"Dhia! o Dhia! my wife!" was the first thought of MacGillivray; and when last he saw Mary she was standing erect on the tumbril, the horses of which had been shot, wringing her hands in an attitude of despair, as the brown tide of the Iroquois swept round her like a living sea; and the last she saw of her husband was his form towering above all others, when combating bravely and making frantic efforts, with Alaster MacGregor, Ewen Chisholm, Bane the piper, and other Celtic swordsmen, to reach her; but by a horde of savages they were driven into the forest, and she saw them no more. The French guard offered but a feeble resistance, and fled; then ensued a thousand episodes replete with horror! On all hands the unfortunate survivors of the siege were hewn down, slashed, stabbed, tomahawked, and scalped. Shrieks, groans, screams, prayers, and wild entreaties for mercy, with the occasional explosions of musketry, rang through the forest; but above all other sounds, on earth or in the sky of heaven, rose the appalling whoop of the unglutted Iroquois. One of Mary's companions--the widow--was literally hewn to pieces in a moment, while her children were whirled round by the feet, and had their brains dashed out against the trees; her other friend, the wife of Captain Dacres, a fair-haired and pretty young Englishwoman, was torn from her side. The glittering hatchet of one Indian cleft her head to the nose, while another caught her body as it was falling, and by a single sweep of his knife shred off her scalp, and waved the silken curls as a trophy above his head. Mary was to be their next victim; but ere they could drag her down she flung herself at the feet of Ossong, and, clasping his moccassined legs, said in his own language-- "I will pray the Great Spirit that he pardon you my death; but do not torture me; do not make me suffer--I am a weak woman, and about to become a mother." Ossong grinned hideously, and grasping her by the hair raised his scalping-knife; but at that moment his hand was grasped from behind. He turned furiously, and was confronted by Orono. "Spare her!" said the latter, in his guttural tones. "For what? My ears are not as the ears of an ass, therefore I hear not follies; nor of a fox, therefore I hear no lies!" responded the fierce savage; "spare her for what?" "The wigwam of Orono." Ossong laughed scornfully, and turned away in search of other victims, which he found but too readily.