GIVEN UP TO REVENGE.
"Anna Hutchinson had charged her daughter, that golden-haired young
girl, with the consummation of her curse. But where love is, vengeance
sleeps. Her husband's tribe was at peace with the whites, and the
'wounded bird' had a child in her lodge; so she put the wrongs of her
mother on one side, and lived contentedly in her forest kingdom. Why
should she urge her husband's warriors to the red path while they could
plant corn and hunt venison unmolested? She did not yet fully understand
the persecutions which had driven her mother to death. The tribe that
massacred her family had been long ago chastised and driven from their
hunting-grounds by the valor of her husband--was not this enough?
"No, no; the wail of that curse still troubled the air around her lodge,
and its spirit worked slowly but surely in the white settlements. Years
wore on; another little child laughed and clapped its hands in the
doorway of King Philip; and now, when the kingly husband and wife were
in their prime, the whites, who had grown powerful, began to cast
rapacious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Pomperoags. It was the old
story of the wolf and the lamb--causes of offence were soon found. The
colonies arose and armed themselves. King Philip of Mount Hope was a
formidable enemy. It took brave men to cope with him. He was a statesman
as well as a warrior, wise as a serpent and brave as steel. The most
powerful tribes flocked to his alliance, some won to his aid by the
eloquence of his wife, others by sympathy and common danger. You have
read in your school books how the war against King Philip was conducted.
You have heard old men and women call him a fiend, and speak of him as
the companion of fiends."
"Yes, yes, the old women tell us stories of his cruelty."
"And of his wrongs, of his courage, his wonderful magnanimity, his noble
statesmanship--do they tell you nothing of this?"
"No; only of his cruelties."
"And your heart, how does that receive the lie? calmly, or bursting with
indignation?"
"My heart aches within me when I hear these legends--aches and burns as
if a wound at its core were rudely touched."
"Ah! and there is a wound, a cruel wound, deep in your life. It shall
spread and burn through your whole being. Listen: These Englishmen voted
themselves munitions of war, raised regiments, linked colony to colony,
and made each settlement the rivet of a chain which swept the coast.
Their bravest men took the field--the whole country was astir. These
very preparations were a tribute to the heroism they were intended to
crush--all this force was brought against the kingly savage. He met it
bravely where courage was most likely to prevail; cautiously where
prudence promised to husband human life. He seized upon their own
tactics, and turned them in his favor; marched, countermarched, and
manoeuvred as no general of Europe has ever done. This queen went side
by side with him upon the war-path. She was his council, the companion
of his danger. There was not a warrior in the tribe who would have
refused to lay down his life for her. But why tell you this history? You
know how the strong man was betrayed by a traitor, murdered in cold
blood, hacked limb from limb. Oh, Great Spirit, hear me, and kindle in
her breast the rage that consumes mine! Listen, girl: His wife and son
were taken prisoners; the wife of King Philip was dragged out of the
forest with her son at her side and the last-born in her arms!
"Again the magnates of the church sat in judgment upon her. A ship lay
on the coast, a battered old vessel bound for Bermuda. This brave woman
could not be trusted in the country--the ship would bear her and her
children into slavery. The wife and children of a king were taken from
the broad forest, with its fresh winds and sumptuous leafiness, and
condemned to herd with negroes and slaves under a tropic sun. That
night, no one could ever tell how, the wife of Philip escaped from her
captors, and fled with her youngest child, a little girl scarcely yet
three years old. That child inherited its mother's beauty, its father's
lofty pride, and the solemn obligations of Anna Hutchinson's curse."
Again Abigail felt the cold chills creeping over her.
"Ah me!" she muttered, "that terrible inheritance--better that the child
had died."
"Better that the child had died than avenge such wrongs--a grandmother's
butchery, a father's murder, stripes and slavery for the mother, chains,
hard labor, brutal blows for the young boy--better that she had died!
Wretched girl, unsay these words!"
The anger in his face was terrible, his hand sprung upwards as if to
smite her. She shrunk away into the shadow of the pine, thinking thus to
escape his fiery glances.
"Step into the light again, that your face may unsay the cowardly words
of your tongue!"
"I dare not--you terrify me. Why tell this horrible story here? I am
young, helpless, afraid sometimes, and talk like this takes away my
strength. I cannot think of this dying woman's curse without dread. The
judgment of God must follow it, and the helpless child, with whom its
power was left--but perhaps she died."
"And if she had, was not the son left, the Bermuda slave, with King
Philip's blood burning beneath the lash, to remind him of the legacy of
hate left against her people by his martyred ancestress?"
"It was an evil inheritance from a woman who wrought much trouble in the
church, though the atonement was enough to wring one's heart. This Anna
Hutchinson, who died under the tomahawk, was a heretic--a free thinker,
who would not forgive her enemies as Christ did, but died hurling curses
back upon the people who perhaps only sought to win her once more to the
true faith."
"Hold!" shouted the chief, seizing her by the arm and dragging her into
the moonlight; "hold, before the word withers your tongue--Anna
Hutchinson was your _grandmother_."
Abigail Williams cried out like a doe when the arrow pierces it.
"The woman who sleeps there is her eldest daughter, the wife of King
Philip!"
"And I--I," whispered the poor creature--writhing as if in pain.
"You are the child."
"The child to whom the power of her curse descends! oh, my God, have
mercy--have mercy!"
"Mahaska."
"I hear, oh heavens, I feel that the name was mine!"
"Mahaska, listen: The blood of that brave woman--of that most kingly of
kings--both betrayed, both murdered--beats in our veins."
Abigail was cowering upon the ground at his feet; she had no strength to
stand, but as he spoke she lifted her face with a dull, hopeless look,
which contracted her features into ice.
"Who is it that speaks? who is it that hurls this terrible birthright at
me?"
"It is the son of King Philip, the runaway slave, the man whose boyhood
has been crucified beneath the driver's lash, while his people were
scattered abroad--sold, shot, plundered like mad dogs and wolves.
Mahaska, it is your brother!"
Up to this time the girl had been palsied; now a flash of fire kindled
through and through her, an intolerable weight seemed flung from her
brain, she stood up and held forth her arms.
The young savage took her hands with a grasp of iron, but he did not
embrace her.
"Is it the hand of a king's daughter that I hold?" he questioned, with a
sort of stern tenderness, but keeping her at arm's length.
"It is King Philip's daughter--try me, brother: lead the way into the
wilderness: I will follow: see if I cannot trample down all love for my
mother's enemies!"
The chief opened his arms, and drew the young girl to his bosom, as he
had done years before, when his mother, striving to introduce some of
the amenities of life into the Indian lodge, had given the infant sister
up to his caresses.
Then the blood spoke out, her air was proud and firm as his own, she
began to realize that she was indeed the daughter of martyrs and kings,
that their wrongs were her wrongs--their people her people.
"Take me with you to our people, before my heart softens, or memory
comes back. Here I fling away the love of a life-time--uncle, cousin,
home."
She spoke wildly, her eye burned, her cheek was like flame; she left her
brother's arms, and fell upon her knees between the two graves.
"Mother," she whispered--"mother, hear me; check those sobs on the wind,
they break my heart. I am giving myself up to you body and soul; mother,
teach me the vow that will content you; I will take it here, while the
last of our race looks on!"
The wind swept over her, sighing like a soul relieved from pain--swept
over her in sweet, warm gushes, as if it had been asleep in the
blossoming trees. Abigail covered her face and wept; when she looked up
again the young chief had gone.