--Cymbeline.
While the Teton thus enacted his subtle and characteristic part, not a
sound broke the stillness of the surrounding prairie. The whole band
lay at their several posts, waiting, with the well-known patience of
the natives, for the signal which was to summon them to action. To the
eyes of the anxious spectators who occupied the little eminence,
already described as the position of the captives, the scene presented
the broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by the glimmering
rays of a clouded moon. The place of the encampment was marked by a
gloom deeper than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of the
bottoms, and here and there a brighter streak tinged the rolling
summits of the ridges. As for the rest, it was the deep, imposing
quiet of a desert.
But to those who so well knew how much was brooding beneath this
mantle of stillness and night, it was a scene of high and wild
excitement. Their anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute
passed away, and not the smallest sound of life arose out of the calm
and darkness which enveloped the brake.
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