In this frightful scene of slaughter and ferocity, the princ.i.p.al personages of our legend were not idle. By a tacit but intelligent understanding, the stranger with Content and his son placed themselves back to back, and struggled manfully against their luckless fortune. The former showed himself no soldier of parade; for, knowing the uselessness of orders when each one fought for life, he dealt out powerful blows in silence. His example was n.o.bly emulated by Content; and young Mark moved limb and muscle with the vigorous activity of his age. A first onset of the enemy was repelled, and for a moment there was a faint prospect of escape. At the suggestion of the stranger, the three moved, in their order, towards the dwelling, with the intention of trusting to their personal activity when released from the throng. But at this luckless instant, when hope was beginning to a.s.sume the air of probability, a chief came stalking through the horrible melee, seeking on each side some victim for his uplifted axe. A crowd of the inferior herd pressed at his heels, and a first glance told the a.s.sailed that the decisive moment had come.

At the sight of so many of their hated enemies still living, and capable of suffering, a common and triumphant shout burst from the lips of the Indians. Their leader, like one superior to the more vulgar emotions of his followers, alone approached in silence. As the band opened and divided to encircle the victims, chance brought him, face to face, with Mark. Like his foe, the Indian warrior was still in the freshness and vigor of young manhood. In stature, years and agility, the antagonists seemed equal; and, as the followers of the chief threw themselves on the stranger and Content, like men who knew their leader needed no aid, there was every appearance of a fierce and doubtful struggle. But, while neither of the combatants showed any desire to avoid the contest, neither was in haste to give the commencing blow. A painter, or rather sculptor, would have seized the att.i.tudes of these young combatants for a rich exhibition of the power of his art.

Mark, like most of his friends, had cast aside all superfluous vestments ere he approached the scene of strife. The upper part of his body was naked to the shirt, and even this had been torn asunder by the rude encounters through which he had already pa.s.sed. The whole of his full and heaving chest was bare, exposing the white skin and blue veins of one whose fathers had come from towards the rising sun. His swelling form rested on a leg that seemed planted in defiance, while the other was thrown in front, like a lever, to control the expected movements. His arms were extended to the rear, the hands grasping the barrel of a musket, which threatened death to all who should come within its sweep. The head, covered with the short, curling, yellow hair of his Saxon lineage, was a little advanced above the left shoulder, and seemed placed in a manner to preserve the equipoise of the whole frame. The brow was flushed, the lips compressed and resolute, the veins of the neck and temples swollen nearly to bursting, and the eyes contracted, but of a gaze that bespoke equally the feelings of desperate determination and of entranced surprise.

On the other hand, the Indian warrior was a man still more likely to be remarked. The habits of his people had brought him, as usual, into the field, with naked limbs and nearly uncovered body. The position of his frame was that of one prepared to leap; and it would have been a comparison tolerated by the license of poetry, to have likened his straight and agile form to the semblance of a crouching panther. The projecting leg sustained the body, bending under its load more with the free play of muscle and sinew than from any weight, while the slightly stooping head was a little advanced beyond the perpendicular. One hand was clenched on the helve of an axe, that lay in a line with the right thigh while the other was placed, with a firm gripe, on the buck-horn handle of a knife, that was still sheathed at his girdle. The expression of the face was earnest, severe, and perhaps a little fierce, and yet the whole was tempered by the immovable and dignified calm of a chief of high qualities.

The eye, however, was gazing and riveted; and, like that of the youth whose life he threatened, it appeared singularly contracted with wonder.

The momentary pause that succeeded the movement by which the two antagonists threw themselves into these fine att.i.tudes, was full of meaning. Neither spoke, neither permitted play of muscle, neither even seemed to breathe. The delay was not like that of preparation, for each stood ready for his deadly effort, nor would it have been possible to trace in the compressed energy of the countenance of Mark, or in the lofty and more practised bearing of the front and eye of the Indian, any thing like wavering of purpose. An emotion foreign to the scene appeared to possess them both, each active frame unconsciously accommodating itself to the b.l.o.o.d.y business of the hour, while the inscrutable agency of the mind held them, for a brief interval, in check.

A yell of death from the mouth of a savage who was beaten to the very feet of his chief by a blow of the stranger, and an encouraging shout from the lips of the latter, broke the short trance. The knees of the chief bent still lower, the head of the tomahawk was a little raised, the blade of the knife was seen glittering from its sheath, and the but of Mark"s musket had receded to the utmost tension of his sinews, when a shriek and a yell, different from any before heard that day, sounded near. At the same moment, the blows of both the combatants were suspended, though by the agency of very different degrees of force. Mark felt the arms of one cast around his limbs, with a power sufficient to embarra.s.s, though not to subdue him, while the well-known voice of Whittal Ring sounded in his ears--

"Murder the lying and hungry Pale-faces! They leave us no food but air--no drink but water!"

