{56}
“It would have been happy if they had converted some before they had
killed any.”--Robinson.
The house at Bethel had, both in front and in rear, a portico, or,
as it was more humbly, and therefore more appropriately named, a shed;
that in the rear was a sort of adjunct to the kitchen, and one end of
it was enclosed for the purpose of a bedroom, and occupied by
Magawisca. Everell found Digby sitting at the other extremity of this
portico; his position was prudently chosen. The moon was high and the
heavens clear, and there, concealed and sheltered by the shadow of the
roof, he could, without being seen, command the whole extent of
cleared ground that bordered on the forest, whence the foe would come,
if he came at all.
Everell, like a good knight, had carefully inspected his arms, and
just taken his position beside Digby, when they heard Magawisca’s
window cautiously opened, and saw her spring through it. Everell would
have spoken to her, but Digby made a signal of silence; and she,
without observing them, hastened with a quick and light step towards
the wood, and entered it, taking the path that led to Nelema’s hut.
“Confound her!” exclaimed Digby, “she is in a plot with the old
woman.”
{57}
“No, no. On my life she is not, Digby.”
“Some mischief--some mischief,” said Digby, shaking his head. “They
are a treacherous race. Let’s follow her. No, we had best keep clear
of the wood. Do you call after her; she will hearken to you.”
Everell hesitated. “Speak quickly, Mr. Everell,” urged Digby; “she
will be beyond the reach of your voice. It is no light matter that
could take her to Nelema’s hut at this time of the night.”
“She has good reason for going, Digby. I am sure of it; and I will not
call her back.”
“Reason,” muttered Digby; “reason is but a jack-o’-lantern light in
most people’s minds. You trust her too far, Mr. Everell; but there,
she is returning! See how she looks all around her, like a frightened
bird that hears an enemy in every rustling leaf. Stand close; observe
her; see, she lays her ear to the earth--it is their crafty way of
listening; there, she is gone again!” he exclaimed, as Magawisca
darted away into the wood. “It is past doubt she holds communication
with some one. God send us a safe deliverance. I had rather meet a
legion of Frenchmen than a company of these savages. They are a kind
of beast we don’t comprehend--out of the range of God’s
creatures--neither angel, man, nor yet quite devil. I would have sent
to the fort for a guard to-night, but I liked not being driven hither
and yon by that old hag’s tokens, nor yet quite to take counsel from
your good mother’s fears, she being but a woman.”
“I think you have caught the fear, Digby, without {58} taking its
counsel,” said Everell, “which does little credit to your wisdom; the
only use of fear being to provide against danger.”
“That is true, Mr. Everell; but don’t think I am afraid. It is one
thing to know what danger is, and wish to shun it, and another thing
to feel like you fear-naught lads, that have never felt a twinge of
pain, and have scarce a sense of your own mortality. You would be the
boldest at an attack, Mr. Everell, and I should stand a siege best. A
boy’s courage is a keen weapon that wants temper.”
“Apt to break at the first stroke from the enemy, you mean, Digby?”
Digby nodded assent. “Well, I should like, at any rate, to prove it,”
added Everell.
“Time enough this half dozen years yet, my young master. I should be
loath to see that fair skin of thine stained with blood; and, besides,
you have yet to get a little more worldly prudence than to trust a
young Indian girl just because she takes your fancy.”
“And why does she take my fancy, Digby? because she is true and
noble-minded. I am certain, that if she knows of any danger
approaching us, she is seeking to avert it.”
“I don’t know that, Mr. Everell; she’ll be first true to her own
people. The old proverb holds fast with these savages, as well as with
the rest of the world: ‘hawks won’t pick out hawks’ eyes.’ Like to
like, throughout all nature. I grant you, she hath truly a fair
seeming.”
{59}
“And all that’s foul is our own suspicion, is it not, Digby?”
“Not exactly; there’s plainly some mystery between Magawisca and the
old woman: and we know these Pequods were famed above all the Indian
tribes for their cunning.”
“And what is superior cunning among savages but superior sense?”
“You may out-talk me, Mr. Everell,” replied Digby, with the impatience
that a man feels when he is sure he is right, without being able to
make it appear. “You may out-talk me, but you will never convince me.
