"Let me see, I'll not suffer him to die so soon; perhaps a little reflection will induce him to persuade her to yield. At all events I'll try the experiment. Ho! Ramsey, cut him loose; we'll adjourn the fun to another day."

Having thus given a few s.n.a.t.c.hes of the revelations made by the villain in his delirium, enough to show what were his intentions toward his prisoners, and the utter blackness of his heart, we will depict another phase of his madness, in which he imagines the swift feet of retribution to be on his track, while the future was uncurtained to his distempered gaze.

"Coming! coming! coming! and there is no escape! * * Away! ye grinning devils! out of my sight, ye imps of h--l! Begone! ye ghostly demons, forever pointing with your long fingers! what would you have me see?"

His eyes were wild with a horrible stare, as if fixed by the magic power of some ghastly sight, while large drops of perspiration oozed from every pore, and stood in cold beads upon his brow! In fixed horror he thus remained for some moments, then fell back and covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out the dreadful scene!

Then rousing again, he exclaimed in another key:

"No! no! no! not that! I'll not come to that! Alive, and food for crawling worms! No! no! no! Then birds of prey feasting upon my flesh! Oh, G.o.d! the curse! the curse!"

This last vision seemed to overpower him, and he lay moaning most piteously for a length of time. Then the wilder phases of a distempered mind came on, and he again resumed his frenzied tone, manner, and language.

"Begone! ye lying fiends, avaunt! I'll not believe your hissing tongues!

'Tis false! all false! Back, or I'll smite you to the earth! Back! back!"

And he fought the air furiously, for a brief period, then sunk back exhausted on his pallet. A troubled half hour's sleep followed, from which he awoke much debilitated. With his waning strength, the delirium took a milder form. The vail of the future seemed still to be lifted, to give him a glimpse of coming events, but the scene that appeared was not dreadful like the ones which had preceded it.

"Happy at last, despite my oath, my vengeance unachieved! All my deep-laid schemes of no avail! Oh, Eliza! thou art indeed revenged! Thy worst predictions are realized."

The fever soon returned in violence, and once more his ravings were dreadful.

"Ho, Ramsey! keep them safe, on your life, keep them safe! do you hear?

Your life, if they escape! I'll not be thwarted in my wishes; I'll move all h--l but I'll be revenged! ay, I'll walk through fire, flood and storm to gain my ends and work their ruin! They shall not escape my vengeance, I swear it in the face of earth and heaven!"

But we will not dwell longer on this unpleasant picture of a wretched man exposing his own dark soul to the eyes of others. All the night long he continued to rave in this fever-crazed manner, Hamilton, and much of the time Ellen, too, a witness of his madness. As morning drew near he fell into a more tranquil slumber, and the violence of the fever seemed to have pa.s.sed. With the early dawn seizing a favorable moment, when all their enemies were asleep, the lovers made their escape. Ramsey and the Indians were so much occupied with Durant, they did not think of the prisoners as they would have done under other circ.u.mstances, though they did not feel desirous of seeing the deeds of the past day re-enacted. It was some time before they noticed the escape, and then no pursuit was inst.i.tuted until after the morning meal was dispatched.

Hamilton and Ellen made the best of their way down the Ohio, and early in the evening had the good fortune to fall upon the camp of a party of whites, under the direction of Ellen's brother, who had busied himself day and night to raise the force and go in quest of the captives, having resolved never to cease his efforts until his sister was rescued, or her fate learned and her death avenged.

The meeting was a happy one; and as the object of the expedition was accomplished, the party returned home, when there was a time of general rejoicing.

CONCLUSION.

We have little more to say. As the reader will conclude without reading the fact, Walter and Ellen were married, according to their original arrangements, and afterward lived in the enjoyment of that happiness which love alone can procure, and which can be found only at the domestic fireside where peace reigns; their descendants may still be found in Kentucky and other western states.

Durant recovered from his hurt, and lived for some years to plot more mischief, and fail in his designs. He at last quarreled with one of his savage followers, and in a fit of anger, struck him a blow with his fist.

The indignity was never forgotten or forgiven. The Indian vowed to be revenged, and he kept his oath; d.o.g.g.i.ng the steps of his foe, he found an opportunity to inflict a wound, which felled his adversary to the earth.

With proper attention he might have recovered, but his enemy left him disabled and bound, to die by slow inches!

His wound, at first very painful, soon began to mortify, and he felt the worms in his still living body! Vultures came to feast upon him, ere the vital spark of existence had gone out within him, and he had not the strength left to lift a hand, or speak a word in his own defense, though their long beaks were stretched over him and planted in his flesh and eyes!

And when death at last came, and laid his icy fingers upon his heart, for the final stilling of its disquiet and guilty throbbing, his failing senses were suddenly and momentarily aroused, and the curdling blood sent again with quickened impulse through his veins, as his dull ears were saluted with the horrible sound of the howlings of wild beasts in the distance; and the last things that his closing, almost sightless b.a.l.l.s beheld were the glaring eyes of the monsters of the forest, as they gloated over their prey!

The sight was enough to finish the work of dissolution, already advanced near to completion, and the sluggish blood rushed for the last time upon his paralyzed heart with such chilling coldness and mastering power, that it ceased to beat, and the wretch was dead!

Then a fight took place over his putrefying carca.s.s, and the screech of the vulture, mingled with the angry growl of the wolf, as they contended for the remains of the man of crimes in their wild fury and ferocious hunger!

A few hours longer, and the flesh was all torn from his frame, and only a ghostly, grinning skeleton was left of the once proud and vicious Louis Durant; and yet fresh beasts arriving upon the scene, disappointed in their antic.i.p.ated feast, howled a dismal requiem over his bones, which were left, without sepulture, to bleach in the winds and storms of heaven!

Such was the terrible end of the _villain_, while the _victims_ of his hate and malice, against whom he had plotted so often and so fiendishly, were happy in the enjoyment of life's best blessings; and thus the story points its own moral.

THE END