`Brother,' said Oscar to Harold, as they sat together
one evening, after a day of uncommon activity—`I
have a great mind to pay a visit, myself, to America.
Why, how your eyes sparkle! and to tread the very
spot, of which I have heard you talk so much. What
say you? and you? and you?'

`With all my heart! and mine, and mine,' answered
Harold, and Elvira, and Loena, all in a breath together—
`nothing would be pleasanter,' said Harold, than
to retread the haunts of my—my—'

`Of your love—I know—out with it, brother.'

`No; of my childhood, I was going to say.'

`O, that's altogether the same thing, you know,' said
Elvira, smiling, and faltering too, at the same time.

`Make no stranger of me,' said Oscar, his dark eyes
flashing fire as he spake, `I know it all, all!' (his countenance
grew dark as he proceeded, and his voice
deeper) `and brother, brother! I forgive you!—So—'
(his face brightened)—`no more on that subject. Shall
we go?'

`Yes,' answered Harold, stammering, `I will go. I have
many reasons. I so love that country, that, that, I do believe
my bones would not lie quietly any where else.
Loena loves that country too, and I hope, I hope that—
Elvira has not forgotten it. My father died there—
(he shuddered, and his voice was lost, for a moment, in
the suffocating emotion that followed. `O, my brother,
what painful recollections, what fearful and
bloody deeds come over my memory again! Upon my
word, I should quake now at the sound of our own war
whoop.'

[figure description] Page 327.[end figure description]

`I know not,' he added, standing up, with the Indian
princess at his side, their eyes glittering like dark
jewelry—I know not if my heart will ever heave again,
as it hath heaved, in the mountain air, when the shot
rang, peal after peal, among the rocks—but shame!
shame! everlasting shame on the wretch, born of the
blood of Indians, wedded to the blood of Indians, who
would not feel their war cry, when rightly awakened,
thrilling along every fibre, vein, and artery! yea, let us
go. The mighty men of America, our progenitors, are
beckoning to us, and rebuking us. Our minds are dwindling
here. We are here—O, what are we? useless and
abject. Let us begone. There is our inheritance. There
our virtues will have scope. Let us go, and be the
friend of the red man. Let us go, and swear a covenant
with the Indian God!'

Oscar first smiled at his enthusiasm, and then hugged
him to his heart. After which, it was soon determined
upon to embark for the new world, not to `live, love,
and die alone,' but to do their duty as men, and accountable
men.

A few weeks more, and they were upon their passage,
the happiest human creatures in this world—feeling
a reverential seriousness, approaching to melancholy
at times, but never any thing like depression or sorrow.
The ship ran her course merrily, and after a long, but
very pleasant voyage, they arrived in America—that
magnificent combination of all the elements: showing
the earth, air, sea, and sky, in all their most wonderful
exhibition—the—

My history draws near the close. I have no heart to
continue it. It were better perhaps to leave it here, and
let the imagination of the kind hearted consummate
the happiness that—but no. It must be told. It shall be
told. I look over my papers, and struggle to postpone
the catastrophe. But no, it will not be. The dying and
beautiful tints of the olden time will not pass away,
and they shall be perpetuated, though they be so, with
weeping eyes, and a thick breath. Sometimes, there is
a strange, vivid brightening of the past, under the

[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]

vindictive blazing of my temper, as if some rude spirit
had passed by the ashes of my heart, and unkindly
stirred them, till the uncovered embers flashed up again,
like the red light of ruin and desolation, which I have
kindled so often in my boyhood. And then I see the
whole air full of sword blades whirling and shining,
and the whole sky is like the hue of some metal, burnished
in an intense fire; and sometimes, while I am
meditating, with shut eyes, upon the forgotten and absent
population that have preceded me, to the congress
of the dead—a little of the heart's own exhalation—an
old man's tears will escape, and revive them all, like
forms pictured upon ancient walls—and lo! the men
harness themselves for battle! the horsemen of Israel,
and the chariots thereof! the colouring waxes fresh;
the waters flow, and the skies roll, and the green trembling
garniture of the wood looks showering with
dew—yes, yes, my history draws near the close. A
little longer, and the garrulous old man will be gathered
to his fathers, and forgotten. Will this survive? No!
it were prodigal, indeed, to waste a hope on such a
thought!

