CHAPTER VI.

{95}

“It is but a shadow vanished--a bubble broke--a dreame finish’t: Eternitie will pay for all.”--Roger Williams.

Scarcely had the invaders disappeared and the sound of their footsteps died away, when Digby and Hutton came in view of the dwelling. “Ah!” said Hutton, reining in his horse, “I thought all this fluster was for nothing--the blast a boy’s prank. A pretty piece of work we’ve made of it; you’ll have Mistress Grafton about your ears for tossing away her Lon’on gimcracks. All is as quiet here as a Saturday night; nothing to be seen but the smoke from the kitchen chimney, and that’s a pleasant sight to me, for I went off without my dinner, and methinks it will now taste as savoury as Jacob’s pottage.”

Digby lent no attention to his companion’s chattering, but pressed on; his fears were allayed, but not removed. As he approached the house, he felt that the silence which pervaded it boded no good; but the horrors of the reality far surpassed the worst suggestions of his vague apprehensions. “Oh, my mistress! my mistress!” he screamed, when the havoc of death burst upon his sight. “My good mistress--and her girls! and the baby too! Oh, God, have mercy on my master!” and he bent over the {96} bodies and wrung his hands: “not one--not one spared!”

“Yes, one,” spoke a trembling, whining voice, which proved to be Jennet’s, who had just emerged from her hiding-place covered with soot; “by the blessing of a kind Providence, I have been preserved for some wise end; but,” she continued, panting, “the fright has taken my breath away, besides being squeezed as flat as a pancake in the bedroom chimney.”

“Stop--for Heaven’s sake, stop, Jennet, and tell me, if you can, if Mr. Everell was here.”

Jennet did not know; she remembered having seen the family in general assembled, just before she heard the yell of the savages.

“How long,” Digby inquired, “have they been gone? how long since you heard the last sound?”

“That’s more than mortal man, or woman either, in my case, could tell, Mr. Digby. Do you think, when a body seems to feel a scalping-knife in their heads, they can reckon time? No; hours are minutes, and minutes hours, in such a case.”

“Oh, fool! fool!” cried Digby; and, turning disgusted away, his eye fell on his musket. “Thank the Lord!” he exclaimed, “Mr. Everell has poured one shot into the fiends; he alone knew where the gun was: bless the boy--bless him; he has a strong arm and a stout soul--bless him. They have taken him off; we’ll after him, Hutton. Jennet, bring my hunting pouch. Look to your firelock, Hutton. Magawisca! Oneco! Faith Leslie, all gone!” he continued, {97} his first amazement dissipating, and thought after thought flashing the truth on his mind. “I remember last night--oh, Mr. Everell, how the girl deceived you! she knew it all.”

“Ah, Magawisca! so I thought,” said Jennet. “She knows everything evil that happens in earth, sea, or air--she and that mother-witch Nelema. I always told Mrs. Fletcher she was warming a viper in her bosom, poor dear lady; but I suppose it was for wise ends she was left to her blindness.”

“Are you ready, Hutton?” asked Digby, impatiently.

“Ready! yes, I am ready; but what is the use, Digby? what are we two against a host? and, besides, you know not how long they have been gone.”

“Not very long,” said Digby, shuddering, and pointing to blood that was trickling, drop by drop, from the edge of the flooring to the step. How long the faithful fellow might have urged, we know not, for cowardice hath ever ready and abundant arguments, and Hutton was not a man to be persuaded into danger; but the arrival of Mr. Pynchon and his men put an end to the debate.

Mr. Pynchon was the faithful, paternal guardian of his little colony. He saw in this scene of violent death not only the present overwhelming misery of the family at Bethel, but the fearful fate to which all were exposed who had perilled their lives in the wilderness; but he could give but brief space to bitter reflections and the lamentings of nature. Instant care and service were necessary for the dead {98} and the living. The bodies of the mother and children were removed to one of the apartments, and decently disposed, and then, after a fervent prayer--a duty never omitted in any emergency by the Pilgrims, whose faith in the minute superintendence of Providence was practical--he directed the necessary arrangements for the pursuit of the enemy.

