{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.