{155}
“What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou now find out,
to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?”--_Henry IV_.
The day appointed for Magawisca’s trial arose on Boston one of the
brightest and most beautiful of summer. There are moments of deep
dejection and gloom in every one’s experience, when the eye closes
against the beauty of light, when the silence of all those great
powers that surround us presses on the soul like the indifference of a
friend, and when their evolving glories overpower the wearied spirit,
as the splendours of the sun offend the sick eye. In this diseased
state of mind, Everell wandered about Boston till the ringing of the
bell, the appointed signal, gave notice that the court was about to
open for the trial of the Indian prisoner. He then turned his
footsteps towards the house where the sittings of the magistrates were
held; and on reaching it, he found a crowd had already assembled in
the room assigned for the trial.
At one extremity of the apartment was a platform of two or three feet
elevation, on which sat the deputies and magistrates who constituted
the court, and those elders who had, as was customary on similar
occasions, been invited to be present as advisory counsel. The
New-England people have always {156} evinced a fondness for asking
advice, which may, perhaps, be explained by the freedom with which it
is rejected. A few seats were provided for those who might have claims
to be selected from the ordinary spectators; two of these were
occupied by the elder Fletcher and Sir Philip Gardiner. Everell
remained amid the multitude unnoticed and unnoticing, his eye roving
about in that vague and inexpressive manner that indicates the mind
holds no communion with external objects, till he was roused by a buzz
of “There she comes!” and a call of “Make room for the prisoner.” A
lane was opened, and Magawisca appeared, preceded and followed by a
constable. A man of middle age walked beside her, whose deep-set and
thoughtful eye, pale brow, ascetic complexion, and spare person,
indicated a life of self-denial, and of physical and mental labour;
while an expression of love, compassion, and benevolence seemed, like
the seal of his Creator, affixed to declare him a minister of mercy to
his creatures. Everell was struck with the aspect and position of the
stranger, and inquired of the person standing next to him “who he
was.”
The man turned on him a look of astonishment which expressed, “Who are
you that ask so strange a question?” and replied, “That gentleman,
sir, is the ‘apostle of New-England,’ though it much offendeth his
modesty to be so called.”
“God be praised!” thought Everell. “Eliot” (for he was familiar with
the title, though not with the person of that excellent man), “my
father’s friend! This augurs well for Magawisca.”
{157}
“I marvel,” continued his informant, “that Mr. Eliot should in this
manner lend his countenance to this Jezebel. See with what an air she
comes among her betters, as if she were queen of us all.”
There was certainly none of the culprit or suiter in the aspect of
Magawisca: neither guilt, nor fearfulness, nor submission. Her eyes
were downcast, but with the modesty of her sex; her erect attitude,
her free and lofty tread, and the perfect composure of her
countenance, all expressed the courage and dignity of her soul. Her
national pride was manifest in the care with which, after rejecting
with disdain the governor’s offer of an English dress, she had attired
herself in the peculiar costume of her people. Her collar, bracelet,
girdle, embroidered moccasins, and purple mantle, with its rich border
of beadwork, had been laid aside in prison, but were now all resumed,
and displayed with a feeling resembling Nelson’s, when he emblazoned
himself with stars and orders to appear before his enemies on the
fatal day of his last battle.
The constable led her to the prisoner’s bar. There was a slight
convulsion of her face perceptible as she entered it; and when her
attendant signed to her to seat herself, she shook her head, and
remained standing. Everell, moved by an irresistible impulse, forced
his way through the crowd, and placed himself beside her. Neither
spoke; but the sudden flush of a sunbeam on the October leaf is not
more bright nor beautiful than the colour that overspread Magawisca’s
olive cheek. This speaking suffusion, and {158} the tear that trembled
on her eyelids, but no other sign, expressed her consciousness of his
presence. The magistrates looked at Everell, and whispered together,
but they appeared to come to the conclusion that this expression of
his feeling was natural and harmless, and it was suffered to pass
unreproved.
