With these words, Nathan was leaping towards the door, when a cry from Roland arrested him. He looked round and perceived Edith had fainted in the soldier's arms. "I will save the poor thing for thee--help thou the other," he cried, and snatching her up as if she had been but a feather, he was again in the act of springing to the door, when brought to a stand by a far more exciting impediment. A shriek from Telie Doe, uttered in sudden terror, was echoed by a laugh, strangely wild, harsh, guttural, and expressive of equal triumph and derision, coming from the door; looking to which the eyes of Nathan and the soldier fell upon a tall and naked Indian, shorn and painted, who, rifle in hand, the grim smile yet writhing on his features, and exclaiming with a mockery of friendly accost, "_Bo-zhoo_,[8] brudders,--Injun good friend!" was stepping that moment into the hovel; and as if that spectacle and those sounds were not enough to chill the heart's blood of the spectators, there were seen over his shoulders, the gleaming eyes, and heard behind his back, the malign laughter of three or four equally wild and ferocious companions. [Footnote 8: _Bo-zhoo_--a corruption of the French _bon jour_, a word of salutation adopted by Western Indians from the _Voyageurs_ of Canada, and used by them with great zeal by night as well as by day.] "To the door, if thee is a man,--rush!" cried Nathan, with a voice more like the blast of a bugle than the tone of a frighted man of peace; and casting Edith from his arms, he set the example of attack or flight--Roland scarcely knew which,--by leaping against the breast of the daring intruder. Both fell together across the threshold, and Roland obeying the call with desperate and frantic ardour, stumbled over their bodies, pitching headlong into the passage, whereby he escaped the certain death that otherwise awaited him, three several rifle-shots having been that instant poured upon him from a distance of scarce as many feet.