A broad red glare, striking full upon his closed eyelids, and bringing with it the alarming thought that Fort Reynolds had been set on fire by an army of besieging Indians, roused Big Black Burl from the deepest, heaviest sleep he had ever known. With a huge start he had scrambled to his feet, and, blinded by the glare, was rushing out of his cabin, so he thought, to rescue Miss Jemima and Bushie from the flames, when his foot striking something soft and bulky, down with a tremendous squelch he fell to the ground. The next moment, now wide-awake, he saw that he had stumbled over his trusty sentinel Grumbo--when all the rest struck like a lightning flash upon his mind, fell like a thunderbolt upon his heart. Sad, sad to tell, the night, the friendly night, like a slighted ally, was gone; and with it the golden chance for vengeance to the warrior, deliverance to the captive. The day, the unwished for, the unprayed for, the most unwelcome day, like a challenged foe, had come; and with it new perils, tenfold risk of failure and disaster. "O Burlman Reynolds, born of Ebony as thou wert, how couldst thou so far lose sight of the besetting weakness of thy race, as thus, in a moment like this, on the critical edge of hazard and hope, to trust thy limbs and senses to the deceitful embraces of sleep? Black sluggard, avaunt! The Fighting Nigger be upon thee!" Full of the bitterest self-reproach, and with a feeling of disappointment bordering on despair, Burl looked bewilderingly about him. The newly risen sun, as if taunting him with the sorry miscarriage of his well-laid plans, was winking at him with its great impertinent eye, from over the hairy shoulder of a giant hill, upon whose shaggy head stood smiling the beautiful first of June. Curling up lightly into the clear morning air, from out a clump of lofty trees which plumed the crest of the opposite hill, rose a slender column of smoke, betokening the Indians already astir, and busy about their breakfast over the rekindled camp-fire. Observing this, and that he was running some risk of being discovered--if he had not betrayed himself already--Burl slunk back into a thicket of papaw bushes which grew a a few paces behind him, whence, with safety he might reconnoiter the enemy, and acquaint himself with the nature of the neighboring grounds, if peradventure they must be made the field of present operations.