On the other hand, when the chief turned in anger, to strike the daring one who presumed to arrest his arm, he saw at his feet the kneeling figure, the uplifted hands, and agonized features, of Martha. Averting the blow that a follower already aimed at the life of the suppliant, he spoke rapidly in his own language, and pointed to the struggling Mark. The nearest Indians cast themselves on the already half-captured youth. A whoop brought a hundred more to the spot, and then a calm as sudden, and almost as fearful, as the previous tumult, prevailed in the orchard. It was succeeded by the long-drawn, frightful, and yet meaning yell by which the American warrior proclaims his victory.

With the end of the tumult in the orchard, the sounds of strife ceased in all the valley. Though conscious of the success of their enemies, the men in the fort saw the certainty of destruction, not only to themselves, but to those feeble ones whom they should be compelled to leave without a sufficient defence, were they to attempt a sortie to that distance from their works. They were therefore compelled to remain pa.s.sive and grave spectators of an evil they had not the means to avert.

Chapter XXIV.

"Were such things here, as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten of the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?"

Macbeth.

An hour later presented a different scene. Bands of the enemy, that in civilized warfare would be called parties of observation, lingered in the skirts of the forest nearest to the village; and the settlers still stood to their arms, posted among the buildings, or maintaining their array at the foot of the palisadoes. Though the toil of securing the valuables continued, it was evident that, as the first terrors of alarm had disappeared, the owners of the hamlet began to regain some a.s.surance in their ability to make it good against their enemies. Even the women were now seen moving through its gra.s.sy street with greater seeming confidence, and there was a regularity in the air of the armed men, which denoted a determination that was calculated to impose on their wild and undisciplined a.s.sailants.

But the dwelling, the out-buildings, and all the implements of domestic comfort, which had so lately contributed to the ease of the Heathcotes, were completely in the possession of the Indians. The open shutters and doors, the scattered and half-destroyed furniture, the air of devastation and waste, and the general abandonment of all interest in the protection of the property, proclaimed the licentious disorder of a successful a.s.sault. Still the work of destruction and plunder did not go on.

Although here and there might be seen some warrior, decorated, according to the humors of his savage taste, with the personal effects of the former inmates of the building, every hand had been checked, and the furious tempers of the conquerors had been quieted, seemingly by the agency of some unseen and extraordinary authority. The men, who so lately had been moved by the fiercest pa.s.sions of our nature, were suddenly restrained if not appeased; and, instead of that exulting indulgence of vengeance which commonly accompanies an Indian triumph, the warriors stalked about the buildings and through the adjacent grounds, in a silence which, though gloomy and sullen, was marked by their characteristic submission to events.

The princ.i.p.al leaders of the inroad, and all the surviving sufferers by the defeat, were a.s.sembled in the piazza of the dwelling. Ruth, pale, sorrowing, and mourning for others rather than for herself, stood a little apart, attended by Martha and the young a.s.sistant, whose luckless fortune it was to be found at her post, on this eventful day. Content, the stranger, and Mark, were near, subdued and bound, the sole survivors of all that band they had so recently led into the conflict. The gray hairs and bodily infirmities of the Puritan spared him the same degradation. The only other being present, of European origin, was Whittal Ring. The innocent stalked slowly among the prisoners, sometimes permitting ancient recollections and sympathies to come over his dull intellect, but oftener taunting the unfortunate with the injustice of their race, and with the wrongs of his adopted people.

The chiefs of the successful party stood in the centre, apparently engaged in some grave deliberation. As they were few in number, it was evident that the council only included men of the highest importance. Chiefs of inferior rank, but of great names in the limited renown of those simple tribes, conversed in knots among the trees, or paced the court at a respectful distance from the consultation of their superiors.

The least practised eye could not mistake the person of him on whom the greatest weight of authority had fallen. The turbaned warrior, already introduced in these pages, occupied the centre of the group, in the calm and dignified att.i.tude of an Indian who hearkens to or who utters advice.

His musket was borne by one who stood in waiting, while the knife and axe were returned to his girdle He had thrown a light blanket, or it might be better termed a robe of scarlet cloth, over his left shoulder, whence it gracefully fell in folds, leaving the whole of the right arm free, and most of his ample chest exposed to view. From beneath this mantle, blood fell slowly in drops, dying the floor on which he stood. The countenance of this warrior was grave, though there was a quickness in the movements of an ever-restless eye, that denoted great mental activity, no less than the disquiet of suspicion. One skilled in physiognomy might too have thought, that a shade of suppressed discontent was struggling with the self-command of habits that had become part of the nature of the individual.

The two companions nearest this chief were, like himself, men past the middle age, and of mien and expression that were similar, though less strikingly marked; neither showing those signs of displeasure, which occasionally shot from organs that, in spite of a mind so trained and so despotic, could not always restrain their glittering brightness. One was speaking, and by his glance, it was evident that the subject of his discourse was the fourth and last of their number, who had placed himself in a position that prevented his being an auditor of what was said.

In the person of the latter chief, the reader will recognise the youth who had confronted Mark, and whose rapid movement on the flank of Dudley had first driven the Colonists from the meadows. The eloquent expression of limb, the tension of sinews, and the compression of muscles, as last exhibited, were now gone. They had given place to the peculiar repose that distinguishes the Indian warrior in his moments of inaction, quite as much as it marks the manner of one schooled in the forms of more polished life.

