CHAPTER VII.
With the general position of the encampment of the
investing Indians, the reader has been made acquainted
through the narrative of Captain de Haldimar. It was, as
has been shown, situate in a sort of oasis close within
the verge of the forest, and (girt by an intervening
underwood which Nature, in her caprice, had fashioned
after the manner of a defensive barrier) embraced a space
sufficient to contain the tents of the fighting men,
together with their women and children. This, however,
included only the warriors and inferior chiefs. The
tents of the leaders were without the belt of underwood,
and principally distributed at long intervals on that
side of the forest which skirted the open country towards
the river; forming, as it were, a chain of external
defences, and sweeping in a semicircular direction round
the more dense encampment of their followers. At its
highest elevation the forest shot out suddenly into a
point, naturally enough rendered an object of attraction
from whatever part it was commanded.
Darkness was already beginning to spread her mantle over
the intervening space, and the night fires of the Indians
were kindling into brightness, glimmering occasionally
through the wood with that pale and lambent light peculiar
to the fire-fly, of which they offered a not inapt
representation, when suddenly a lofty tent, the brilliant
whiteness of which was thrown into strong relief by the
dark field on which it reposed, was seen to rise at a
few paces from the abrupt point in the forest just
described, and on the extreme summit of a ridge, beyond
which lay only the western horizon in golden perspective.
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