Was not I in the Pequod war? I ought to know, I think.”
“Yes, and I think you have told me they showed more resolution than
cunning there; in particular, that the brother of Magawisca, whom she
so piteously bemoans to this day, fought like a young lion.”
“Yes, he did, poor dog! and he was afterward cruelly cut off; and it
is this that makes me think they will take some terrible revenge for
his death. I often hear Magawisca talking to Oneco of her brother, and
I think it is to stir his spirit; but this boy is no more like to him
than a spaniel to a bloodhound.”
Nothing Digby said had any tendency to weaken Everell’s confidence in
Magawisca.
The subject of the Pequod war once started, Digby and Everell were in
no danger of sleeping at their post. Digby loved, as well as another
man, and particularly those who have had brief military experience,
{60} to fight his battles o’er again; and Everell was at an age to
listen with delight to tales of adventure and danger. They thus wore
away the time till the imaginations of both relater and listener were
at that pitch when every shadow is imbodied, and every passing sound
bears a voice to the quickened sense.
“Hark!” said Digby; “did you not hear footsteps?”
“I hear them now,” replied Everell; “they seem not very near. Is it
not Magawisca returning?”
“No, there is more than one; and it is the heavy, though cautious,
tread of men. Ha! Argus scents them.” The old house-dog now sprang
from his rest on a mat at the door-stone, and gave one of those loud,
inquiring barks, by which this animal first hails the approach of a
strange footstep. “Hush, Argus, hush!” cried Everell; and the dog,
having obeyed his instinct, seemed satisfied to submit to his master’s
voice, and crept lazily back to his place of repose.
“You have hushed Argus, and the footsteps too,” said Digby; “but it is
well, perhaps, if there really is an enemy near, that he should know
we are on guard.”
“If there really is, Digby!” said Everell, who, terrific as the
apprehended danger was, felt the irrepressible thirst of youth of
adventure; “do you think we could both have been deceived?”
“Nothing easier, Mr. Everell, than to deceive senses on the watch for
alarm. We heard something, {61} but it might have been the wolves that
even now prowl about the very clearing here at night. Ha!” he
exclaimed, “there they are;” and, starting forward, he levelled his
musket towards the wood.
“You are mad,” said Everell, striking down Digby’s musket with the
butt end of his own. “It is Magawisca.” Magawisca at that moment
emerged from the wood.
Digby appeared confounded. “Could I have been so deceived?” he said;
“could it have been her shadow? I thought I saw an Indian beyond that
birch-tree; you see the white bark? well, just beyond in the shade. It
could not have been Magawisca, nor her shadow, for you see there are
trees between the footpath and that place; and yet how should he have
vanished without motion or sound?”
“Our senses deceive us, Digby,” said Everell, reciprocating Digby’s
own argument.
“In this tormenting moonlight they do; but my senses have been well
schooled in their time, and should have learned to know a man from a
woman, and a shadow from a substance.”
Digby had not a very strong conviction of the actual presence of an
enemy, as was evident from his giving no alarm to his auxiliaries in
the house; and he believed that if there were hostile Indians prowling
about them, they were few in number; still he deemed it prudent to
persevere in their precautionary measures. “I will remain here,” he
said, “Mr. Everell, and do you follow Magawisca; sift what you can
from her. Depend on’t, there’s something {62} wrong. Why should she
have turned away on seeing us? and did you not observe her hide
something beneath her mantle?”
Everell acceded to Digby’s proposition, not with the expectation of
confirming his suspicions, but in the hope that Magawisca would show
they were groundless. He followed her to the front of the house, to
which she seemed involuntarily to have bent her steps on perceiving
him.
“You have taken the most difficult part of our duty on yourself,
Magawisca,” he said, on coming up to her. “You have acted as vidette,
while I have been quiet at my post.”
Perhaps Magawisca did not understand him; at any rate, she made no
reply.
“Have you met an enemy in your reconnoitring? Digby and I fancied that
we both heard and saw the foe.”
“When and where?” exclaimed Magawisca, in a hurried, alarmed tone.
“Not many minutes since, and just at the very edge of the wood.”
“What! when Digby raised his gun? I thought that had been in sport, to
startle me.”
