dart his formidable spear with precision. Nevertheless, there was good
reason for his hesitating; for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike
by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest
arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated
for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of
his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred,
and the like. On one occasion young Stuart had, while defending his
mother's house against an attack of the savages, felled Keona with a
well-directed blow of his fist. It was doubtless out of revenge for this
that the latter now dogged the former through the lonely recesses of the
mountain-pass by which he had crossed the island from the little
settlement in which was his home, and gained the sequestered bay in
which he expected to find the schooner. Up to this point, however, the
savage had not summoned courage to make the attack, although, with the
exception of a hunting-knife, his enemy was altogether unarmed; for he
knew that in the event of missing his mark the young man's speed of foot
would enable him to outstrip him, while his strength of frame would
quickly terminate a single combat.

As the youth gained the more open land near the beach, the possibility
of making a successful cast of the spear became more and doubtful.
Finally the savage shrunk into the bushes, and abandoned the pursuit.

"Not here yet, Master Gascoyne," muttered Henry, as he sat down on a
rock to rest; for, although the six miles of country he had crossed was
a trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged
mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red
Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better
in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should thus
be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this bay,