Little could be gathered from Jennet. She was mainly occupied with her own remarkable preservation, not doubting that Providence had specially interposed to save the only life utterly insignificant in any eyes but her own. She recollected to have heard Magawisca exclaim “My father!” at the first onset of the savages. The necessary conclusion was, that the party had been led by the Pequod chief. It was obviously probable that he would return, with his children and captives, to the Mohawks, where, it was well known, he had found refuge; of course, the pursuers were to take a westerly direction. Jennet was of opinion that the party was not numerous; and, encumbered as they must be with their prisoners, the one a child, whom it would be necessary, in a rapid flight, to carry, Mr. Pynchon had sanguine expectations that they might be overtaken.

The fugitives, obliged to avoid the cleared meadows, had, as Mr. Pynchon believed, taken an indirect path through the forest to the Connecticut; which, in pursuance of their probable route, they would of course cross as soon as they could with safety. He selected five of his men, whom he deemed fittest for the expedition, and recommending it to them to be {99} guided by the counsel of Digby, whose impatient zeal was apparent, he directed them to take a direct course to the river. He was to return to the village, and despatch a boat to them, with which they were to ply up the river, in the hope of intercepting the passage of the Indians.

The men departed, led by Digby, to whose agitated spirit every moment’s delay had appeared unnecessary and fatal; and Mr. Pynchon was mounting his horse, when he saw Mr. Fletcher, who had avoided the circuitous road through the village, emerge from the forest, and come in full view of his dwelling. Mr. Pynchon called to Jennet, “Yonder is your master; he must not come hither while this precious blood is on the threshold; I shall take him to my house, and assistance shall be sent to you. In the mean time, watch those bodies faithfully.”

“Oh! I can’t stay here alone,” whimpered Jennet, running after Mr. Pynchon; “I would not stay for all the Promised Land.”

“Back, woman!” cried Mr. Pynchon, in a voice of thunder; and Jennet retreated, the danger of advancing appearing for the moment the greater of the two.

Mr. Fletcher was attended by two Indians, who followed him, bearing on a litter his favourite, Hope Leslie. When they came within sight of Bethel, they shouted the chorus of a native song. Hope inquired its meaning. They told her, and raising herself, and tossing back the bright curls that shaded her eyes, she clapped her hands, and accompanied {100} them with the English words, “The home! the home! the chieftain’s home!” “And my home too, is it not?” she said.

Mr. Fletcher was touched with the joy with which this bright little creature, who had left a palace in England, hailed his rustic dwelling in the wilderness. He turned on her a smile of delight--he could not speak; the sight of his home had opened the floodgates of his heart. “Oh, now,” she continued, with growing animation, “I shall meet my sister. But why does she not come to meet us? Where is your Everell? and the girls? There is no one looking out for us.”

The stillness of the place, and the absence of all living objects, struck Mr. Fletcher with fearful apprehensions, heightened by the sight of his friend, who was coming at full gallop towards him. To an accurate observer, the effects of joy and sorrow on the human figure are easily discriminated; misery depresses, contracts, and paralyzes the body as it does the spirit.

“Remain here for a few moments,” said Mr. Fletcher to his attendants, and he put spurs to his horse and galloped forward.

“Put down the litter,” said Hope Leslie to her bearers. “I cannot stand stock-still here, in sight of the house where my sister is.” The Indians knew their duty, and determining to abide by the letter of their employer’s orders, did not depress the litter.

“There, take that for your sulkiness,” she said, giving each a tap on his ear; and half impatient, {101} half sportive, she leaped from the litter and bounded forward.

The friends met. Mr. Pynchon covered his face and groaned aloud. “What has happened to my family?” demanded Mr. Fletcher. “My wife--my son--my little ones? Oh, speak! God give me grace to hear thee!”

In vain Mr. Pynchon essayed to speak; he could find no words to soften the frightful truth. Mr. Fletcher turned his horse’s head towards Bethel, and was proceeding to end, himself, the insupportable suspense, when his friend, seizing his arm, cried, “Stop! stop! go not thither! thy house is desolate!” and then, half choked with groans and sobs, he unfolded the dismal story.

