Now it so happened, that on the morning to which our story refers, uncle Giles was quietly smoking his pipe, and muttering solemnly to himself in that grumbling tone so peculiar to old negroes. When he learned, however, of the intended attack of the Indians, the old man, who well remembered the earlier skirmishes with the savages, took his old blunderbuss from its resting-place above the door of the kitchen, and prepared himself for action. The old gun, which owing to the growing infirmities of its possessor, had not been called into use for years, was now rusted from disuse and neglect; and a bold spider had even dared to seek, not the bubble reputation, but his more substantial gossamer palace, at the very mouth of the barrel. Notwithstanding all this, the gun had all the time remained loaded, for Giles was too rigid an economist to waste a charge without some good reason. Armed with this formidable weapon, Giles succeeded in climbing up the side of the low cabin kitchen, by the logs which protruded from either end of the wall. Arrived at the top and screening himself behind the rude log and mud chimney, he awaited with a patience and immobility which Wellington might have envied, the arrival of the foe. Here then he was quietly seated when the conference to which we have alluded took place between the Indian warriors. “Bird flown,” said Manteo, the leader of the party. “Nest empty.” Two or three of the braves stooped down and began to examine the soft sandy soil to discover if there were any tracks or signs of the family having left. Fortunately the search seemed satisfactory, for the foot-prints of Bernard's and Hansford's horses, as they were led from the house towards the stable on the previous evening, were still quite visible. This little circumstance seemed to determine the party, and they had turned away, probably to seek their vengeance elsewhere, or to return at a more propitious moment, when the discharge of a gun was heard, so loud, so crashing, and so alarming, that it seemed like the sudden rattling of thunder in a storm. Luckily, perhaps for all parties, while the shot fell through the poplar trees like the first big drops of rain in summer, the only damage which was done was in clipping off the feather which was worn by Manteo as a badge of his position. When we say this, however, we mean to refer only to the effect of the _charge_, not of the _discharge_ of the gun, for the breech rebounding violently against old Giles shoulder, the poor fellow lost his balance and came tumbling to the ground. The cabin was fortunately not more than ten feet high, and our African hero escaped into the kitchen with a few bruises—a happy compromise for the fate which would have inevitably been his had he remained in his former position. The smoke of his fusil mingling with the smoke from the chimney, averted suspicion, and with the simple-minded creatures who heard the report and witnessed its effects the whole matter remained a mystery.