The governor, as chief magistrate, now rose, and requested Mr. Eliot
to supplicate Divine assistance in the matter they were about to enter
on. The good man accordingly performed the duty with earnestness and
particularity. He first set forth the wonder-working providence of God
in making their enemies to be at peace with them. He recounted, in the
narrative style, then much used in public devotions, the various
occasions on which they had found their fears of the savages
groundless, and their alarms unfounded. He touched on divers instances
of “kindness and neighbourlike conduct that had been shown them by the
poor heathen people, who, having no law, were a law unto themselves.”
He intimated that the Lord’s chosen people had not now, as of old,
been selected to exterminate the heathen, but to enlarge the bounds of
God’s heritage, and to convert these strangers and aliens to servants
and children of the Most High. He alluded to the well-known and signal
mercies received from the mother of the prisoner, and to that valiant
act of the prisoner herself, whereby she did redeem from death, and
captivity worse than death, the child--the only child--of a
sorely-bereaved man. He hinted at the authorities {159} for the
merciful requital of these deeds in the promises of the spies of
Joshua to the heathen woman of Jericho, that when the Lord had given
them the land, they would deal truly with her, and show kindness to
her and to her father’s house; and in the case of David’s generosity
to Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, wherein he
passed by the evil that Saul had done him, and only remembered the
favours of Jonathan. He alluded to the ruined chief--the old father on
whom “the executed wrath of God had fallen so heavily, that, as divers
testified, the light of reason was quite put out, and he was left to
wander up and down among the tribes, counselling revenges to which
none listened.” And, finally, he dwelt on “the Gospel spirit of
forgiveness as eminently becoming those who, being set on a hill in
the wilderness, were to show their light to the surrounding nations,”
and concluded with the prayer that, on this occasion, Justice and
Mercy might be made publicly to kiss each other.
When he had done, all eyes turned again on Magawisca; and many who had
regarded her with scorn, or, at best, idle curiosity, now looked at
her with softened hearts and moistened eyes. Not so Sir Philip, who
had his own reasons for being apprehensive of any advance Magawisca
might make in the favour of her judges. He whispered to a magistrate
near whom he sat, “Is it not a singular procedure thus to convert a
prayer into an _ex parte_ statement of the case?”
“Very singular,” replied the good man, with an {160} ominous shake of
the head; “but Brother Eliot hath an overweening kindness towards the
barbarians. We shall set all right,” he added, with one of those
sagacious mods so expressive of infallibility. The governor now
proceeded to give an outline of the charges against Magawisca, and the
testimony that would be adduced to support them. He suppressed
nothing, but gave a colour to the whole which plainly indicated his
own favourable disposition; and Everell felt lightened of half his
fears. Sir Philip was then requested to relate the circumstances that
had, through his instrumentality, led to the taking of the prisoner,
and so much of the conversation he had heard between her and Miss
Leslie as might serve to elucidate the testimony of the Indian, who
had pretended, by his information, to reveal a direful conspiracy. Sir
Philip rose; and Magawisca, for the first time, raised her eyes and
fixed them on him; his met hers, and he quailed before her glance. As
if to test the power of conscience still farther, at this critical
moment his unhappy page, poor Rosa, pressed through the crowd, and,
giving Sir Philip a packet of letters just arrived from England, she
seated herself on the steps of the platform near where the knight
stood.
Sir Philip threw the packet on the table before the governor, and
stood for a few moments silent, with his eyes downcast, in profound
meditation. The trial was assuming an unexpected and startling aspect.
Sir Philip now feared he had counted too far on the popular
prejudices, which he knew were arrayed {161} against Magawisca, as one
of the diabolical race of the Pequods. He perceived that all the
weight of Eliot’s influence would be thrown into the prisoner’s scale,
and that the governor was disposed, not only to an impartial, but to a
merciful investigation of her case.
