“Before these fields were shorn and till’d, Full to the brim our rivers flow’d; The melody of waters fill’d The fresh and boundless wood; And torrents dash’d, and rivulets play’d, And fountains spouted in the shade.”—Bryant

Leaving the unsuspecting Heyward and his confiding companions to penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous inmates, we must use an author’s privilege, and shift the scene a few miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.

On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid stream, within an hour’s journey of