Why am I so touched with melancholy? Why is my
heart heavy, as if it had been listening till it ached, to
its own musick? for the sick heart, like the mother, o'er
her sick babe, will make a sweet mournful musick, for itself,
at times. Can it be that I am parting forever, with
the last friend of my solitude? This broken and long,
long narrative? What wonder that I sorrow at the parting?
It has been my only companion, for many a weary
night, and when it hath left me, unless I may lay me
down, and die immediately, unintruded on, undisturbed—
I shall be very miserable. If I were young, with
these feelings, I should have no wish to live, but as I
am—O, may it please heaven not to leave me so utterly
alone, as I shall be, when this is gone from me!—
over this, I have wept; and what men weep over at
my age, is apt to be very dear to them. Nay, my last
tears; I am sure that they are my last, have been shed
over it. I have knelt by it, and laid my two hands
upon it, and prayed upon it, as Jacob did, upon the

[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]

head of his first born; and what old men pray over,
cannot readily be forgotten by them; no, nor readily
parted with.

Yea, more, I have grown young again, at times, as
I retrod the earliest scenes of my boyhood, cliff and
cavern, hill and sky, wave and wood, in drifting rain,
and wind, and snow; and my heart, my poor old heart—
for shame—I will not—tears!—they are blinding—
I'll to my task.

`Harold,' said Oscar, after describing a strange, and
terrifick dream that he had, the night before, to which
Harold had listened, with an attention that was very
alarming, `Harold I think that I could sketch the place.'

`Do,' said Harold, reaching him a piece of paper;
and after working a few moments, he reached it back
to Harold, who, the moment that his eye glanced upon it,
uttered an exclamation of astonishment—`That tree!—
yes, I remember just such a tree as that, somewhere;
but, for my life, I cannot tell where I have seen it. It
is associated, too, with something terribly indistinct in
my fancy, something that turns my heart cold, when I
look upon it. But the rock, I know nothing of the rock;
but why so melancholy, brother?'

`I know not,' said Oscar, `but I feel a strange oppression
at my chest. This dream has affected my
spirits. Something—there—there it went again—but
it is in vain for me to attempt catching it. Somewhat
dark and threatening seems to be connected with it,
and to me, appears continually flitting about me. Harold,
do not smile, I pray thee. I am not terrified; but I tell
thee, in all seriousness, that I expect some calamity to
be near us. Nay, so distinctly, is that dream impressed
upon my faculties, that, if I but shut my eyes, for a
single moment, I can see the same dead body, gashed
and bloody, lying in the cold moonlight; and hear the
thunder break over my head again, like a discharge of
musquetry, just as it did last night, when I awoke,
bathed in my own sweat. Nay, when I awoke, I could
have sworn that I saw the same body in my chamber,
the blue water running at my feet, that tree making its
wintry musick over me, and that great eagle sitting

[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]

calmly on that rock, with his black shining eyes, and
talons clotted with flesh and blood.'

`No more, I entreat thee, brother,' said Loena, who
had entered unperceived, and stood over against Oscar,
as he related this, with a solemnity that made her
quake, `beware of these fancies.'

About a week after this conversation, Harold and
Loena, and Oscar and Elvira, were strolling in the
moonlight, at some distance from the house, and Elvira
was pointing out the places of most interest to her.

`What a beautiful scene,' said Oscar, in a low voice,
pausing to show his awful sense of the midnight loveliness
about him,' (for it was near midnight, but a
summer sky, and so mild, that it seemed profane to
shut it out,) `nay, why so fast? I like this seat; let us
sit here awhile.'

But she hurried on; and Oscar observed that Harold's
voice became suddenly mute, as he passed it.

`Elvira,' said Oscar, pausing, and laying his hand
upon her shoulder, `what is the meaning of this? what
has happened here? I know not what, but something, I
am sure, has, for the changing colour of thy beautiful
eyes, thy trembling—nay, I distress thee, dearest.
Well, well, let us pass on, and I will never ask thee
more, why thou didst so hurry athwart that shining
and beautiful spot. I am sure that thou hast reasons, melancholy
they may be, and tender, but good reasons, I
am sure they are, for it.'

This was said, but not meant, in a tone of tender reproachfulness.

Elvira pressed his hand, and carried it to her lips.
`I could not abide that spot, Oscar, for there I was
faithless to thee—what!—drop thy arm, for that. Have
I not told thee all—it was there, that I knelt to thy
brother, barefooted.'

`Thou didst!—oh, Elvira,' said Oscar, drawing her
nearer to him for a moment, with suspended breath,
`thou didst!—oh, how hard it is to forgive thee; but
I do forgive thee, I do indeed. And so, thou didst
love Harold.'