Reposing confidently on the extraordinary favour that had been
manifested towards him by the magistrates, he had felt certain of
being able to prevent Magawisca’s disclosure of their interview in the
prison, or to avert any evil consequence to himself, by giving it the
air of a malignant contrivance, to be expected from a vengeful savage,
against one who had been the providential instrument of her detection.
But he now felt that this might be a difficult task.
He had at first, as has been seen, enlisted against Magawisca, not
from any malignant feeling towards her, but merely to advance his own
private interests. In the progress of the affair, his fate had, by his
own act, become singularly involved with hers. Should she be
acquitted, he might be impeached, perhaps exposed and condemned, by
her testimony. Alliances like his with Rosa were, by the laws of the
colony, punished by severe penalties. These would be aggravated by the
discovery of his imposture. At once perceiving all his danger, he
mentally cursed the foolhardiness with which he had rushed,
unnecessarily and unwittingly, to the brink of a precipice.
He had observed Magawisca’s scrutinizing eye turn quickly from him to
Rosa, and he was sure, from her intelligent glances, that she had at
once {162} come to the conclusion that this seeming page was the
subject of their prison interview. Rosa herself appeared, to his
alarmed imagination, to be sent by Heaven as a witness against him.
How was he to escape the dangers that encompassed him? He had no time
to deliberate on the most prudent course to be pursued. The most
obvious was to inflame the prejudices of Magawisca’s judges, and by
anticipation to discredit her testimony; and quick of invention, and
unembarrassed by the instincts of humanity, he proceeded, after
faithfully relating the conversation in the churchyard between the
prisoner and Miss Leslie, to detail the following gratuitous
particulars.
He said “that, after conducting Miss Leslie to the governor’s door, he
had immediately returned to his own lodgings, and that, induced by the
still raging storm to make his walk as short as possible, he took a
cross-cut through the burial ground; that, on coming near the upper
extremity of the enclosure, he fancied he heard a human voice mingling
with the din of the storm; that he paused, and directly a flash of
lightning discovered Magawisca kneeling on the bare wet earth, making
those monstrous and violent contortions, which all who heard him well
knew characterized the devil-worship of the powwows; he would not, he
ought not repeat to Christian ears her invocations to the Evil One to
aid her in the execution of her revenge on the English; nor would he
more particularly describe her diabolical writhings and beatings of
her person. His brethren might {163} easily imagine his emotions at
witnessing them by the sulphureous gleams of lightning, on which,
doubtless, her prayers were sped.”
Sir Philip had gained confidence as he proceeded in his testimony, for
he perceived by the fearful and angry glances that were cast on the
prisoner, that his tale was credited by many of his audience, and he
hoped by all.
The notion that the Indians were the children of the devil was not
confined to the vulgar; and the belief in a familiar intercourse with
evil spirits, now rejected by all but the most ignorant and credulous,
was then universally received.
All had, therefore, listened in respectful silence to Sir Philip’s
extraordinary testimony, and it was too evident that it had the effect
to set the current of feeling and opinion against the prisoner. Her
few friends looked despondent; but for herself, true to the spirit of
her race, she manifested no surprise nor emotion of any kind.
The audience listened eagerly to the magistrate, who read from his
note-book the particulars which had been received from the Indian
informer, and which served to corroborate and illustrate Sir Philip’s
testimony. All the evidence being now before the court, the governor
asked Magawisca “if she had aught to allege in her own defence.”
“Speak humbly, maiden,” whispered Mr. Eliot; “it will grace thy cause
with thy judges.”
“Say,” said Everell, “that you are a stranger to our laws and usages,
and demand some one to speak for you.”
{164}
Magawisca bowed her head to both advisers, in token of acknowledgment
of their interest, and then, raising her eyes to her judges, she said,
“I am your prisoner, and ye may slay me, but I deny your right to
judge me. My people have never passed under your yoke; not one of my
race has ever acknowledged your authority.”
