“I thought,” said Eldred joyfully, “that our old pilot {745} would not desert us altogether. But where have you been? Out of breath, and as pale as a corpse! Have you been fighting with a wolf, or capsized by the water-fiend?” “You will not speak,” exclaimed Eva, as he turned silently away, and fixed his eyes on the dark cove they were nearing; “can you not tell us whether the spirit who haunts yon depths will be propitious, for we are going to invade his realms?” “You have nothing to fear from the water-spirit,” replied Arrowfoot, “but why do you not sail up the river as you have always done before?” “Because Julian wishes to see the cove,” said Eva gaily; “and with you at the helm we fear nothing.” “Trust not to that,” replied he, in a low tone, “I would guard you from danger with my life, but—I would we were sailing up the stream,” he continued with increased anxiety. “What can you mean, Arrowfoot?” cried the now alarmed girl, but immediately recovering her natural buoyancy of spirit, she rallied him on his superstition. “Have you seen a raven hovering over us, or does the moon dip her horn?” she laughingly inquired. “Believe not the omen, but let us follow these merry waves that go dancing by us, to ‘the cave of their slumbers,’ and hear the wild song of the water-spirit soothing them to rest under yon rude canopy of rock.” Fitzgerald now approached. “I do not like to see my cousin’s bright countenance wearing this shadow? What gloomy forebodings are these that disturb you, Eva?” “I wish,” answered she, “that we had taken the usual course, for Arrowfoot thinks we are not quite safe in venturing into the cove this evening. Night is coming on, and perhaps we may strike upon some hidden rock.” “Never fear,” rejoined he, “I am an old cruiser, who has doubled Cape Horn and been baptized by Neptune. I want to show you how we steer through dangers in real nautical style. This young Indian,” he continued in a lower tone, “knows nothing about it.” “More perhaps than you think he does,” said Arrowfoot, sternly; for the almost whispered accents had reached his acute ear. Julian turned away apparently disconcerted, but in a few moments was himself again, and that he might obliterate every uneasy feeling from the breasts of the little party, played off Jack-tar for their entertainment with so much odd singularity and humor, that all, save the lone Indian, entered into the spirit of his drollery, and forgot every thing but the fantastic drama before them. He stood apart, gazing first on the dark masses of rock which overhung the river, then down its broad and deep solitudes of water, on which no skiff or fishing boat was visible. They were now entering the unfrequented cove. Seldom was it that even the canoe of the wild Indian disturbed the stillness of this spot. How strange was it then to see a small boat rise as it were out of the waters, and emerge from the shadow of the rocks within a few hundred yards of them. Arrowfoot, whose wary