Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/181

 each as he entered. In the hasty survey I had taken of this apartment, one object had been overlooked or imperfectly noticed: close to the chimney was an aperture, formed by a cavity partly in the wall and in the ground: it was the entrance of an oven, which resembled, on the outside, a mound of earth, and which was filled with dry stalks of potatoes and other rubbish.

Into this it was impossible to thrust my body: a sort of screen might be formed of the brushwood, and more deliberate and effectual execution be done upon the enemy. I weighed not the disadvantages of this scheme, but precipitately threw myself into this cavity. I discovered in an instant that it was totally unfit for my purpose; but it was too late to repair my miscarriage.

This wall of the hovel was placed near the verge of a sandbank; the oven was erected on the very brink: this bank being of a loose and mutable soil, could not sustain my weight; it sunk, and I sunk along with it. The height of the bank was three or four feet; so that, though disconcerted and embarrassed, I received no injury: I still grasped my gun, and resumed my feet in a moment.

What was now to be done? The bank screened me from the view of the savages; the thicket was hard by, and if I were eager to escape, the way was obvious and sure. But though single, though enfeebled by toil, by abstinence, and by disease, and though so much exceeded in number and strength by my foes, I was determined to await and provoke the contest.

In addition to the desperate impulse of passion, I was swayed by thoughts of the danger which beset the sleeping girl, and from which my flight would leave her without protection. How strange is the destiny that governs mankind! The consequence of shrouding myself in this cavity had not been foreseen: it was an expedient which courage, and not cowardice suggested; and yet it was the only expedient by which flight had been rendered practicable: to have issued from the door would only have been to confront, and not to elude the danger.

The first impulse prompted me to re-enter the cottage by