A dozen guns were uplifted. The click of their ponderous locks sounded fearfully distinct, for a deadly stillness had fallen on the multitude. But on the moment a tumult arose in the crowd, from which the Indians had cautiously separated themselves. With the leap of panthers they sprung upon the soldiers, and failing to wrench the muskets from their hands, flung them headlong to the ice. Then making a sudden dash through the crowd the savages plunged into the forest, leaving wild commotion behind. While the tumult raged fiercest, half a dozen guns went off at random, and others were fired blindly as the soldiers scrambled up from the ice. But they failed to reach the boat, which moved steadily toward the mass of black drapery, now visible, now submerged in the water. An almost superhuman sweep of the oars brought that toiling craft close to the wretched woman, who clung, cold and senseless, to that crumbling fragment of ice. While the boat rocked like an egg-shell on the waves, the tall figure of a man rose upright among the oarsmen, made a desperate leap into the water, and tore that deathly form from its hold on the ice. Aided by the two Indians who had swam from their covert under the sheeted ice, and bravely kept the fragment which bore Barbara Stafford from submerging, he lifted her to the strong arms stretched down to help him, and clambered into the boat. There, upon a pile of blankets, she lay, white as snow, and cold as the ice that clung to her wet garments. The young man stooped to make sure that she was not quite dead, when a bullet hurtled out from the shore and struck him in the side. A wild leap in the air--a cry, sharp and clear as the yell of a wounded eagle, and Metacomet fell, bathed in blood, by the woman he had served so faithfully. Now the tumult on the shore raged with fearful vehemence. Shouts and shrieks of cruel triumph swept over the waters. A boat was pushed across the ice, and shot out into the harbor, giving chase to the fugitives. The dying chief lifted himself up and saw this new danger. He struggled for speech, but fell back gasping for breath. Wahpee dropped his oar and attempted to staunch the blood which flowed in a crimson stream down his side. "Let me die--but save her!" shouted the young man, in his last agony. "Pull for the ship--or never dare to look for your chief up yonder!"