“No, Magawisca; sporting does not suit our present case. My mother and
her little ones are in peril, and Digby is a faithful servant.”
“Faithful!” echoed Magawisca, as if there were more in Everell’s
expression than met the ear; “he surely may walk straight who hath
nothing to draw him aside. Digby hath but one path, and that is {63}
plain before him; but one voice from his heart, and why should he not
obey it?” The girl’s voice faltered as she spoke, and as she concluded
she burst into tears. Everell had never before witnessed this
expression of feeling from her. She had an habitual self-command, that
hid the emotions of her heart from common observers, and veiled them
even from those who most narrowly watched her. Everell’s confidence in
Magawisca had not been in the least degree weakened by all the
appearances against her. He did not mean to imply suspicion by his
commendation of Digby, but merely to throw out a leading observation,
which she might follow if she would.
He felt reproached and touched by her distress; but, struck by the
clew which, as he thought, her language afforded to the mystery of her
conduct, and confident that she would in no way aid or abet any
mischief that her own people might be contriving against them, he
followed the natural bent of his generous temper, and assured her,
again and again, of his entire trust in her. This seemed rather to
aggravate than abate her distress. She threw herself on the ground,
drew her mantle over her face, and wept convulsively. He found he
could not allay the storm he had raised, and he seated himself beside
her. After a little while, either exhausted by the violence of her
emotion, or comforted by Everell’s silent sympathy, she became
composed, and raised her face from her mantle, and as she did so,
something fell from beneath its folds. She hastily recovered and
replaced it, but not till Everell had perceived {64} it was an eagle’s
feather. He knew this was the badge of her tribe, and he had heard her
say that “a tuft from the wing of the monarch bird was her father’s
crest.” A suspicion flashed through his mind, and was conveyed to
Magawisca’s by one bright glance of inquiry. She said nothing, but her
responding look was rather sorrowful than confused; and Everell,
anxious to believe what he wished to be true, came, after a little
consideration, to the conclusion that the feather had been dropped in
her path by a passing bird. He did not scrutinize her motive in
concealing it; he could not think her capable of evil; and, anxious to
efface from her mind the distrust his countenance might have
expressed, “This beautiful moon and her train of stars,” he said,
“look as if they were keeping their watch over our dwelling. There are
those, Magawisca, who believe the stars have a mysterious influence on
human destiny. I know nothing of the grounds of their faith, and my
imagination is none of the brightest; but I can almost fancy they are
stationed there as guardian angels, and I feel quite sure that nothing
evil can walk abroad in their light.”
“They do look peaceful,” she replied, mournfully; “but ah! Everell,
man is ever breaking the peace of nature. It was such a night as this,
so bright and still, when your English came upon our quiet homes.”
“You have never spoken to me of that night, Magawisca.”
“No, Everell, for our hands have taken hold of {65} the chain of
friendship, and I feared to break it by speaking of the wrongs your
people did to mine.”
“You need not fear it; I can honour noble deeds, though done by our
enemies, and see that cruelty is cruelty, though inflicted by our
friends.”
“Then listen to me; and when the hour of vengeance comes, if it should
come, remember it was provoked.”
She paused for a few moments, sighed deeply, and then began the
recital of the last acts in the tragedy of her people, the principal
circumstances of which are detailed in the chronicles of the times by
the witnesses of the bloody scenes. “You know,” she said, “our
fortress-homes were on the level summit of a hill: thence we could
see, as far as the eye could stretch, our hunting-grounds and our
gardens, which lay beneath us on the borders of a stream that glided
around our hill, and so near to it that in the still nights we could
hear its gentle voice. Our fort and wigwams were encompassed with a
palisade, formed of young trees, and branches interwoven and sharply
pointed. No enemy’s foot had ever approached this nest, which the
eagles of the tribe had built for their mates and their young.