[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]

`I did, from a stripling, a child. Why did I love him?
I know not, or rather, I knew not then. But it was the
unconquered, unconquerable fidelity of my heart to
thee! In Harold, it renewed its allegiance to thine image—
thine!—defaced, and banished, and broken. In
loving Harold, I loved thee—and there, on that shadowed
turf, by that rock, so high above all the earth,
I most suffered, and therefore did I tremble, when I
approached it.'

Oscar turned and saw that Harold too, lingered, and
that the dark eyes of Loena, radiant with tears, and
spirituality, were lifted to the moon—her forehead
glittered, and her parted lips, her smooth neck, and
her swelling bosom, heaving with the exercise, and the
night air of her own country, were all before him.

At this moment Elvira turned, and begged Harold
to lead homeward, `for the night was far advanced,
and she was weary.'

Harold obeyed, but in the intensity of his occupation,
he walked forward, through a tangled and unfrequented
path, without looking up, till he heard an exclamation
of horrour from Oscar. He turned, and
saw him standing, like a distracted man, and gazing
upon a tree, shattered and peeled of its bark.

One glance was sufficient, and Harold turned to fly
from a spot, so terrible to his memory, when a loud
groan from his brother arrested him—he was leaning
upon the bosom of Elvira.

`Away! away!' cried Harold, with a shout, as loud
and distinct, as if there were the beleaguering of entwined
adders about his heart, all striking their fangs
into it, at the same moment.

`Away! away! away!' answered the rocks above, in
an unearthly shriek—like a line of challenging sentinels.

But he could not stir, hand nor foot. There was the
very rock—there!—even there, had he lifted his hand
against his own father—there had his angry blood bubbled
upon the wood—and there had he left him!—stripped,
torn and prostrate upon the shattered rock, like
some one, that had been shivered in a tempest, or

[figure description] Page 332.[end figure description]

destroyed by the thunder, plucked down upon his own
head.

`Let us begone,' said Elvira, `this must be the
place that I mentioned—we may be the next victims,
here, to this mysterious power, whatever it be that—
ha!—what was that?'

`The eagle, the vulture!' answered Oscar, wildly,
looking up to where she pointed, `I dare say that she
is there, with her clotted beak.'

`It was there, that our father fell,' repeated Harold;
and Loena, who knew all the circumstances, shook
through all the pulses of her frame, at the mention of
his name.

Their countenances were sad, sad beyond the expression
of humanity. It was the look of mortal apprehension
and dismay; and Harold, as he gazed upon
the blasted tree, felt his knees knock together. `Yes,
yes!' said he, `there it is, just as I left it. But why did
I not remember it, in the drawing? Brother,' he continued,
recovering more command of himself, `brother!
whatever were the sins of Logan, he was our father,
and we must forget them. Let us go to his death bed,
to that rock—I will lead thee to where he fell. Follow
me—our beloved companions will stand here—follow
me, brother; and, haply, we may renew there, with
some hope of acceptance, our heartiest acknowledgment
to HIM that hath turned our hearts, changed our
destinies, and made the children of him, whose trade
was blood, more peaceful and lowly of heart.' Here the
moon shone out dimly on the left, and the water rippled
coldly to the bank.

`How like that night,' said Harold to himself, as
they approached the tree.

It was like that night; and he who had been there
in both, would have forgotten, as Harold did, for a
moment, all that had intervened, all! of toil, and agony,
and humiliation, and suffering, as a dream. There was
the same water, too, the same wintry blue—he paused
to dwell upon it—there, too, the undulating outline of
the opposite shore, so darkly and dimly seen, on that
night of horrour, and there, too, the very shadow,

[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]

out of which, the wounded horse emerged, snorting
and plunging, when he swam to the shore—and there,
too, the tangled branches, weighed down, and heavy
with their load of matted wild flowers, perishing in
their autumnal beauty—nay, was not that the sound of
the young horse plunging through the wood!—by heaven
the branches do rattle, and crack, and recoil, under
the impetuous charge of something!

A shriek!

`Merciful God!' cried Oscar, `that was the vulture!—
the same cry! the same! I heard it in my dream.'

They stood together, and Elvira and Loena were
with them, all trembling and gasping for the result—
Harold and Loena were prepared—it was the voice of
some wild beast, they thought—but his countenance
was full of terrour nevertheless, for they were unarmed.
The path was narrow here, and Harold stood upon the
rock alone, for a moment, looking about.

`For God's sake. Harold, do not—' Elvira was prevented
from finishing her sentence, by the sound of a
shot. The ball whistled past her, and struck the tree—
but as the bark flew, Harold put his hand to his side,
and staggered. The ball had gone through and through
him.

