish, her fixed purpose, was to possess herself of a dagger—stab Cuanaboa to the heart—_drink his warm blood as it gushed forth_—and after bathing the head of her lover with it, kill herself upon the spot. To deceive Cuanaboa, she pretended that her fear of Mayboya led her to conduct the party, an assurance which his own blind zeal for that dreaded deity caused him to believe. In furtherance of her dreadful scheme, she carefully avoided those spots where she supposed an ambuscade of English might be stationed; fearing lest some other hand should take the life of the chief. In this manner she was gradually progressing towards the house, thinking it more probable a weapon could be there procured, when in passing a clump of trees, one of the governor’s scouts, who was stationed behind it, and who was unable to bear the sight of the Carib chief so near him without endeavouring to take his life, sprang from his concealment, and rushing upon Cuanaboa, was in the act of stabbing him with a dirk, when, with the cry of some infuriated wild animal robbed of its prey, Zulmiera was upon him. Wresting the weapon from the astonished Englishman, the maddened girl fled after the Caribs, who, abashed by this encounter, and the sudden appearance of a troop of soldiers, were flying in the greatest confusion, and at their utmost speed, in direction of the before-named creek, where they had left their canoes. Many of the Caribs fell wounded by the way, from the fire of their pursuers’ muskets; but Cuanaboa, closely attended by Zulmiera, still kept on, until after passing over the same undulating ground, forcing their way through thickets, leaping over natural barriers, and creeping through leafy arcades, they gained upon the creek. But woe to the Caribs! a party of English, in hot pursuit, were, in fact, driving them into a trap, at the point of their weapons. Throughout this irregular and hurried retreat, Zulmiera had never dropped her dirk, or her gory burden; neither had she lost sight of Cuanaboa; while the chief, seeing her dash the weapon from his uncovered breast, when one stroke of the Englishman’s hand would have caused his death, thought she had forgiven his horrid barbarity, and was well pleased to see her nigh him.