Sassacus and my father were both away on that dreadful night. They had
called a council of our chiefs and old men; our young men had been out
in their canoes, and when they returned they had danced and feasted,
and were now in deep sleep. My mother was in her hut with her
children--not sleeping, for my brother Samoset had lingered behind his
companions, {66} and had not yet returned from the water-sport. The
warning spirit, that ever keeps its station at a mother’s pillow,
whispered that some evil was near; and my mother, bidding me lie still
with the little ones, went forth in quest of my brother. All the
servants of the Great Spirit spoke to my mother’s ear and eye of
danger and death. The moon, as she sunk behind the hills, appeared a
ball of fire; strange lights darted through the air; to my mother’s
eye they seemed fiery arrows; to her ear the air was filled with
death-sighs.
“She had passed the palisade, and was descending the hill, when she
met old Cushmakin. ‘Do you know aught of my boy?’ she asked.
“‘Your boy is safe, and sleeps with his companions; he returned by the
Sassafras knoll; that way can only be trodden by the strong-limbed and
light-footed.’
“‘My boy is safe,’ said my mother; ‘then tell me, for thou art wise,
and canst see quite through the dark future, tell me, what evil is
coming to our tribe?’ She then described the omens she had seen. ‘I
know not,’ said Cushmakin: ‘of late darkness hath spread over my soul,
and all is black there, as before these eyes, that the arrows of death
have pierced; but tell me, Monoco, what see you now in the fields of
heaven?’
“‘Oh, now,’ said my mother, ‘I see nothing but the blue depths and the
watching stars. The spirits of the air have ceased their moaning, and
steal over my cheek like an infant’s breath. The water-spirits {67}
are rising, and will soon spread their soft wings around the nest of
our tribe.’
“‘The boy sleeps safely,’ muttered the old man, ‘and I have listened
to the idle fear of a doting mother.’
“‘I come not of a fearful race,’ said my mother.
“‘Nay, that I did not mean,’ replied Cushmakin; ‘but the panther
watching her young is fearful as a doe.’ The night was far spent, and
my mother bade him go home with her, for our powwows[1] have ever a
mat in the wigwam of their chief. ‘Nay,’ he said, ‘the day is near,
and I am always abroad at the rising of the sun.’ It seemed that the
first warm touch of the sun opened the eye of the old man’s soul, and
he saw again the flushed hills and the shaded valleys, the sparkling
waters, the green maize, and the gray old rocks of our home. They were
just passing the little gate of the palisade, when the old man’s dog
sprang from him with a fearful bark. A rushing sound was heard.
‘Owanox! Owanox!’ (the English! the English!) cried Cushmakin. My
mother joined her voice to his, and in an instant the cry of alarm
spread through the wigwams. The enemy were indeed upon us. They had
surrounded the palisade, and opened their fire.”
“Was it so sudden? Did they so rush on sleeping women and children?”
asked Everell, who was unconsciously lending all his interest to the
party of the narrator.
“Even so; they were guided to us by the traitor {68} Wequash; he from
whose bloody hand my mother had shielded the captive English maidens;
he who had eaten from my father’s dish, and slept on his mat. They
were flanked by the cowardly Narragansetts, who shrunk from the sight
of our tribe; who were pale as white men at the thought of Sassacus;
and so feared him, that when his name was spoken they were like an
unstrung bow, and they said, ‘He is all one God: no man can kill him.’
These cowardly allies waited for the prey they dared not attack.”
“Then,” said Everell, “as I have heard, our people had all the honour
of the fight.”
“Honour! was it, Everell? ye shall hear. Our warriors rushed forth to
meet the foe; they surrounded the huts of their mothers, wives,
sisters, children; they fought as if each man had a hundred lives, and
would give each and all to redeem their homes. Oh! the dreadful fray
even now rings in my ears! Those fearful guns that we had never heard
before--the shouts of your people--our own battle yell--the piteous
cries of the little children--the groans of our mothers; and oh!
worse, worse than all, the silence of those that could not speak. The
English fell back; they were driven to the palisade, some beyond it,
when their leader gave the cry to fire our huts, and led the way to my
mother’s. Samoset, the noble boy, defended the entrance like a stag at
bay till they struck him down; prostrate and bleeding, he again bent
his bow, and had taken deadly aim at the English leader, when a
sabre-blow severed his {69} bowstring. Then was taken from our
hearth-stone, where the English had been so often warmed and
cherished, the brand to consume our dwellings. They were covered with
mats, and burned like dried straw. The enemy retreated without the
palisade. In vain did our warriors fight for a path in which we might
escape from the consuming fire; they were beaten back; the fire gained
on us; the Narragansetts pressed on the English, howling like wolves
for their prey. Some of our people threw themselves into the midst of
the crackling flames, and their courageous souls parted with one shout
of triumph; others mounted the palisade, but they were shot, and
dropped like a flock of birds smitten by the hunter’s arrows. Thus did
the strangers destroy, in our own homes, hundreds of our tribe.”