Not a sound nor a sigh escaped the blasted man. He seemed to be turned into stone till he was roused by the wild shrieks of the little girl, who, unobserved, had listened to the communication of Mr. Pynchon.

“Take the child with you,” he said; “I shall go to my house. If--if my boy returns, send a messenger instantly; otherwise, suffer me to remain alone till to-morrow.”

He passed on without appearing to hear the cries and entreaties of Hope Leslie, who, forcibly detained by Mr. Pynchon, screamed, “Oh! take me, take me with you; there are but us two left; I will not go away from you!” but at last, finding resistance useless, she yielded, and was conveyed to the village, where she was received by her aunt Grafton, whose {102} grief was as noisy and communicative as Mr. Fletcher’s had been silent and unexpressed by any of the ordinary forms of sorrow.

Early on the following morning, Mr. Pynchon, attended by several others, men and women, went to Bethel to offer their sympathy and service. They met Jennet at the door, who, greatly relieved by the sight of human faces, and ears willing to listen, informed them that, immediately after her master’s arrival, he had retired to the apartment that contained the bodies of the deceased, charging her not to intrude on him.

A murmur of apprehension ran around the circle. “It was misjudged to leave him here alone,” whispered one. “It is not every man, though his faith stand as a mountain in his prosperity, that can bear to have the Lord put forth his hand, and touch his bone and his flesh.”

“Ah!” said another, “my heart misgave me when Mr. Pynchon told us how calm he took it; such a calm as that is like the still dead waters that cover the lost cities; quiet is not the nature of the creature, and you may be sure that unseen havoc and ruin are underneath.”

“The poor dear gentleman should have taken something to eat or drink,” said a little, plump, full-fed lady; “there is nothing so feeding to grief as an empty stomach. Madam Holioke, do not you think it would be prudent for us to guard with a little cordial and a bit of spiced cake--if this good girl can give it to us?” looking at Jennet. “The dear lady {103} that’s gone was ever thrifty in her housewifery, and I doubt not she left such witnesses behind.”

Mrs. Holioke shook her head, and a man of a most solemn and owl-like aspect, who sat between the ladies, turned to the last speaker and said, in a deep guttural tone, “Judy, thou shouldst not bring thy carnal propensities to this house of mourning--and perchance of sin. Where the Lord works, Satan worketh also, tempting the wounded. I doubt our brother Fletcher hath done violence to himself. He was ever of a proud--that is to say, a peculiar and silent make, and what won’t bend will break.”

The suggestion in this speech communicated alarm to all present. Several persons gathered about Mr. Pynchon. Some advised him to knock at the door of the adjoining apartment; others counselled forcing it, if necessary. While each one was proffering his opinion, the door opened from within, and Mr. Fletcher came among them.

“Do you bring me any news of my son?” he asked Mr. Pynchon.

Till this question was put and answered, there was a tremulousness of voice, a knitting of the brow, and a variation of colour, that indicated the agitation of the sufferer’s soul; but then a sublime composure overspread his countenance and figure. He noticed every one present with more than his usual attention; and to a superficial observer, one who knew not how to interpret his mortal paleness, the fixed melancholy of his glazed eye, and his rigid muscles, which had the inflexibility of marble, he {104} might have appeared to be suffering less than any person present. Some cried outright; some stared with undisguised and irrepressible curiosity; some were voluble in the expression of their sympathy; while a few were pale, silent, and awe-struck. All these many-coloured feelings fell on Mr. Fletcher like light on a black surface, producing no change, meeting no return. He stood leaning on the mantelpiece till the first burst of feeling was over; till all, insensibly yielding to his example, became quiet, and the apartment was as still as that in which death held his silent dominion.

Mr. Pynchon then whispered to him: “My friend, bear your testimony now; edify us with a seasonable word, showing that you are not amazed at your calamity; that you counted the cost before you undertook to build the Lord’s building in the wilderness. It is suitable that you should turn your affliction to the profit of the Lord’s people.”

Mr. Fletcher felt himself stretched on a rack that he must endure with a martyr’s patience; he lifted up his head, and with much effort spoke one brief sentence--a sentence which contains all that a Christian could feel, or the stores of language could express: “God’s will be done!” he said, and then hurried away to hide his struggles in solitude.