“This excuse will not suffice thee,” answered one of her judges; “thy
pride is like the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream--it standeth on feet
of clay: thy race have been swift witnesses to that sure word of
prophecy, ‘Fear thou not, O Jacob, my servant, for I am with thee, and
I will make a full end of the people whither I have driven thee;’ thy
people! truly, where are they?”
“My people! where are they?” she replied, raising her eyes to Heaven,
and speaking in a voice that sounded like deep-toned music after the
harsh tones addressed to her; “my people are gone to the isles of the
sweet southwest--to those shores that the bark of an enemy can never
touch: think ye I fear to follow them?”
There was a momentary silence throughout the assembly; all seemed, for
an instant, to feel that no human power could touch the spirit of the
captive. Sir Philip whispered to the magistrate who last spoke, “Is it
not awful presumption for this woman thus publicly to glory in her
heathen notions?”
The knight’s prompting had the intended effect. “Has this Pequod
woman,” demanded the magistrate, “never been instructed in the
principles of {165} truth, that she dares thus to hold forth her
heathenisms before us? Dost thou not know, woman,” he continued,
holding up a Bible, “that this book contains the only revelation of a
future world--the only rule for the present life?”
“I know,” she replied, “that it contains thy rule, and it may be
needful for thy mixed race; but the Great Spirit hath written his laws
on the hearts of his original children, and we need it not.”
“She is of Satan’s heritage, and our enemy--a proved conspirator
against the peace of God’s people, and I see not why she should not be
cut off,” said the same gentleman, addressing his brethren in office.
“The testimony,” said another of the magistrates, in a low voice, in
which reason and mildness mingled, and truly indicated the disposition
of the speaker, “the testimony appeareth to me insufficient to give
peace to our consciences in bringing her to extremity. She seems,
after her own manner, to be guided by the truth. Let the governor put
it to her whether she will confess the charges laid against her.”
The governor accordingly appealed to the prisoner. “I neither confess
nor deny aught,” she said. “I stand here like a deer caught in a
thicket, awaiting the arrow of the hunter.”
Sir Philip again whispered to his next neighbour, who, unconsciously
obeying the knight’s crafty suggestions, seemed to have become the
conductor of the prosecution. “She hath the dogged obstinacy of {166}
all the Pequod race,” said he, “and it hath long been my opinion that
we should never have peace in the land till their last root was torn
from the soil.”
“You may be right, brother,” replied the governor, “but it becometh
us, as Christian men, to walk circumspectly in this matter:” then,
opening a note-book, elevating his voice, and turning to the knight,
he added, “I observe that your present testimony, Sir Philip, hath not
kept equal pace with that taken down from your lips on a former
occasion. I have looked over these memoranda with a careful eye, and I
do not perceive even an intimation of your having seen the prisoner
after parting with Hope Leslie.”
The knight had anticipated this scrutiny, and was prepared to answer
it: “I was not upon oath then,” he replied, “and, of course, was not
required to disclose the whole truth; and, besides, it was then, as
your excellency may remember, doubtful whether the prisoner would be
taken, and I was reluctant to magnify, unnecessarily, the
apprehensions of the paternal guardians of the people.”
Though this insinuated compliment was enforced by a deferential bow to
the governor, he passed it over, and replied to the first clause of
Sir Philip’s rejoinder: “You allege, Sir Philip Gardiner, that you
were not then on oath--neither have you been now; we do not require a
member of the congregation to take the oath, unless charged by the
party against whom he testifies. What sayest thou, maiden: shall I
administer the oath to him?”
{167}
“Certainly--require the oath of him,” whispered Everell to Magawisca.
Magawisca bowed her assent to the governor.
Sir Philip would not probably have been so prompt in his false
testimony if he had anticipated being put on his oath; for he was far
enough from having one of those religious consciences that regard
truth as so sacred that no ceremonies can add to its authority. But
now, his word being questioned, it became necessary for him to recede
from it, or to maintain it in the usual legal form; and, without
hesitating, he advanced to the table, raised his hand, and went
through the customary form of the oath. The collectedness and perfect
equanimity of Magawisca, to this moment, had seemed to approach to
indifference to her fate; but the persevering falsehood of Sir Philip,
and the implicit faith in which it was apparently received, now roused
her spirit, and stimulated that principle of retaliation, deeply
planted in the nature of every human being, and rendered a virtue by
savage education. She took a crucifix from her bosom: Everell
whispered, “I pray thee hide that, Magawisca; it will ruin thy cause.”
