Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/209

Rh the smooth, peeled logs that formed it were a good twelve feet in height. Yet he had observed places where, he thought, he might take advantage of crevice and protrusion  with hands and feet and so win the summit. Beyond the palisade lay a dry ditch of no great consequence. It would but increase his drop by another two or three feet. Surmounting the wall was, he believed, possible under favoring circumstances such as at  present pertained, but the question was what  would happen afterwards. He had learned long since that by night the village was well  guarded. And he knew, too, that Metipom had ordained his death if captured outside  the palisade. To-night it might be that, with every man of fighting age apparently taking  part in the dance, the sentries had been  withdrawn, but it would not do to count too  much on that. On the other hand, the decision for war might well have caused them to increase their vigilance. In any case, David decided, action was best delayed until the  village had quieted for the night and the exhausted Indians slept. A new moon hung in the western sky, giving a faint radiance  where the ruddy light of the flames failed. In two hours, maybe, or three at the most,