Relieved from the restraint of his presence, the company poured forth such moral, consoling, and pious reflections as usually flow spontaneously from the lips of the spectators of suffering, and which would seem to indicate that each individual has a spare {105} stock of wisdom and patience for his neighbour’s occasions, though, through some strange fatality, they are never applied to his own use.

We hope our readers will not think we have wantonly sported with their feelings, by drawing a picture of calamity that only exists in the fictitious tale. No; such events as we have feebly related were common in our early annals, and attended by horrors that it would be impossible for the imagination to exaggerate. Not only families, but villages, were cut off by the most dreaded of all foes--the ruthless, vengeful savage.

In the quiet possession of the blessings transmitted, we are, perhaps, in danger of forgetting or undervaluing the sufferings by which they were obtained. We forget that the noble Pilgrims lived and endured for us; that when they came to the wilderness, they said truly, though it may be somewhat quaintly, that they turned their backs on Egypt; they did virtually renounce all dependance on earthly supports; they left the land of their birth, of their homes, of their father’s sepulchres; they sacrificed ease and preferment, and all the delights of sense--and for what? To open for themselves an earthly paradise? to dress their bowers of pleasure, and rejoice with their wives and children? No: they came not for themselves, they lived not to themselves. An exiled and suffering people, they came forth in the dignity of the chosen servants of the Lord, to open the forests to the sunbeam, and to the light of the Son of Righteousness; to restore man--man, oppressed and {106} trampled on by his fellow--to religious and civil liberty, and equal rights; to replace the creatures of God on their natural level; to bring down the hills, and make smooth the rough places, which the pride and cruelty of man had wrought on the fair creation of the Father of all.

What was their reward? Fortune? distinctions? the sweet charities of home? No: but their feet were planted on the Mount of Vision, and they saw, with sublime joy, a multitude of people where the solitary savage roamed the forest; the forest vanished, and pleasant villages and busy cities appeared; the tangled footpath expanded to the thronged highway; the consecrated church planted on the rock of heathen sacrifice.

And that we might realize this vision, enter into this promised land of faith, they endured hardship and braved death, deeming, as said one of their company, that “he is not worthy to live at all, who, for fear of danger or death, shunneth his country’s service or his own honour, since death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal.”

If these were the fervours of enthusiasm, it was an enthusiasm kindled and fed by the holy flame that glows on the altar of God; an enthusiasm that never abates, but gathers life and strength as the immortal soul expands in the image of its Creator.

We shall now leave the little community assembled at Bethel to perform the last offices for one who had been among them an example of all the most attractive virtues of woman. The funeral ceremony {107} was then, as it still is among the descendants of the Pilgrims, a simple, affectionate service; a gathering of the people, men, women, and children, as one family, to the house of mourning.

======

Mononotto and his party in their flight had less than an hour’s advantage of their pursuers, and, retarded by their captives, they would have been compelled to despatch them or have been overtaken, but for their sagacity in traversing the forest; they knew how to wind around morasses, to shape their course to the margin of the rivulets, and to penetrate defiles, while their pursuers, unpractised in that accurate observation of nature by which the savage was guided, were clambering over mountains, arrested by precipices, or half buried in swamps.

After an hour’s silent and rapid flight, the Indians halted to make such arrangements as would best accelerate their retreat. They placed the little Leslie on the back of one of the Mohawks, and attached her there by a _happis_, or strong wide band, passed several times over her, and around the body of her bearer. She screamed at her separation from Oneco; but, being permitted to stretch out her hand and place it in his, she became quiet and satisfied.

The Mohawk auxiliaries, who so lately had seemed two insatiate bloodhounds, now appeared to regard the reciprocal devotion of the children with complacency; but their amity was not extended to Everell; and Saco in particular, the Indian whom he had wounded, and whose arm was irritated and {108} smarting, eyed him with glances of brooding malignity. Magawisca perceived this, and dreading lest the savage should give way to a sudden impulse of revenge, she placed herself between him and Everell. This movement awakened Mononotto from a sullen revery, and striking his hands together angrily, he bade Magawisca remove from the English boy.