Magawisca shook her head, and held up the crucifix.
“Put down that idolatrous sign,” said the governor.
“She hath doubtless fallen under popish enchantments,” whispered one
of the deputies; “the French priests have spread their nets throughout
the western forests.”
Magawisca, without heeding the governor’s command, {168} or observing
the stares of astonishment that her seeming hardihood drew upon her,
addressed herself to Sir Philip: “This crucifix,” she said, “thou
didst drop in my prison. If, as thou saidst, it is a charmed figure,
that hath power to keep thee in the straight path of truth, then press
it to thy lips now, as thou didst then, and take back the false words
thou hast spoken against me.”
“What doth she mean?” asked the governor, turning to Sir Philip.
“I know not,” replied the knight, his reddening face and embarrassed
utterance indicating he knew that which he dared not confess; “I know
not; but I should marvel if this heathen savage were permitted, with
impunity, to insult me in your open court. I call upon the honourable
magistrates and deputies,” he continued, with a more assured air, “to
impose silence on this woman, lest her uttered malignities should, in
the minds of the good people here assembled, bring scandal upon one
whose humble claims to fellowship with you you have yourselves
sanctioned.”
The court were for a moment silent; every eye was turned towards
Magawisca, in the hope that she would be suffered to make an
explanation; and the emotions of curiosity coinciding with the
dictates of justice in the bosoms of the sage judges themselves, were
very likely to counteract the favour any of them might have felt for
Sir Philip. Everell rose to appeal to the court to permit Magawisca to
invalidate, as far as she was able, the testimony against her; but
{169} Mr. Eliot laid his hand on his arm, and withheld him. “Stay, my
young friend,” he whispered; “I may speak more acceptably.” Then,
addressing the court, he “prayed the prisoner might be allowed liberty
to speak freely, alleging it was for the wisdom of her judges to
determine what weight was to be attached to her testimony;” and,
glancing his eye at Sir Philip, he added, “The upright need not fear
the light of truth.”
Sir Philip again remonstrated; he asked “why the prisoner should be
permitted farther to offend the consciences of the godly? Surely,” he
said, “none of her judges would enforce her demand; surely, having
just sworn before them in the prescribed form, they would not require
him to repeat his oath on that symbol of Popish faith, that had been
just styled an idolatrous sign.”
“This, I think, Brother Eliot, is not what thou wouldst ask?” said
Governor Winthrop.
“Nay, God forbid that I should bring such scandal upon our land. It is
true, I have known many misguided sons of the Romish Church who would
swear freely on the Holy Word what they dared not verify on the
crucifix; which abundantly showeth that superstition is, with such,
stronger than faith. But we, I think, have no warrant for using such a
test, neither do we need it. The prisoner hath asserted that this
symbol belongeth to Sir Philip Gardiner, and that he did use it to
fortify his word; if so, the credit of his present testimony would be
mainly altered; and it seemeth to me but just that the {170} prisoner
should not only be allowed, but required to state in full that to
which she hath but alluded.”
A whispered consultation of the magistrates followed this proposition,
during which Sir Philip seemed virtually to have changed places with
the prisoner, and appeared as agitated as if he were on the verge of
condemnation: his brow was knit, his lips compressed, and his eye,
whose movement seemed beyond his control, flashed from the bench of
magistrates to Magawisca, and then fixed on Rosa, as if he would fain
have put annihilation in its glance. This unhappy girl still sat where
she had first seated herself; she had taken off her hat, laid it on
her lap, and rested her face upon it.
