Edgar Huntly: Or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker

Edgar pauses in the narrative to reiterate that his actions were not in character, that he “had imbibed” a “spirit, vengeful, unrelenting, and ferocious” (182). When the action continues, he steals a gun from one of the Native Americans he killed, tries to run back behind the bank, is grazed by a bullet on his cheek, falls, and shoots another Native American.

He ruminates on his “transition” to killer after waking in the pit and checks on the girl who might have a broken rib. Hearing a gunshot, Edgar grabs another gun of a dead Native American, and hears some whites approach. Among them is the girl’s father (who isn’t dead, as she believed, but this discrepancy the author doesn’t acknowledge this point), and there is a family reunion.

The men question Edgar, but he faints, and they think he is dead. Edgar compares the sensation of waking from his faint to “awakening in the pit”; he sees a “mistiness” and eventually discovers the men put him among the dead Native Americans. The white settlers and girl have left. He goes back into the hovel, sits by the fire, and decides to walk to a nearby road. After loading the gun Sarsefield gave him, Edgar finds a spring where he can drink and wash his wound.