The Pilgrims of New England, Mrs. J. B. Webb [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

for, hurried away through the forest, dragging Henrich with them.

The murderous attempt made by these savages against the life of Ludovico proved but too clearly that the destruction of Rodolph's children was their object, and banished every hope that lingered in Helen's breast; and this conviction of their cruel intentions was still further confirmed by Janet's account of the look and gesture of the warrior who attended his Chief when the Nausetts first assailed the settlement. Rodolph had seen, and understood the action; and as he had also learnt through his Wampanoge friends that Tekoa, the son of the Nausett Chief, had fallen in the first encounter, he knew enough of Indian customs to be aware that he, as the slayer, was a marked object of their vengeance. He had, however, always concealed his suspicions from Helen; and the only effect they had produced on him was causing him, at that time, to prohibit his children from venturing unguarded into the wood, more strictly than he would otherwise have done.


CHAPTER V.

'Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.' PSA. lxxvi,10.

We will now, for a time, leave the settlement--where the sad news of the capture and supposed death of Henrich had spread a general gloom and consternation--and follow the subject of their pitying grief, from the time that he was seized and made a prisoner in the hands of the savages. They did not slay him; for the Lord had work and service in store for the young missionary, and he suffered not a hair of his head to be hurt.

Coubitant--for he was one of those whose patient vigilance had, at length, been crowned by success--and his companion had hurried him at their greatest speed through the wood, to the spot where their temporary camp was pitched, and where several others of their tribe awaited their return. A few minutes sufficed to remove the matting that formed their tents, and to collect their arms and utensils; but Coubitant well knew that the child who had escaped his cruelty would soon alarm the settlers, and that an instant pursuit would follow. He therefore, devised plan to deceive, and, perhaps altogether to check the white men, at least for a time, by making them believe that the death of the captive had already taken place. He would have instantly gratified the feelings of his cruel and revengeful heart, and have shed the innocent blood of Rodolph's son to atone for the death of his friend, but that he feared to disappoint his Chief, who so earnestly desired to imbrue his own hands in the blood of the slayer. He, therefore, resolved on the stratagem we have described. He stripped off the captive's tunic, and, after piercing it several times with his dagger, he opened a vein in his own arm with the same weapon, and let the hot blood flow freely over the torn vesture.

This done, he smiled a demon's smile, as he cast the tunic on the ground, and thought with malignant pleasure of the anguish that its discovery would occasion to his hated foe.

Henrich gazed in trembling wonder at this act; and when Coubitant again approached him to bind his hands, he believed that he was about to plunge that blood-stained knife into his beating heart. He was young, and life was new and precious to him; and for a moment he shrank back, while the blood curdled in his veins. But, young as he was, he was also a child of God; and he knew that all events are governed by His Almighty power, and over-ruled by His wisdom and love. So he was enabled to lift up his eyes and his trusting heart to heaven, and to await his expected fate with calmness. Coubitant saw his firmness, and he wondered and admired. He placed the dagger in his belt and hastily tying the captive's hands behind his back, he motioned to his companions to follow, and struck into a narrow and almost undistinguishable path.

Forcing Henrich to go before him, while he held the rope of twisted grass that bound his hands he followed close behind, and placed his foot in each print that the prisoner made, so as to destroy the impression of the boy's European shoe. The other Indians did the same; as exactly did they tread in one another's steps, that, when all had passed, it seemed as if only one solitary traveler had left his track on the soft ground.

Thus, 'in Indian file,' they traversed a belt of wood, till they came out on a dry and sun-burnt plain, where their steps left no impression. Coubitant then advanced to the side of his prisoner, and, taking his arm in his powerful grasp, he compelled him to advance, at an almost breathless speed, across the plain. In the wood, on the other side, he allowed a short pause, and gave Henrich some water from a bottle made of a dried gourd, which hung about his neck; and thus they traveled on, with slight refreshment and little rest, until the sun arose in all his splendor, and displayed to Henrich's admiring gaze the wild and magnificent woodland scenery through which he was travelling. Under other circumstances, he would keenly have enjoyed the novelty and the beauty of the objects that met his eyes, so different from the luxuriant, but flat and monotonous fields, and gardens, and canals, that he so well remembered in Holland. Here all was wild and varied; and all was on a scale of grandeur that inspired him with a feeling of awe and solemnity, heightened, no doubt, by the fearful uncertainty of his fate, and the thought that, perhaps, this was the last time that he should look upon these glorious hills, and ancient forests, and wide rushing rivers--the handiworks, and the visible teachers of God's power. Something of American scenery he had become acquainted with in his rambles round the Indian village, but only enough to make him long to see more; and had he now been travelling by the side of his father, or his friend Brewster, the elastic morning air, and the splendid and ever-varying views, would have made his young heart bound with joy and health.