“And how did you escape in that dreadful hour, Magawisca? you were
not, then, taken prisoners?”
“No; there was a rock at one extremity of our hut, and beneath it a
cavity into which my mother crept, with Oneco, myself, and the two
little ones that afterward perished. Our simple habitations were soon
consumed; we heard the foe retiring, and when the last sound had died
away, we came forth to a sight that made us lament to be among the
living. The sun was scarce an hour from his rising, and yet in this
brief space our homes had vanished. The bodies of our people were
strewn about the smouldering ruin, and all around the palisade lay the
strong and valiant warriors, cold, silent, powerless as the unformed
clay.”
{70}
Magawisca paused; she was overcome with the recollection of this scene
of desolation. She looked upward with an intent gaze, as if she held
communion with an invisible being. “Spirit of my mother!” burst from
her lips; “oh! that I could follow thee to that blessed land, where I
should no more dread the war-cry nor the death-knife.” Everell dashed
the gathering tears from his eyes, and Magawisca proceeded in her
narrative.
“While we all stood silent and motionless, we heard footsteps and
cheerful voices. They came from my father and Sassacus, and their
band, returning from the friendly council. They approached on the side
of the hill that was covered with a thicket of oaks, and their ruined
homes at once burst upon their view. Oh! what horrid sounds then
pealed on the air! shouts of wailing, and cries for vengeance. Every
eye was turned with suspicion and hatred on my father. _He_ had been
the friend of the English; _he_ had counselled peace and alliance with
them; _he_ had protected their traders; delivered the captives taken
from them, and restored them to their people: now _his_ wife and
children alone were living, and they called him traitor. I heard an
angry murmur, and many hands were lifted to strike the death-blow. He
moved not: ‘Nay, nay,’ cried Sassacus, beating them off, ‘touch him
not; his soul is bright as the sun; sooner shall you darken that than
find treason in his breast. If he hath shown the dove’s heart to the
English when he believed them friends, he will show himself the fierce
eagle now he knows {71} them enemies. Touch him not, warriors;
remember my blood runneth in his veins.’
“From that moment my father was a changed man. He neither spoke nor
looked at his wife or children; but, placing himself at the head of
one band of the young men, he shouted his war-cry, and then silently
pursued the enemy. Sassacus went forth to assemble the tribe, and we
followed my mother to one of our villages.”
“You did not tell me, Magawisca,” said Everell, “how Samoset perished:
was he consumed in the flames, or shot from the palisade?”
“Neither--neither. He was reserved to whet my father’s revenge to a
still keener edge. He had forced a passage through the English, and,
hastily collecting a few warriors, they pursued the enemy, sprung upon
them from a covert, and did so annoy them that the English turned and
gave them battle. All fled save my brother, and him they took
prisoner. They told him they would spare his life if he would guide
them to our strongholds; he refused. He had, Everell, lived but
sixteen summers; he loved the light of the sun even as we love it; his
manly spirit was tamed by wounds and weariness; his limbs were like a
bending reed, and his heart beat like a woman’s; but the fire of his
soul burned clear. Again they pressed him with offers of life and
reward; he faithfully refused, and with one sabre-stroke they severed
his head from his body.”
Magawisca paused: she looked at Everell, and said with a bitter smile,
“You English tell us, Everell, {72} that the book of your law is
better than that written on our hearts; for ye say it teaches mercy,
compassion, forgiveness: if ye had such a law, and believed it, would
ye thus have treated a captive boy?”
