With this comfortable assurance, and such encouragement as he could convey in the lustiest gallicantation ever fetched from lungs of man or fowl, the worthy Stackpole, who had slackened his steps, but without stopping while he spoke, turned his face again to the descent; when--as if that war-cry had conjured up enemies from the very air,--a rifle bullet, shot from a bush not six yards off, suddenly whizzed through his hair, scattering a handful of it to the winds; and while a dozen or more were, at the same instant, poured upon other members of the unfortunate party, fourteen or fifteen savages rushed out from their concealment among the grass and bushes, three of whom seized upon the rein of the unhappy Edith, while twice as many sprang upon Captain Forrester, and, before he could raise an arm in defence, bore him to the earth, a victim or a prisoner. So much the astounded horse-thief saw with his own eyes; but before he could make good any of the numberless promises he had volunteered, during the morning journey, of killing and eating the whole family of North American Indians, or exemplify the unutterable gratitude and devotion he had as often professed to the fair Virginian, four brawny barbarians, one of them rising at his side and from the very bush whence the bullet had been discharged at his head, rushed against him, flourishing their guns and knives, and yelling with transport, "Got you _now_, Cappin Stackpole, steal-hoss! No go steal no hoss no more! roast on great big fire!" "'Tarnal death to me!" roared Stackpole, forgetting everything else in the instinct of self-preservation; and firing his piece at the nearest enemy, he suddenly leaped from the path into the bushes on its lower side, where was a precipitous descent, down which he went rolling and crashing with a velocity almost equal to that of the bullets that were sent after him. Three of the four assailants immediately darted after in pursuit, and their shouts growing fainter and fainter as they descended, were mingled with the loud yell of victory, now uttered by a dozen savage voices from the hill-side.