Читать книгу The Pilgrims of New England - Mrs. Webb-Peploe - Страница 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At present, this prospect was not immediate, for Oriana was only in her fourteenth year; but the Sachem was resolved that she should be worthy of the hand of the greatest warriors of her tribe, and he took pains to have her instructed in every art that was considered valuable or ornamental to an Indian female. Already she could perform the most elaborate patterns in native embroidery on her father's pouches and moccasins; and her own garments were also delicately and fancifully adorned in the same manner, with feathers, and shells, and colored grasses. Besides this accomplishment, her skill in Indian cookery was very great; and she could also use a bow and arrows, or cast a light javelin, or swim across a rapid river, with a grace and activity that delighted her proud father.

Oriana, too, was gentle—as gentle as her mother, and her influence over Tisquantum bade fair to equal that which his much-cherished and deeply regretted wife had exercised over him. That influence had ever been employed in the cause of mercy! and many an enemy, and many a subject, had lived to bless the name of the Squaw-Sachem Oriana, when she had quelled the wrath of the offended Chief, and turned aside his intended vengeance.

It was to the inner apartment of his spacious lodge, where his daughter and her attendants were busily engaged in their domestic occupations, that Henrich bad been led. His arms were still tied behind his back, and the end of the rope that bound them was secured to a post in the wall. The Indian who, at his chief's command, conducted him thither, briefly informed Oriana that he was a prisoner, and desired her women to look to his security: and then he left the captive to his strange and inquisitive jailers.

When Tisquantum had emptied his long pipe, he bethought himself of the young captive's position, and proceeded to his daughter's apartment to give orders for his hospitable entertainment that evening, and his safe lodgment for the night—that night which he was resolved should be his last. As he approached the thick curtain of deer-skins that hung over the aperture between the two apartments, he thought he heard a strange sweet voice speaking the Indian language with a foreign accent; and hastily drawing aside the heavy drapery, he was astonished to see his prisoner, and intended victim, liberated from the cord that had bound him, and reclining on the furs and cushions that formed Oriana's usual resting-place; while his gentle Indian child knelt beside him, and offered him the food of which he was so much in need. Henrich was gratefully thanking her; and as the Sachem entered, he heard him exclaim in mournful accents—

But why do you thus so kindly treat me? It were better to let me die of hunger and fatigue; for I know that to-morrow my blood is to be shed: the cold knife is to pierce my heart.'

'It shall not be,' replied Oriana, fervently. 'I have said that I will save you.' And then she raised her sparkling eyes as she heard her father's entrance; and springing on her feet, she darted forward, and caught his arm.

'Father!' she cried—and now she spoke so rapidly and energetically, that Henrich could only guess the purport of her words, and read it in her sweet expressive countenance—'Father! do not slay the white boy. He says that he is doomed to die because his father caused my brother's death. But surely Tekoa's generous spirit does not ask the blood of a child. My brother is now happy in the great hunting grounds where our fathers dwell. He feels no wrath against his slayer's son: he never would have sought revenge against an innocent boy. Give me the captive, O my father! and let him grow up in our lodge, and be to me a playfellow and a brother.'

Tisquantum gazed at his child in wonder, and his countenance softened. She saw that he was moved and hastily turning from him, she approached Henrich, who had risen from the couch, and now stood an earnest spectator of the scene, on the issue of which his life or death, humanly speaking, depended. She took his band, and led him to her father, and again pleaded earnestly and passionately for his life; while the touching expression of his own deep blue eyes, and the beauty of his fair young face, added greatly to the power of her appeal.

I have a little sister at home,' said Henrich—and the soft Indian language sounded sweetly from his foreign lips—'and she will weep for me as Oriana has wept for her brother. Let me return to Patupet, and she and my parents will bless you.'

At the mention of his parents, Tisquantum's brow grew dark again. He thought of Rodolph as the destroyer of his son; and he turned away from the two youthful suppliants, whose silent eloquence he felt he could not long resist.

'Your father killed my young Tekoa,' he replied. 'His fire weapon quenched the light of my lodge, and took from me the support of my old age. Should I have pity on his son?'

'But let him dwell in our lodge, and fill my brother's vacant place!' exclaimed Oriana. 'Do not send him back to the white men; and his father, and his mother, and his little sister will still weep for him, and believe him dead.'

