Chapter 10

"But who in this wild wood
May credit give to either eye, or ear?
From rocky precipice or hollow cave,
'Midst the confused sound of rustling leaves;,
And creaking boughs, and cries of nightly birds,
Returning seeming answer!"

Joanna Baihie, Rayner: A Tragedy, II.L3-4, 6-g.

Fear, as much as calculation, had induced Hetty to cease paddling,
when she found that her pursuers did not know in which direction
to proceed. She remained stationary until the Ark had pulled in
near the encampment, as has been related in the preceding chapter,
when she resumed the paddle and with cautious strokes made the
best of her way towards the western shore. In order to avoid her
pursuers, however, who, she rightly suspected, would soon be rowing
along that shore themselves, the head of the canoe was pointed so
far north as to bring her to land on a point that thrust itself
into the lake, at the distance of near a league from the outlet.
Nor was this altogether the result of a desire to escape, for,
feeble minded as she was, Hetty Hutter had a good deal of that
instinctive caution which so often keeps those whom God has thus
visited from harm. She was perfectly aware of the importance of
keeping the canoes from falling into the hands of the Iroquois, and
long familiarity with the lake had suggested one of the simplest
expedients, by which this great object could be rendered compatible
with her own purpose.

The point in question was the first projection that offered on that
side of the lake, where a canoe, if set adrift with a southerly
air would float clear of the land, and where it would be no great
violation of probabilities to suppose it might even hit the castle;
the latter lying above it, almost in a direct line with the wind.
Such then was Hetty's intention, and she landed on the extremity
of the gravelly point, beneath an overhanging oak, with the express
intention of shoving the canoe off from the shore, in order that
it might drift up towards her father's insulated abode. She knew,
too, from the logs that occasionally floated about the lake, that
did it miss the castle and its appendages the wind would be likely
to change before the canoe could reach the northern extremity of
the lake, and that Deerslayer might have an opportunity of regaining
it in the morning, when no doubt he would be earnestly sweeping
the surface of the water, and the whole of its wooded shores, with
glass. In all this, too, Hetty was less governed by any chain of
reasoning than by her habits, the latter often supplying the place
of mind, in human beings, as they perform the same for animals of
the inferior classes.

The girl was quite an hour finding her way to the point, the distance
and the