A week after Orianna’s departure, he was taken ill of a disease contracted at the Indian camp, where he had spent the winter. All the skill of the “medicine man” could not save him, and on the fifth day he died, cursing, with his last breath, his hated rival. When it was known at Deacon Wilder’s that death had been at Grassy Spring, words of kindly sympathy were sent there for the sake of the noble Orianna; and for her sake, perhaps, Owanno’s feelings softened toward the inhabitants of Glen’s Creek. It is impossible to describe Orianna’s feelings on learning that the dreadful Wahlaga was dead, really dead, and would trouble her no more. Her whole being seemed changed, and the slumber which that night stole over her was sweeter far and more refreshing than for many weary days had visited her. At Glen’s Creek that same night Capt. Wilder, with his darling Ella pressed to his bosom, was listening, while between her tears for little Charlie, she told him of the many virtues of her Indian companion, urging him to send for her mother, that she, too, might know and love Orianna. But Ella’s strength was exhausted long before her theme, and when, as her voice ceased, her father looked down upon her, she was far in the depths of dreamland. CHAPTER XIV. THE DENOUEMENT. As if to mock the anguish of those who were about to lay their last-born in the earth, the day of Charlie’s funeral was bright and beautiful, as the spring days often are ’neath the warm Kentucky sun. Sweetly the wild flowers were blooming, and merrily sang the summer birds, as underneath a maple tree, a tree which stands there yet, they dug that little grave—the first grave at Glen’s Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Gorton, Robert, and several others from Lexington had come to shed the sympathizing tear with the bereaved ones, but besides the nearest relatives, there was not so sincere a mourner as she who, apart from the rest, looked silently on, while into the earth they lowered the cold, dead Charlie. Long after the mourners had returned to their desolate home, she lingered, and on the little mound deplored in piteous tones her loss, saying, “Oh, woe is me, now Charlie has crossed the great river, and left Orianna all alone. Who will love me now as he did?” “Many, many,” answered Robert Hunting, who purposely had returned, and been an eye and ear witness of Orianna’s grief. “Yes, many will love you,” he continued, seating himself by her, and drawing her closely to him. Then in the bewildered girl’s ear he softly whispered, “I am not worthy of you, Orianna, but I love you, and I know, too, on what condition you went to Virginia, and that had Wahlaga lived, he had sworn to murder me and marry you.”