Magawisca’s reflecting mind suggested the most serious obstacle to the
progress of the Christian religion, in all ages and under all
circumstances--the contrariety between its divine principles and the
conduct of its professors; which, instead of always being a medium for
the light that emanates from our Holy Law, is too often the darkest
cloud that obstructs the passage of its rays to the hearts of heathen
men. Everell had been carefully instructed in the principles of his
religion, and he felt Magawisca’s relation to be an awkward comment on
them, and her inquiry natural; but, though he knew not what answer to
make, he was sure there must be a good one, and mentally resolving to
refer the case to his mother, he begged Magawisca to proceed with her
narrative.
“The fragments of our broken tribe,” she said, “were collected, and
some other small dependant tribes persuaded to join us. We were
obliged to flee from the open grounds, and shelter ourselves in a
dismal swamp. The English surrounded us; they sent in to us a
messenger, and offered life and pardon to all who had not shed the
blood of Englishmen. Our allies listened, and fled from us as
frightened birds fly from a falling tree. My father looked upon his
warriors; they answered that look with {73} their battle-shout. ‘Tell
your people,’ said my father to the messenger, ‘that we have shed and
drank English blood, and that we will take nothing from them but
death.’
“The messenger departed, and again returned with offers of pardon if
we would come forth, and lay our arrows and our tomahawks at the feet
of the English. ‘What say you, warriors?’ cried my father: ‘shall we
take _pardon_ from those who have burned your wives and children, and
given your homes to the beasts of prey; who have robbed you of your
hunting-grounds, and driven your canoes from their waters?’ A hundred
arrows were pointed to the messenger. ‘Enough: you have your answer,’
said my father; and the messenger returned to announce the fate we had
chosen.”
“Where was Sassacus? Had he abandoned his people?” asked Everell.
“Abandoned them! No: his life was in theirs; but, accustomed to attack
and victory, he could not bear to be thus driven, like a fox, to his
hole. His soul was sick within him, and he was silent, and left all to
my father. All day we heard the strokes of the English axes felling
the trees that defended us, and when night came they had approached so
near that we could see the glimmering of their watch-lights through
the branches of the trees. All night they were pouring in their
bullets, alike on warriors, women, and children. Old Cushmakin was
lying at my mother’s feet when he received a death-wound. Gasping for
breath, he called on Sassacus and my {74} father: ‘Stay not here,’ he
said; ‘look not on your wives and children, but burst your prison
bound; sound through the nations the cry of revenge! Linked together,
ye shall drive the English into the sea. I speak the word of the Great
Spirit: obey it!’ While he was yet speaking he stiffened in death,
‘Obey him, warriors,’ cried my mother; ‘see,’ she said, pointing to
the mist that was now wrapping itself around the wood like a thick
curtain, ‘see, our friends have come from the spirit-land to shelter
you. Nay, look not on us; our hearts have been tender in the wigwam,
but we can die before our enemies without a groan. Go forth and avenge
us.’
“‘Have we come to the counsel of old men and old women?’ said
Sassacus, in the bitterness of his spirit.
“‘When women put down their womanish thoughts and counsel like men,
they should be obeyed,’ said my father. ‘Follow me, warriors!’
“They burst through the enclosure. We saw nothing more, but we heard
the shout from the foe as they issued from the wood--the momentary
fierce encounter--and the cry, ‘They have escaped!’ Then it was that
my mother, who had listened with breathless silence, threw herself
down on the mossy stones, and, laying her hot cheek to mine, ‘Oh, my
children, my children!’ she said, ‘would that I could die for you! But
fear not death; the blood of a hundred chieftains, that never knew
fear, runneth in your veins. Hark! the enemy comes nearer and {75}
nearer. Now lift up your heads, my children, and show them that even
the weak ones of our tribe are strong in soul.’
“We rose from the ground: all about sat women and children in family
clusters, awaiting unmoved their fate. The English had penetrated the
forest-screen, and were already on the little rising ground where we
had been intrenched. Death was dealt freely. None resisted--not a
movement was made--not a voice lifted--not a sound escaped, save the
wailings of the dying children.
“One of your soldiers knew my mother, and a command was given that her
life and that of her children should be spared. A guard was stationed
round us.
“You know that, after our tribe was thus cut off, we were taken, with
a few other captives, to Boston. Some were sent to the Islands of the
Sun, to bend their free limbs to bondage like your beasts of burden.