The same idea had crossed Tisquantum's breast. He looked again at the boy, and thought how much Oriana's life would be cheered by such a companion. His desire of revenge on Rodolph would also be gratified by detaining his child, and bringing him up as an Indian, so long as his parents believed that he had met with a bloody death; and, possibly, he felt a time might come when the possession of an English captive might prove advantageous to himself and his tribe. All fear of the boy's escaping to his friends was removed from his mind; for he was about to retire from that part of the country to a wild district far to the west, and to join his allies, the Pequodees, in a hunting expedition to some distant prairies. The portion of his tribe over which he was Sachem, or chief, was willing to accompany him; and he had no intention of returning again to the neighborhood of the English intruders, who, he clearly foresaw, would ere long make themselves masters of the soil; and who had already secured to themselves such powerful allies in the Wampanoges—the enemies and rivals of the Nausetts.

Tisquantum weighed all these considerations in his mind; and he resolved to spare the life of his young captive. But he would not at once announce that he had relented from his bloody purpose, and yielded to his child's solicitations. He therefore maintained the severe gravity that usually marked his countenance, and replied—

'But what can the white boy do, that he should fill the place of an Indian chieftain's son? Can he cast the spear, or draw the bow, or wrestle with our brave youths?

Reviving hope had filled the heart of Henrich with courage, and he looked boldly up into the Sachem's face, and merely answered, 'Try me.'

The brevity and the calmness of the reply pleased the red Chief, and he determined to take him at his word.

'I will,' he said. 'To-morrow you shall show what skill you possess, and your fate shall depend on your success. But how have you learned anything of Indian sports, or of the Indian tongue?'

'I have been much in Mooanam's lodge, and have played with the youths of his village,' replied Henrich; 'and the Sachem was well pleased to see me use a bow and arrow in his woods. And from him, and my young companions, I learnt to speak their tongue.'

'It is good,' said the old Chief, thoughtfully. Then, fixing his penetrating eyes on Henrich again, he hastily inquired: 'And can you use the fire-breathing weapons of your countrymen? and can you teach me to make them?

'I can use them,' answered the boy; 'but I cannot make them. They come from my father's land, beyond the great sea. But,' he added—while a stronger hope of life and liberty beamed in his bright blue eye and flushing face—'send me back to my countrymen, and they will give you muskets for my ransom.'

'No, no!' said the Sachem: and the dark cloud again passed over his countenance. 'Never will I restore you to your father, till he can give me back my son. You shall live, if you can use our Indian weapons; but you shall live and die as an Indian.'

He turned and left the apartment; and the heart of Henrich sank within him. Was he then taken for ever from his parents, and his brother, and sister? Should he behold his friends, and his teacher, no more? And must he dwell with savages, and lead a savage life? Death, he thought, would be preferable to such a lot; and he half resolved to conceal his skill and dexterity in Indian exercises, that Tisquantum might cast him off and slay him, as unfit to dwell among his tribe. But hope soon revived; and his trust in the providential mercy of God restored his spirits, and enabled him even to look upon a lengthened captivity among the red men with composure. Plans for escaping out of their hands, and making his way back to the settlement, filled his mind; and a short residence among the wild men even appeared to offer some attraction to his enterprising spirit. So he turned to Oriana, who stood gazing on his changing and expressive countenance with the deepest interest, and again resumed the conversation which had been interrupted by the entrance of the Chief.

Many questions did those young strangers ask each other relative to their respective homes, and native customs; and Henrich learnt, with much dismay, that the Nausetts under Tisquantum's rule were so soon to change their place of residence. His hopes of escape became less strong, but they were not destroyed: and when he was summoned to pass the night in the Sachem's apartment, he was able to lift up his heart to God in prayer, and to lie down to sleep on the rude couch prepared for him, with a calm trust in His Almighty power and goodness, and a hope that He would see fit to shorten his trials, and restore him to his friends.

The Chief watched him as he knelt in prayer; and when he rose, and prepared to lie down to sleep, he abruptly asked him why he had thus remained on his knees so long?

'I was praying to my God to protect me,' answered Henrich; and a tear rose to his eye, as he remembered how he had knelt every evening with his own beloved family; and thought how his absence, and their probable belief in his death, would sadden the act of worship that would that night be performed in his father's house.

'Do you pray to the Great Spirit?' asked Tisquantum.