She obeyed, and mournfully resumed her place beside her father, saying as she did so, in a low, thrilling tone, “My father! my father! where are my father’s look and voice? Mononotto has found his daughter, but I have not found my father.”

Mononotto felt her reproach; his features relaxed, and he laid his hand on her head.

“My father’s soul awakes!” she cried, exultingly. “Oh, listen to me, listen to me!” She waved her hand to the Mohawks to stop, and they obeyed. “Why,” she continued, in an impassioned voice, “why hath my father’s soul stooped from its ever upward flight? Till this day his knife was never stained with innocent blood. Yonder roof,” and she pointed towards Bethel, “has sheltered thy children; the wing of the mother-bird was spread over us; we ate of the children’s bread; then why hast thou shed their blood? Why art thou leading the son into captivity? Oh, spare him! send him back; leave one light in the darkened habitation!”

“One,” echoed Mononotto; “did they leave me one? No; my people, my children, were swept away like withered leaves before the wind; and there, where our pleasant homes were clustered, are {109} silence and darkness; thistles have sprung up around our hearth-stones, and grass has overgrown our pathways. Magawisca, has thy brother vanished from thy memory? I tell thee, that as Samoset died, that boy shall die. My soul rejoiced when he fought at his mother’s side, to see him thus make himself a worthy victim to offer to thy lion-hearted brother: even so fought Samoset.”

Magawisca felt that her father’s purpose was not to be shaken. She looked at Everell, and already felt the horrors of the captive’s fate--the scorching fires and the torturing knives; and when her father commanded the party to move onward, she uttered a piercing shriek.

“Be silent, girl,” said Mononotto, sternly; “cries and screams are for children and cowards.”

“And I am a coward,” replied Magawisca, reverting to her habitually calm tone, “if to fear my father should do a wrong, even to an enemy, is cowardice.” Again her father’s brow softened; and she ventured to add, “Send back the boy, and our path will be all smooth before us, and light will be upon it, for my mother often said, ‘the sun never sets on the soul of the man that doeth good.’”

Magawisca had unwittingly touched the spring of her father’s vindictive passions. “Dost thou use thy mother’s words,” he said, “to plead for one of the race of her murderers? Is not her grave among my enemies? Say no more, I command you, and speak not to the boy; thy kindness but sharpens my revenge.”

{110}

There was no alternative. Magawisca must feel or feign submission; and she laid her hand on her heart, and bowed her head in token of obedience. Everell had observed and understood her intercession; for, though her words were uttered in her own tongue, there was no mistaking her significant manner; but he was indifferent to the success of her appeal. He still felt the dying grasp of his mother; still heard his slaughtered sisters cry to him for help; and, in the agony of his mind, he was incapable of an emotion of hope or fear.

The party resumed their march, and, suddenly changing their direction, they came to the shore of the Connecticut. They had chosen a point for their passage where the windings of the river prevented their being exposed to view for any distance; but still they cautiously lingered till the twilight had faded into night. While they were taking their bark canoe from the thicket of underwood in which they had hidden it, Magawisca said, unobserved, to Everell, “Keep an eagle-eye on our pathway; our journey is always towards the setting sun; every turn we make is marked by a dead tree, a lopped branch, or an arrow’s head carved in the bark of a tree; be watchful--the hour of escape may come.” She spoke in the lowest audible tone, and without changing her posture or raising her eyes; and though her last accent caught her father’s ear, when he turned to chide her he suppressed his rebuke, for she sat motionless, and silent as a statue.

The party were swiftly conveyed to the opposite {111} shore. The canoe was then again taken from the river and plunged into the wood; and believing they had eluded pursuit, they prepared to encamp for the night. They selected for this purpose a smooth grassy area, where they were screened and defended on the river side by a natural rampart, formed of intersecting branches of willows, sycamores, and elms.