There are among your people those who have not put out the light of
the Great Spirit; they can remember a kindness, albeit done by an
Indian; and when it was known to your sachems that the wife of
Mononotto, once the protector and friend of your people, was a
prisoner, they treated her with honour and gentleness. But her people
were extinguished; her husband driven to distant forests--forced on
earth to the misery of wicked souls--to wander without a home; her
children were captives, and her heart was broken. You know the rest.”
{76}
This war, so fatal to the Pequods, had transpired the preceding year.
It was an important event to the infant colonies, and its magnitude
probably somewhat heightened to the imaginations of the English by the
terror this resolute tribe had inspired. All the circumstances
attending it were still fresh in men’s minds, and Everell had heard
them detailed with the interest and particularity that belongs to
recent adventures; but he had heard them in the language of the
enemies and conquerors of the Pequods, and from Magawisca’s lips they
took a new form and hue; she seemed to him to imbody nature’s best
gifts, and her feelings to be the inspiration of heaven. This new
version of an old story reminded him of the man and the lion in the
fable. But here it was not merely changing sculptors to give the
advantage to one or the other of the artist’s subjects, but it was
putting the chisel into the hands of truth, and giving it to whom it
belonged.
He had heard this destruction of the original possessors of the soil
described, as we find it in the history of the times, where we are
told “the number destroyed was about four hundred;” and “it was a
fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of
blood quenching the same, and the horrible scent thereof; but the
victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to
God.”
In the relations of their enemies, the courage of the Pequods was
distorted into ferocity, and their fortitude in their last extremity
thus set forth: “many were killed in the swamp, like sullen dogs, that
{77} would rather, in their self-willedness and madness, sit still to
be shot or cut in pieces, than receive their lives for asking at the
hands of those into whose power they had now fallen.”
Everell’s imagination, touched by the wand of feeling, presented a
very different picture of those defenceless families of savages, pent
in the recesses of their native forests, and there exterminated, not
by superior natural force, but by the adventitious circumstances of
arms, skill, and knowledge, from that offered by those who, “then
living and worthy of credit, did affirm, that in the morning, entering
into the swamp, they saw several heaps of them (the Pequods) sitting
close together, upon whom they discharged their pieces, laden with ten
or twelve pistol-bullets at a time, putting the muzzles of their
pieces under the boughs within a few yards of them.”
Everell did not fail to express to Magawisca, with all the eloquence
of a heated imagination, his sympathy and admiration of her heroic and
suffering people. She listened with a mournful pleasure, as one
listens to the praise of a departed friend. Both seemed to have
forgotten the purpose of their vigil, which they had marvellously kept
without apprehension or heaviness, when they were roused from their
romantic abstraction by Digby’s voice: “Now to your beds, children,”
he said; “the family is stirring, and the day is at hand. See the
morning star hanging just over those trees, like a single watchlight
in all the wide canopy. As you have not to look in a prayer-book for
it, Master Everell, don’t forget to {78} thank the Lord for keeping us
safe, as your mother, God bless her, would say, through the night
watches. Stop one moment,” added Digby, lowering his voice, to
Everell, as he rose to follow Magawisca; “did she tell you?”
“Tell me! what?”
“What! Heaven’s mercy! what ails the boy? Why, did she tell you what
brought her out to-night? Did she explain all the mysterious actions
we have seen? Are you crazy? Did not you ask her?”
Everell hesitated; fortunately for him, the light was too dim to
expose to Digby’s eye the blushes that betrayed his consciousness that
he had forgotten his duty. “Magawisca did not tell me,” he said; “but
I am sure, Digby, that--”
“That she can do no wrong--hey, Master Everell; well, that may be very
satisfactory to you, but it does not content me. I like not her secret
ways: ‘it’s bad ware that needs a dark store.’”
Everell had tried the force of his own convictions on Digby, and knew
it to be unavailing; therefore, having no reply to make, he very
discreetly retreated without attempting any.
Magawisca crept to her bed, but not to repose; neither watching nor
weariness procured sleep for her. Her mind was racked with
apprehensions and conflicting duties, the cruellest rack to an
honourable mind.
