Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/182

154 not the evident distress of my friend severely afflicted me.

In the evening, just as we were about to start to take advantage of the wind, one of Parouba's sons arrived, out of breath, his face expressing horror and despair.

"What is the matter, my son? I thought you were hunting far away. Are you wounded by some savage beast?"

"No, father; not wounded, yet in pain."

"But whence do you come, son?"

"From a distance of forty miles, without stop- ping; and I am almost dead."

The aged father makes him sit down. They give him restoratives. Mr. Freind and I, his little brothers and sisters, with the servants, crowd around him. When he recovered his breath he ex- claimed:

"Alas, my sister Parouba is a prisoner of war, and will no doubt be killed."

The worthy Parouba was grieved at this recital. Mr. Freind, feeling for him as a father, was struck to the very heart. At last the son informed us that a party of silly young Englishmen had attacked, for diversion, the people of the mountains. He said they had with them a very beautiful lady and her maid, and he knew not how his sister came to be with them. The handsome English lady had been scalped and killed, and his sister captured.

"I come here for aid against the people of the