Oneco collected dead leaves from the little hollows, into which they had been swept by eddies of wind, and, with the addition of some soft ferns, he made a bed and pillow for his little favourite fit for the repose of a wood-nymph. The Mohawks regarded this labour of love with favour, and one of them took from his hollow girdle some pounded corn, and mixing grains of maple-sugar with it, gave it to Oneco, and the little girl received it from him as passively as the young bird takes food from its mother. He then made a sylvan cup of broad leaves, threaded together with delicate twigs, and brought her a draught of water from a fountain that swelled over the green turf, and trickled into the river, drop by drop, as clear and bright as crystal. When she had finished her primitive repast, he laid her on her leafy bed, covered her with skins, and sung her to sleep.

The Indians refreshed themselves with pounded maize and dried fish. A boyish appetite is not fastidious, and, with a mind at ease, Everell might have relished this coarse fare; but now, though repeatedly solicited, he would not even rise from the ground where he had thrown himself in listless despair. No {112} excess of misery can enable a boy of fifteen for any length of time to resist the cravings of nature for sleep. Everell, it may be remembered, had watched the previous night, and he soon sunk into oblivion of his griefs. One after another, the whole party fell asleep, with the exception of Magawisca, who sat apart from the rest, her mantle wrapped closely around her, her head leaning against a tree, and apparently lost in deep meditation. The Mohawks, by way of precaution, had taken a position on each side of Everell, so as to render it next to impossible for their prisoner to move without awakening them. But love, mercy, and hope count nothing impossible, and all were at work in the breast of Magawisca. She warily waited till the depth of the night, when sleep is most profound, and then, with a step as noiseless as the falling dew, she moved round to Everell’s head, stooped down, and putting her lips close to his ear, pronounced his name distinctly. Most persons have experienced the power of a name thus pronounced. Everell awakened instantly and perfectly, and at once understood from Magawisca’s gestures, for speak again she dared not, that she urged his departure.

The love of life and safety is too strong to be paralyzed for any length of time. Hope was kindled; extrication and escape seemed possible; quickening thoughts rushed through his mind. He might be restored to his father; Springfield could not be far distant; his captors would not dare to remain in that vicinity after the dawn of day; one half hour, and {113} he was beyond their pursuit. He rose slowly and cautiously to his feet. All was yet profoundly still. He glanced his eye on Faith Leslie, whom he would gladly have rescued; but Magawisca shook her head, and he felt that to attempt it would be to ensure his own failure.

The moon shone through the branches of the trees, and shed a faint and quivering light on the wild group. Everell looked cautiously about him to see where he should plant his first footsteps. “If I should tread on those skins,” he thought, “that are about them, or on those rustling leaves, it were a gone case with me.” During this instant of deliberation, one of the Indians murmured something of his dreaming thoughts, turned himself over, and grasped Everell’s ankle. The boy bit his quivering lip, and suppressed an instinctive cry, for he perceived it was but the movement of sleep, and he felt the hold gradually relaxing. He exchanged a glance of joy with Magawisca, when a new source of alarm startled them: they heard the dashing of oars. Breathless--immovable--they listened. The strokes were quickly repeated, and the sounds rapidly approached, and a voice spoke, “Not there, boys, not there; a little higher up.”

Joy and hope shot through Everell’s heart as he sprang like a startled deer; but the Mohawk, awakened too by the noise, grasped his leg with one hand, and with the other drawing his knife from his girdle, he pointed it at Everell’s heart, in the act to strike if he should make the least movement or sound.

{114}

Caution is the instinct of the weaker animals; the Indian cannot be surprised out of his wariness. Mononotto and his companions, thus suddenly awakened, remained as fixed and silent as the trees about them.

The men in the canoes suspended their oars for a moment, and seemed at a loss how to proceed, or whether to proceed at all. “It is a risky business, I can tell you, Digby,” said one of them, “to plunge into those woods; ‘it is ill fighting with wild beasts in their own den;’ they may start out upon us from their holes when we are least looking for them.”

“And if they should,” replied Digby, in the voice of one who would fain enforce reason with persuasion, “if they should, Lawrence, are we not six stout Christian men, with bold hearts, and the Lord on our side to boot?”

“I grant ye, that’s fighting at odds; but I mistrust we have no command from the Lord to come out on this wild-goose chase.”