Nelema had communicated to her, the preceding day, the fact which she
had darkly intimated to Mrs. Fletcher, that Mononotto, with one or two
associates, {79} was lurking in the forest, and watching an
opportunity to make an attack on Bethel. How far his purpose extended,
whether simply to the recovery of his children or to the destruction
of the family, she knew not. The latter was most probable, for hostile
Indians always left blood on their trail. In reply to Magawisca’s
eager inquiries, Nelema said she had, again and again, assured her
father of the kind treatment his children had received at the hands of
Mrs. Fletcher; but he seemed scarcely to hear what she said, and
precipitately left her, telling her that she would not again see him
till his work was done.
Magawisca’s first impulse had been to reveal all to Mrs. Fletcher; but
by doing this she would jeopard her father’s life. Her natural
sympathies, her strong affections, her pride, were all enlisted on the
side of her people; but she shrunk, as if her own life were menaced,
from the blow that was about to fall on her friends. She would have
done or suffered anything to avert it--anything but betray her father.
The hope of meeting him explains all that seemed mysterious to Digby.
She did go to Nelema’s hut, but all was quiet there. In returning she
found an eagle’s feather in the path: she believed it must have just
been dropped there by her father, and this circumstance determined her
to remain watching through the night, that, if her father should
appear, she might avert his vengeance.
She did not doubt that Digby had really seen and heard him; and
believing that her father would not {80} shrink from a single armed
man, she hoped against hope, that his sole object was to recover his
children; hoped against hope, we say, for her reason told her that, if
that were his only purpose, it might easily have been accomplished by
the intervention of Nelema.
Magawisca had said truly to Everell, that her father’s nature had been
changed by the wrongs he had received. When the Pequods were proud and
prosperous, he was more noted for his humane virtues than his warlike
spirit. The supremacy of his tribe was acknowledged, and it seemed to
be his noble nature, as it is sometimes the instinct of the most
powerful animals, to protect and defend rather than attack and
oppress. The ambitious spirit of his brother chieftain, Sassacus, had
ever aspired to dominion over the allied tribes; and, immediately
after the appearance of the English, the same temper was manifest in a
jealousy of their encroachments. He employed all his art, and
influence, and authority, to unite the tribes for the extirpation of
the dangerous invaders. Mononotto, on the contrary, averse to all
hostility, and foreseeing no danger from them, was the advocate of an
hospitable reception and pacific conduct.
This difference of feeling between the two chiefs may account for the
apparent treachery of the Pequods, who, as the influence of one or the
other prevailed, received the English traders with favour and
hospitality, or, violating their treaties of friendship, inflicted on
them cruelties and death.
{81}
The stories of the murders of Stone, Norton, and Oldham are familiar
to every reader of our early annals; and the anecdote of the two
English girls who were captured at Wethersfield, and protected and
restored to their friends by the wife of Mononotto, has already been
illustrated by a sister labourer, and is precious to all those who
would accumulate proofs that the image of God is never quite effaced
from the souls of his creatures, and that, in their darkest ignorance
and deepest degradation, there are still to be found traits of mercy
and benevolence. These will be gathered and treasured in the memory
with that fond feeling with which Mungo Park describes himself to have
culled and cherished in his bosom the single flower that bloomed in
his melancholy track over the African desert.
The chieftain of a savage race is the depository of the honour of his
tribe; and their defeat is a disgrace to him, that can only be effaced
by the blood of his conquerors. It is a common case with the
unfortunate, to be compelled to endure the reproach of inevitable
evils; and Mononotto was often reminded by the remnant of his tribe,
in the bitterness of their spirit, of his former kindness to the
English. This reproach sharpened too keenly the edge of his adversity.
He had seen his people slaughtered, or driven from their homes and
hunting-grounds into shameful exile; his wife had died in captivity,
and his children lived in servile dependance in the house of his
enemies.
{82}
Sassacus perished by treachery, and Mononotto alone remained to endure
this accumulated misery. In this extremity, he determined on the
rescue of his children, and the infliction of some signal deed of
vengeance, by which he hoped to revive the spirit of the natives, and
reinstate himself as the head of his broken and dispersed people: in
his most sanguine moments, he meditated a combination and unity that
should eventually expel the invaders.