He reeled, raised his arm, uttered a faint cry of horrour,
and pointed, with a convulsive hand, that dropped,
the next moment, lifeless at his side, to the top of
the cliff. There stood a gigantick figure, that clapped
its hands deliriously, and shouted, in the voice that
they had just mistaken for a panther's, with unutterable
joy, as Harold fell upon the rock, the very rock,
beneath the tree.

`Seven! eight! nine!' shouted the giant. `One more,
only one more,'—and he levelled his rifle again—but
in vain, in vain, for Oscar, with the wrath and power
of the waked lioness, smote his way through the wood,
unarmed as he was, up the precipice, where the spectre
stood, laughing, to receive him, grappled with him,
and hurled him headlong down to the earth.

But Oscar went with him. No mortal force could
have released them. And there they lay, rolling on

[figure description] Page 334.[end figure description]

the earth, bloody and gasping, while Loena, who had
stripped off her garments, was kneeling and staunching
the wound of Harold, with her hair, shedding no tear,
uttering no word, heeding nought of the terrible work
that was going on at her side—and poor Elvira, she
was senseless and motionless.

Harold had just life enough to open his eyes upon
Loena, with one look of dying tenderness and worship,
when, by a glance of his eye, he beheld Oscar panting,
with one knee upon the chest of his horrible enemy—
he gazed a moment—rose, with a preternatural force,
and shrieked out, as with his last breath, forbear!—and
fell forward upon his face.

Oscar arose, giddy and sick. Where was he? he
knew not. And who was the savage? with whom had
he battled? was it man or beast? It was overgrown
with hair, and covered with skins—his eyes, too, were
ghastly and red, emitting livid flames, as he lay upon
his back, exhausted, but unrelenting, like a dethroned
devil. He attempted to arise, but Oscar wrenched his
rifle from his hands, and threatened him with the butt
end of it.

`Nine! ten!' said the monster, `one more, only one
more, and what matters it who that one is?—Ha! what
do you all here—one, two, three!—poh, poh—can't ye
let a man die in peace.'

At this moment Oscar turned his face toward him,
in the full light of the moon, as he rested upon his
elbow.

`What! what! speak, speak!' cried the savage; his
brow convulsed and working, and the sweat trickling
down it. He then attempted to arise—his countenance
changed—it took something of humanity, for a moment,
together with an expression of unutterable horrour and
affright; but was unable, and rolled over to Oscar's
feet, with his face to the dust, and his eyes fixed, and
staring, wide open.

Oscar felt, for a single moment, touched with an unaccountable
feeling of compassion. He raised the other,
but only to be skaken off, like some unclean thing, as
if the stranger's flesh crawled, at his touch.

Nay, the stranger arose; arose, in his supernatural

[figure description] Page 335.[end figure description]

strength; and Oscar stood, powerless and quaking, before
him, like a babe, a sick babe.

Oscar attempted to advance—`But, no, no!' cried
the terrible old man, in a voice of thunder—`no! off!
off! leave me! seven, eight, nine! nine sons—judgment!
judgment!' and turned to depart—but Oscar plucked
him back, and then, with strange, awful eyes, ran to him,
placed both his hands upon his shoulders; breathed quick
and gaspingly into his face, and measured him from top
to toe—his broad shoulders, his tread, all, became successive
matters of astonishment, while the other stood
motionless, and dark, and unresisting, under his hands.

`Can it be?' cried Oscar, at last, in a voice scarcely
louder than a whisper, while his face changed instantly
to the deathlike hue of a drowned man.

`George of Salisbury!'

`Almighty God!' cried the savage man, `whence
art thou? who of ye all! ye, ye bloody, mangled, murdered
wretches—who of ye all hath dared to summon
me?—who of ye? speak!—who of ye all hath right and
power to commune with George of Salisbury?'

`Tis he, by Heaven! my father! my father! my poor,
broken-hearted, delirious father!' cried Oscar—`O, my
father, look upon me, look upon me! I am Oscar, Oscar,
thy first born!'

`What! what! what!' said the savage—`Shadow!
what art thou? Tempter, away! I know thee—thy haggard
lips, I know it! Here am I, here, in my own dominion,
and wouldst thou lie to me?—ha! ha! ha! no,
no, poor innocent—eight, nine, ten—all here; well, ye
are welcome—your jubilee, perhaps—a festival—ha!
ha! ha! cold ar'nt ye? what business had ye with that
rock? That was my throne. Another! so—what? are
ye all come to the place of sacrifice?—well, ye are
right welcome. No Indians among you? that is strange,
but they were afraid to come here; that stone is stained
with too red a dew for them. But who is that—a
groan!'