'I do!' replied the young Christian. 'I pray to the Great Spirit, who is the God and Father of all men; and I pray to his Son Jesus Christ, who is the friend and Savior of all who love him.'

'It is good!' said the Chief. 'We know the Great Spirit; but we know nothing of the other gods of the white men. Sleep now; for your strength and activity will be tried to-morrow.' And Henrich lay down, and slept long and peacefully.

He was awakened the next morning by the gentle voice of Oriana, who stood beside him, and said, 'You must rise now, and eat with me, before you go out to try your strength and skill. Come to my apartment.'

Henrich opened his eyes, and gazed around him in wonder. But quickly the whole sad reality of his situation came over him, and he felt that he must nerve himself for the coming trial. Soon he followed Oriana to her inner room, where a slight Indian repast of maize and fruits had been prepared by the young Squaw-Sachem and her attendants. Tisquantum had left the lodge, and was now occupied in preparing a spot for the exercise of the white boy's skill. At his side stood Coubitant, silent and gloomy. His indignation at the Chief's merciful intentions towards the intended victim was great; and strongly had he urged him to the immediate slaughter of the captive. But Tisquantum was not to be lightly moved, either to good or evil. He had said that the boy should live, if he proved himself worthy to bear Indian arms, and all the cruel suggestions and arguments that Coubitant could bring forward only made him more resolved to keep his word.

The young savage then forbore to speak, for he saw that it was useless, and he feared to displease his Chief, whose favor was the highest object of his ambition. Since the untimely death of his son, Coubitant had been constantly his companion and attendant, until he had been left near the English settlement to carry out his schemes of revenge. His success in this enterprise a raised him still higher in Tisquantum's estimation; and visions of becoming the son-in-law of the Chief, and eventually succeeding him in his office, already floated in the brain of Coubitant. In a few years, Oriana's hand would be given to some fortunate warrior; and who could have so strong a claim to it as the man who had risked his own life to procure vengeance for her brother's death? Therefore Coubitant held his peace, and checked the expression of his deadly and malignant feelings towards the young prisoner.

Soon Henrich was summoned to the ground where his fate was to be decided, and he was directed to try his powers with several Indian boys of his own age. In shooting with the bow and arrow, he could not, by any means, rival their skill and accuracy of aim; but in casting the spear, and wielding the tomahawk, he showed himself their equal; and when he was made to wrestle with his swarthy and half-naked competitors, the superior height and muscular powers of the British lad enabled him to gain the victory in almost every instance.

Tisquantum was satisfied. He pronounced him worthy to live; and, notwithstanding the opposition of Coubitant, which was once more cautiously manifested, he presented Henrich with the arms that he knew so well how to use, and informed him that he should henceforth dwell in his lodge among his braves, and should no more inhabit the apartments of the women. To a young and generous mind success and approbation are always grateful; and Henrich's eye kindled, and his cheek burned, as he listened to the praises of the Chief, and felt that he owed his life, under Providence, to his own efforts. And when his little friend Oriana came bounding up to him, with joy and exultation in her intelligent countenance, and playfully flung a wreath of flowers across his shoulders in token of victory, he felt that even among these children of the wilderness—these dreaded Nausett Indians—he could find something to love.

In Coubitant, he instinctively felt that he had also something to dread; but the savage tried to conceal his feeling and even to please the Chief and Oriana, by pretending an interest in their young favorite, which for a long time deceived them as to his real sentiments. The bustle of preparation for the intended removal of the encampment began that day—for Tisquantum was now more eager than ever to get beyond the reach of the settlers—and before sunset all was ready. The next morning the march commenced at daybreak, and continued for many days uninterruptedly, until the Chief and his followers reached the residence of his Pequodee allies, when he considered himself safe from pursuit, even if the settlers should attempt it. He therefore halted his party, and took up his abode among his friends, to wait until they were prepared to set out on their hunting expedition to the western prairies. A period of repose was also very needful for the women and children, for the march had been a most fatiguing one. Not only had the Sachem dreaded the pursuit of the injured settlers, and therefore hurried his party to their utmost speed; but the country through which they had traveled was inhabited by the Narragansett tribe, the ancient and hereditary foes of the Pequodees. It was, consequently, desirable for the Nausetts, as allies of the latter, to spend as little time as possible in the territories of their enemies; and little rest ad been permitted to the travelers until they had passed the boundary of the friendly Pequodees.