There was a vehement remonstrance from some of the members of the
court against permitting the prisoner to criminate one who had shown
himself well and zealously affected towards them. And it was urged,
with some plausibility, that the hints she had received of the
advantage to be gained by disqualifying Sir Philip, would tempt her to
contrive some crafty tale that might do him a wrong which they could
not repair. The governor answered this argument by suggesting that
they, being forewarned, were forearmed, and might certainly rely on
their own sagacity to detect any imposture. Of course, no individual
was forward to deny, for himself, such an allegation, and the governor
proceeded to request Magawisca to state the circumstances to which she
alluded as having transpired in the prison. Magawisca now, for the
first time, appeared to hesitate, to deliberate, and to feel
embarrassed.
{171}
“Why dost thou falter, woman?” demanded one of her judges; “no time
shall be allowed now to contrive a false testimony; proceed--speak
quickly!”
“Fear not to speak, Magawisca,” whispered Everell.
“I do fear to speak,” she replied aloud; “but it is such fear as he
hath, who, seeing the prey in the eagle’s talons, is loath to hurl his
arrow, lest, perchance, it should wound the innocent victim.”
“Speak not in parables, Magawisca,” said Governor Winthrop, “but let
us have thy meaning plainly.”
“Then,” replied Magawisca, “let me first crave of thy mercy that that
poor youth (pointing to Rosa) withdraw from this presence.”
All eyes were now directed to Rosa, who, herself conscious that she
had become the object of attention, raised her head, threw back the
rich feminine curls that drooped over her face, and looked wildly
around her. On every side her eye encountered glances of curiosity and
suspicion; her colour deepened, her lips quivered, and, like a
bewildered, terrified child, that instinctively flies to its mother’s
side, she sprang up the steps, grasped Sir Philip’s cloak as if she
would have hidden herself in its folds, and sunk down at his feet. Sir
Philip’s passions had risen to an uncontrollable pitch: “Off! boy,” he
cried, spurning her with his foot. A murmur of “Shame! Cruelty!” ran
through the house. The unhappy girl rose to her feet, pressed both her
hands {172} on her forehead, stared vacantly about, as if her reason
were trembling on the verge of annihilation, then darting forward, she
penetrated through the crowd and disappeared.
There were few persons present so dull as not to have solved
Magawisca’s _parable_ at the instant the clew was given by Rosa’s
involuntary movements. Still, all they had discovered was that the
page was a disguised girl; and a hope darted on Sir Philip, in the
midst of his overwhelming confusion, that, if he could gain time, he
might escape the dangers that menaced him. He rose, and with an
effrontery that with some passed for the innocence he would fain have
counterfeited, said “that circumstances had just transpired in that
honourable presence which no doubt seemed mysterious; that he could
not then explain them without uselessly exposing the unhappy; for the
same reason, namely, to avoid unnecessary suffering, he begged that no
interrogatories might at the present moment be put to the prisoner in
relation to the hints she had thrown out; that, if the governor would
vouchsafe him a private interview, he would, on the sure word of a
Christian man, clear up whatever suspicions had been excited by the
dark intimations of the prisoner, and the very singular conduct of his
page.”
The governor replied, with a severe gravity, ominous to the knight,
“That the circumstances he had alluded to certainly required
explanation; if that should not prove satisfactory, they would demand
a public investigation. In the mean time, he should {173} suspend the
trial of the prisoner, who, though the decision of her case might not
wholly depend on the establishment of Sir Philip’s testimony, was yet,
at present, materially affected by it.
“He expressed a deep regret at the interruption that had occurred, as
it must lead,” he said, “to the suspension of the justice to be
manifested, either in the acquittal or condemnation of the prisoner.
Some of the magistrates being called away from town on the next
morning, he found himself compelled to adjourn the sitting of the
court till one month from the present date.”