“I take a known duty,” replied Digby, “always to be a command from the Lord, and you, Lawrence, I am sure, will be as ready as another man to serve under such an order.”

Lawrence was silenced for a moment, and another voice spoke: “Yes, so should we all, Master Digby, if you could make out the order; but I can’t see the sense of risking all our lives, and getting but a ‘thank ye for nothing’ when we get back, if, indeed, we ever get out of the bowels of the forest again into a clearing. To be sure, we’ve tracked {115} them thus far, but now, on the river, we lose scent. You know they thread the forest as handily as my good woman threads her needle; and for us to pursue them is as vain a thing as for my old chimney-corner cat to chase a catamount through the woods. Come, come, let’s head about, and give it up for a bad job.”

“Stop, stop, my friends,” cried Digby, as they were about to put the boat around; “ye surely have not all faint hearts. Feare-naught, you will not so belie your Christian name as to turn your back on danger. And you, John Wilkin, who cut down the Pequods as you were wont to mow the swarth in Suffolk, will you have it thrown up to you that you wanted courage to pursue the caitiffs? Go home, Lawrence, and take your curly-pated boy on your knee, and thank God, with what heart you may, for his spared life; and all, all of you, go to that childless man at Bethel, and say, ‘We could not brave the terrors of the forest to save your child, for we have pleasant homes, and wives, and children.’ For myself, the Lord helping, while I’ve life I’ll not turn back without the boy; and if there’s one among you that hopes for God’s pity, let him go with me.”

“Why, I’m sure it was not I that proposed going back,” said Lawrence.

“And I’m sure,” said the second speaker, “that I’m willing, if the rest are, to try our luck farther.”

“Now God above reward ye, my good fellows!” cried Digby, with renewed life; “I knew it was but trying your metal to find it true. It is not reasonable {116} that you should feel as I do, who have seen my master’s home looking like a slaughter-house. My mistress--the gentlest and the best!--oh! it’s too much to think of. And then that boy, that’s worth a legion of such men as we are--of such as I, I mean. But come, let’s pull away, a little farther up the stream; there’s no landing here, where the bank is so steep.”

“Stay! row a little closer,” cried one of the men; “I see something like a track on the very edge of the bank; its being seemingly impossible is the very reason why the savages would have chosen it.”

They now approached so near the shore that Everell knew they might hear a whisper, and yet to move his lips was certain death. Those who have experienced the agony of a nightmare, when life seemed to depend on a single word, and that word could not be pronounced, may conceive his emotions at this trying moment. Friends and rescue so near, and so unavailing.

“Ye are mistaken,” said another of the pursuing party, after a moment’s investigation, “it’s but a heron’s track,” which it truly was; for the savages had been careful not to leave the slightest trace of their footsteps where they landed. “There’s a cove a little higher up,” continued the speaker; “we’ll put in there, and then, if we don’t get on their trail, Master Digby must tell us what to do.”

“It’s plain what we must do then,” said Digby, “go straight on westerly. I have a compass, you know; there is not, as the hunters tell us, a single {117} smoke between this and the valleys of the Housatonic. There the tribes are friendly, and if we reach them without falling in with our enemy, we will not pursue them farther.”

“Agreed! agreed!” cried all the men; and they again dashed in their oars and made for the cove. Everell’s heart sunk within him as the sounds receded; but hope once admitted will not be again excluded, and with the sanguine temperament of youth, he was already mentally calculating the chances of escape. Not so Magawisca; she knew the dangers that beset him; she was aware of her father’s determined purpose. Her heart had again been rent by a divided duty; one word from her would have rescued Everell, but that word would have been death to her father; and when the boat retired, she sunk to the ground, quite spent with the conflict of her feelings.

It may seem strange that the Indians did not avail themselves of the advantage of their ambush to attack their pursuers; but it will be remembered, the latter were double their number; and, besides, Mononotto’s object now was to make good his retreat with his children; and to effect this, it was essential he should avoid any encounter with his pursuers. After a short consultation with his associates, they determined to remain in their present position till the morning. They were confident they should be able to detect and avoid the track of the enemy, and soon to get in advance of them.