The dead were left to repose in peace. For a long time this stillness continued unbroken. Then from afar sounds began to be heard, gradually drawing nearer and nearer. It was the howling of the gaunt Florida wolves as they scented a rich repast. Ere long they could be seen skulking through the enclosure, and quarrelling over the corpses upon the plain. Above them, with shadowy wings, the vultures hovered, waiting to come in for their share of the spoil. The moon sank in the sky, and drew a pall over the dreadful sight. At intervals a flickering tongue of flame shooting up from the expiring embers of the burnt house, imparted a weird aspect to the scene, lighting it up, only to display its ghastly horrors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Where was Elias Rody? He had proved deceitful to the last. Wacora and his warriors had sought him everywhere, but had failed to find him. For all that he was near. In the last attack made by the red men, he had been wounded--not severely, but sufficiently to make him feel faint and giddy. He knew that he could no longer hope for success, and determined, if possible, to save his own life while there was a chance. Amidst the smoke and confusion he found no difficulty in withdrawing from the combat. Remembering a species of cellar he had caused to be dug in the rear of the house, he staggered towards it, and reached it unobserved. He paused before entering. A thought of Alice arrested him--the thought of the hopelessness of saving her, and tottering forward, half-blinded by his own blood, he descended the steps of the cellar, at the bottom of which he fell insensible to the floor. The yells of the victorious Indians, the glare of the burning mansion, the shrieks of the wounded, and the agonising wail of defenceless women and children as they committed their souls to Heaven, Elias Rody, though the cause of all this, heard nothing. Beneath his own burning house, miraculously sheltered by some huge timbers which had fallen over the excavation, he lay for a long time insensible to thought as to feeling. When he at length recovered consciousness, and crawled forth from his concealment, the sun had risen, lighting up the ruined pile. He shuddered at the sight. He suffered a thousand deaths in the contemplation of the horrors his mad selfishness had caused. Bitter remorse, stronger than his shattered physical frame could endure, gnawed at his heart. But it was selfish remorse for all that. Here was vengeance for Oluski, had the chief only been alive to witness it. Too weak to get away from the spot, Rody groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. "Ten thousand times may I be accursed for all this! Fool--blind, infatuated fool--that I have been. Every aspiration might have been gratified, every hope fulfilled, had not my impatience blinded me against caution. May the fiend of darkness overtake these red--"