“Then,” said Magawisca, for the first time speaking with a tone of
impatience, “then, I pray you, send me to death now. Anything is
better than wearing through another moon in my prison-house,
thinking,” she added, and cast down her eyelids, heavy with tears,
“thinking of that old man--my father. I pray thee,” she continued,
bending low her head, “I pray thee now to set me free. Wait not for
his testimony”--she pointed to Sir Philip: “as well may ye expect the
green herb to spring up in your trodden streets, as the breath of
truth to come from his false lips. Do you wait for him to prove that I
am your enemy? Take my own word--I am your enemy; the sunbeam and the
shadow cannot mingle. The white man cometh--the Indian vanisheth. Can
we grasp in friendship the hand raised to strike us? Nay: and it
matters not whether we fall by the tempest that lays the forest low,
or are cut down alone by the stroke of the axe. I would {174} have
thanked you for life and liberty; for Mononotto’s sake I would have
thanked you; but if ye send me back to that dungeon--the grave of the
living, feeling, thinking soul, where the sun never shineth, where the
stars never rise nor set, where the free breath of Heaven never
enters, where all is darkness without and within”--she pressed her
hand on her breast--“ye will even now condemn me to death, but death
more slow and terrible than your most suffering captive ever endured
from Indian fires and knives.” She paused; passed unresisted without
the little railing that encompassed her, mounted the steps of the
platform, and, advancing to the feet of the governor, threw back her
mantle, and knelt before him. Her mutilated person, unveiled by this
action, appealed to the senses of the spectators. Everell
involuntarily closed his eyes, and uttered a cry of agony, lost,
indeed, in the murmurs of the crowd. She spoke, and all again were as
hushed as death. “Thou didst promise,” she said, addressing herself to
Governor Winthrop, “to my dying mother thou didst promise kindness to
her children. In her name, I demand of thee death or liberty.”
Everell sprang forward, and, clasping his hands, exclaimed, “In the
name of God, liberty!”
The feeling was contagious, and every voice, save her judges, shouted
“Liberty! liberty! Grant the prisoner liberty!”
The governor rose, waved his hand to command silence, and would have
spoken, but his voice failed him; his heart was touched with the
general emotion, {175} and he was fain to turn away to hide tears more
becoming to the man than the magistrate.
The same gentleman who, throughout the trial, had been most forward to
speak, now rose--a man of metal to resist any fire. “Are ye all fools,
and mad!” he cried; “ye that are gathered here together, that, like
the men of old, ye shout ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians?’ For whom
would you stop the course of justice? for one who is charged before
you with having visited every tribe on the shores and in the forests,
to quicken the savages to diabolical revenge; for one who flouts the
faith once delivered to the saints to your very faces! for one who
hath entered into an open league and confederacy with Satan against
you! for one who, as ye have testimony within yourselves, in that her
looks and words do so prevail over your judgments, is presently aided
and abetted by the arch enemy of mankind--I call upon you, my
brethren,” he added, turning to his associates, “and most especially
on you, Governor Winthrop, to put a sudden end to this confusion by
the formal adjournment of our court.”
The governor bowed his assent. “Rise, Magawisca,” he said, in a voice
of gentle authority; “I may not grant thy prayer; but what I can do in
remembrance of my solemn promise to thy dying mother, without leaving
undone higher duty, I will do.”
“And what mortal can do, I will do,” said Everell, whispering the
words into Magawisca’s ear as she rose. The cloud of despondency that
had settled over her fine face for an instant vanished, and she {176}
said aloud, “Everell Fletcher, my dungeon will not be, as I said,
quite dark, for thither I bear the memory of thy kindness.”
Some of the magistrates seemed to regard this slight interchange of
expressions between the captive and her champion as indecorous: the
constables were ordered immediately to perform their duty, by
reconducting their prisoner to jail; and Magawisca was led out,
leaving in the breasts of a great majority of the audience a strange
contrariety of opinion and feelings: their reason, guided by the best
lights they possessed, deciding against her, the voice of nature
crying out for her.
Before the parties separated, the governor arranged a private
interview with Sir Philip Gardiner, to take place at his own house
immediately after dinner.