As it was, the silent beauty of nature was not without its influence on the captive boy. He seemed to feel more strongly the presence and the goodness of his heavenly Father; and his young spirit was cheered to endure his present desolate situation, and strengthened to meet whatever future trials might await him. He had learnt from Brewster to make himself understood in the Wampanoge language, and he resolved to try whether his Nausett guide would reply to his questions in that tongue. He therefore besought him to tell him whither he was leading him, and for what purpose. But Coubitant deigned him no reply. He understood him--for the Nausett language was but another dialect of the Wampanoge--but he did not choose to inform the boy of his destination at present, and he preserved a profound silence, and an expression of sullen gravity.

It was not until the evening of the fourth day that the party reached the Nausett village, which, as we have already observed, was situate near the site of the 'first encounter'; and to which Tisquantum, and the greater part of his warriors had returned, when Coubitant and a few picked associates were left to carry out his schemes of vengeance. Henrich was instantly conducted to the lodge of the old Chief; and brightly did Tisquantum's dark eyes glitter when he beheld the son of his enemy in his power. He praised the skill and the perseverance by which Coubitant had thus procured him the means of revenge; and, taking off his own brilliant coronet of feathers, he placed it on the head of the proud and successful warrior, as a distinguished mark of his approbation.

Coubitant was highly gratified; but his desire for vengeance was stronger than his vanity, and forgetting the honor that had been conferred upon him, he entreated the Chief to allow him instantly to drive his spear into the boy's heart, or else with his own weapon to take the life of the slayer's child.

'Not yet!' replied Tisquantum--and Henrich comprehended the full purport of his words--'not today, Coubitant. I would pour out the blood of the white youth with pomp and ceremony, as an offering to the spirit of my murdered son. Let the boy be fed and refreshed: tomorrow, at break of day, he shall die. Go. I have said it.'

'And will the Sachem give him into my charge until the morning dawns?' inquired Coubitant.

Tisquantum fixed his piercing eye on the savage, and read his malevolent feelings; and he calmly answered, 'No: the victim shall bleed because his father's blood flows in his veins. But he shall not be tortured; for his was not the hand that deprived me of my son. The boy shall remain in my own lodge, and sleep securely for this night beneath the same roof that shelters my last remaining child--my lovely Oriana.'

Had the Chief observed Henrich's changing countenance, he would have perceived that all he said was understood by the intended sufferer. But he marked him not, and the boy commanded himself, and kept silence, determined to await Coubitant's departure before he made one effort to move the Chief to pity. He had, however, no opportunity of trying the effect of his earnest appeal; for Tisquantum ordered one of his attendants to remove him at once to the inner division of the lodge, and to secure him there for the night: and then, motioning Coubitant to retire, and resuming his pipe, he proceeded to 'drink smoke,' as composedly as if his evening repose had not been interrupted.

But, notwithstanding his outward composure, the Nausett chief was not unmoved by the event that had just occurred. The sight of the son of him whose hand had slain his young Tekoa brought back the image of his brave young warrior, as he stood beside him at the fatal burial-ground, full of youthful ardor, to combat the invaders of his land, and the supposed enemies of his race. He recalled his daring look as he mounted the palisade, and placed in his unerring bow the arrow that wounded the English boy. And then he seemed to hear again the sharp report of the white man's musket, and to behold once more the sudden fall of his son, bleeding and expiring, to the ground.

Tisquantum thought on that hour of anguish, when his duties as a chief and a warrior had forbidden all expression of his grief; and he thought of his return to his lodge, where only Oriana remained to welcome him-- for the mother of his children, whom he had loved with unusual affection, was dead--and tears gathered in the Sachem's eyes. Oriana had deeply mourned her brother's death; for since she had lost her mother, she had been permitted to enjoy much more of his society than had previously been allowed her; and her father, also, had seemed to transfer to her much of the love that be had borne towards his wife. Now his daughter was his only domestic tie; and his chief object in life was to give her in marriage to a warrior as brave as her young brother, and who would supply to him the place of his departed son.

At present, this prospect was not immediate, for Oriana was only in her fourteenth year; but the Sachem was resolved that she should be worthy of the hand of the greatest warriors of her tribe, and he took pains