Here Loena stretched herself out upon poor, dead
Harold; put her lips to his, once more, and never
breathed again.

[figure description] Page 336.[end figure description]

`Who is she? and he? speak to me?'

He lifted her up, and she fell lifeless at his feet;
and then he turned over the body, and began to gaze
upon the face of Harold, gradually sinking down, nearer
and nearer to it, until, with a convulsion, and a cry,
like some wild beast, strangling in his own blood, he
gave up the ghost.

And so Harold died; died on the very spot, where
so many years before, he had wrestled in blood, with
his own father. Yea, he died, and was buried beneath
the very stone, upon which he had once offered up the
sacrifice of two immortal souls, hot and smoking in
blood, to the unstained midnight sky; before the very
throne, and in the very presence-chamber of Jehovah.

And the Indian girl—she was buried by his side—
heart to heart; and her people, for all that knew her ancestry
were her people, came and wept upon her grave,
and their beautiful superstition taught them to see her,
often and often, with a star in her hand, moving amid
the clouds, arm in arm, with another, whose face was
always turned to hers.

The father too, the adopted Logan; the fell George
of Salisbury—even he was buried among the bones,
that, year after year, in his madness, he had heaped up
under the soil, where he had once bled; under the very
tree, which he had haunted with a spirit so deadly,
that no passenger ever rested upon it as he passed by,
without resting there forever—a place, which had at
last become a terrour to the very red men, and was overgrown
and tangled so, that the whites were fain to
choose another route. Nine different persons had he
slain there, and one of them was his own child; on
whom, in the vivid, brief intervals of his reason, he had
called, until the name of Harold was familiar to all the
solitary places of the wilderness, and the tradition went
abroad among the nations, that the destroying spirit
who inhabited the place, was named Harold.

No one ever knew how he had been preserved, or
by whom; but he haunted the place and made it a desert;
for ever and anon, some passenger, who chose the

[figure description] Page 337.[end figure description]

river path, was heard of no more; and when sought
for, would be found dead upon that rock, unrifled,
but pierced through and through, with bullets, under
the shadow of the blasted tree, and near the
sweet, bubbling fountain, that had tempted him aside,
for a moment. But by whom was this done? Nobody
could tell. The place had become a solitude; and the
Indian demons were believed to make it their congress.
No living man dared to track it, at last. A new path
was worn, and this, winding by the river, was utterly
overgrown, by the luxuriant and dark beauty of the
wilderness. Yea, such was the terrour of the place,
that the very skeleton of the last, that had fallen beneath
the accursed tree, lay there yet, undisturbed,
just as it fell, with the flesh dropping off from it, piece by
piece; and had not Harold been sentenced and doomed
at an unexpected moment, the bony tenement, wherein
a spirit like his own had once dwelt, would have rattled
at the next tread of his foot! There it lay! ever
there! just as it fell, unless, perhaps, in sport, it had
been rolled from the rock into the mud, by the madman
who inhabited the cliff.

Ten thousand terrifick stories were related of the
demon. He had been seen, where no mortal could keep
his foothold, when the sky was all of a bright blaze;
the thunder raging and rattling about his feet; his panther
skin breaking and flouncing in the wind, like a
heavy, tattered, black banner—nay, at midnight, in the
stillest and holiest, the traveller would often hear the
sudden ringing of a rifle in the heaven above him,
and then the crackling of branches, as he turned and
fled from the Evil spirit of the cliff.

—But would that I had never begun this story—it is
too melancholy, too sad—there were yet one pair of
happy human beings whom I would—but no, I cannot—
the truth must be told, even of them. Elvira had
not told all—not all—though she might have told it,
innocently—and it happened one day, when Oscar was
leaning upon her shoulder, and holding her locked
hands to his heart—that—no matter—her noble nature
could endure it no longer, and she revealed the secret

[figure description] Page 338.[end figure description]

of her shame. Oscar heard her through—heard all her
justification, but said not a word in reply—shed not a
tear—put his lips to her forehead—it was the kiss of
forgiveness and reconciliation; such as one would give
a sister, that had been profaned—they moved; and Elvira
thought that their motion was that of them that
say, `fare—farewell—farewell for ever!' He never
spoke again. His heart had been long in decay, and
his brain too; and this was only a rude wind, that swept
them both, like dust and ashes before it. He merely
pressed her locked hands to his heart, lifted his dying
eyes to hers, once more—and—no, no, I cannot forbear,
lived and died a madman! and slept in the same
chamber of death, with his beloved. Such was their
bridal chamber—the place of broken hearts, and shattered
intellects!