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 the enclosure. Rush after rush of the trooping winds went over them, keeping them immovable in their crowded shelter and position&mdash;each succeeding troop wilder and weightier than the last, until at length a sullen, bellowing murmur, which before they had not heard, announced the greater weight of the hurricane to be overthrowing the forests in the distance.

The chief danger had overblown. Gradually the warm, oppressive breath passed off; the air again grew suddenly cool, and a gush of heavy drops came falling from the heavens, as if they too had been just released from the intolerable pressure which had burdened earth. Moaning pitifully, the prostrated trees and shrubs, those which had survived the storm, though shorn by its scythes, gradually, and seemingly with painful effort, once more elevated themselves to their old position. Their sighings, as they did so, were almost human to the ears of our crouching warriors, whom their movement in part released. Far and near, the moaning of the forest around them was strangely, but not unpleasantly, heightened in its effect upon their senses, by the distant and declining roar of the past and far travelling hurricane, as, ploughing the deep woods and laying waste all in its progess, it rushed on to a meeting with the kindred storms that gather about the gloomy Cape Hatteras, and stir and foam along the waters of the Atlantic.

"Well, I'm glad it's no worse, major," cried Humphries, rising and shaking himself from the brush with which he was covered. "The danger is now over, though it was mighty close to our haunches. Look, now, at this pine, split all to shivers, and the top not five feet from Mossfoot's quarters. The poor beast would ha' been in a sad fix a little to the left there."

Extricating themselves, they helped their steeds out of the brush, though with some difficulty&mdash;soothing them all the while with words of encouragement. As Humphries had already remarked in his rude fashion, the horse, at such moments, feels and acknowledges his dependence upon man, looks to him for the bridle, and flies to him for protection. They were almost passive in the hands of their masters, and under the unsubsided fear would have followed them, like tame dogs, in any direction.

The storm, though diminished of its terrors, still continued; but