With one hand he leaned lightly on a musket, while from the wrist of the other, which hung loose at his side, depended, by a thong of deer"s sinew, a tomahawk from which fell drops of human blood. His person bore no other covering than that in which he had fought, and, unlike his more aged companion in authority, his body had escaped without a wound.

In form and in features, this young warrior might be deemed a model of the excellence of Indian manhood. The limbs were full, round, faultlessly straight, and distinguished by an appearance of extreme activity, without being equally remarkable for muscle. In the latter particular, in the upright att.i.tude, and in the distant and n.o.ble gaze which so often elevated his front, there was a close affinity to the statue of the Pythian Apollo; while in the full, though slightly effeminate chest, there was an equal resemblance to that look of animal indulgence, which is to be traced in the severe representations of Bacchus. This resemblance however to a Deity that is little apt to awaken lofty sentiments in the spectator, was not displeasing, since it in some measure relieved the sternness of an eye that penetrated like the glance of the eagle, and that might otherwise have left an impression of too little sympathy with the familiar weaknesses of humanity. Still the young chief was less to be remarked by this peculiar fullness of chest, the fruit of intervals of inaction, constant indulgence of the first wants of nature, and a total exemption from toil, than most of those, who either counselled in secret near, or paced the grounds about the building. In him, it was rather a point to be admired, than a blemish; for it seemed to say, that notwithstanding the evidences of austerity which custom, and perhaps character, as well as rank, had gathered in his air, there was a heart beneath that might be touched by the charities of humanity. On the present occasion, the glances of his roving eye, though searching and full of meaning, were evidently weakened by an expression that betrayed a strange and unwonted confusion of mind.

The conference of the three was ended, and the warrior with a turbaned head advanced towards his captives, with the step of a man whose mind had come to a decision. As the dreaded chief drew near, Whittal retired, stealing to the side of the younger warrior, in a manner that denoted greater familiarity and perhaps greater confidence. A sudden thought lighted the countenance of the latter. He led the innocent to the extremity of the piazza, spoke low and earnestly, pointing to the forest, and when he saw that his messenger was already crossing the fields, at the top of his speed, he moved, with calm dignity, into the centre of the group, taking his station so near his friend, that the folds of the scarlet blanket brushed his elbows Until this movement, the silence was not broken. When the great chief felt the pa.s.sage of the other, he glanced a look of hesitation at his friends, but resuming his former air of composure, he spoke:

"Man of many winters," he commenced, in an English that was quite intelligible, while it betrayed a difficulty of speech we shall not attempt imitating, "why hath the Great Spirit made thy race like hungry wolves?--why hath a Pale-face the stomach of a buzzard, the throat of a hound, and the heart of a deer? Thou hast seen many meltings of the snow: thou rememberest the young tree a sapling. Tell me; why is the mind of a Yengeese so big, that it must hold all that lies between the rising and the setting sun? Speak, for we would know the reason, why arms so long are found on so little bodies?"

The events of that day had been of a nature to awaken all the latent energies of the Puritan. He had lifted up his spirit, with the morning, in the customary warmth with which he ever hailed the Sabbath; the excitement of the a.s.sault had found him sustained above most earthly calamities, and while it quickened feelings that can never become extinct in one who has been familiar with martial usages, it left him, stern in his manhood, and exalted in his sentiments of submission and endurance.

Under such influences, he answered with an austerity that equalled the gravity of the Indian.

"The Lord hath delivered us into the bonds of the heathen," he said, "and yet his name shall be blessed beneath my roof! Out of evil shall come good; and from this triumph of the ignorant shall proceed an everlasting victory!"

The chief gazed intently at the speaker, whose attenuated frame, venerable face, and long locks, aided by the hectic of enthusiasm that played beneath a glazed and deep-set eye, imparted a character that seemed to rise superior to human weakness. Bending his head in superst.i.tious reverence, he turned gravely to those who, appearing to possess more of the world in their natures, were more fitting subjects for the designs he meditated.

"The mind of my father is strong, but his body is like a branch of the scorched hemlock!" was the pithy declaration with which he prefaced his next remark. "Why is this?" he continued, looking severely at the three who had so lately been opposed to him in deadly contest. "Here are men with skins like the blossom of the dog-wood, and yet their hands are so dark that I cannot see them!"

"They have been blackened by toil, beneath a burning sun," returned Content, who knew how to discourse in the figurative language of the people in whose power he found himself. "We have labored, that our women and children might eat."

"No--the blood of red men hath changed their color."

"We have taken up the hatchet, that the land which the Great Spirit hath given might still be ours, and that our scalps might not be blown about in the smoke of a wigwam. Would a Narragansett hide his arms, and tie up his hands, with the war-whoop ringing in his ears?"

When allusion was made to the ownership of the valley, the blood rushed into the cheek of the warrior in such a flood, that it it deepened even the natural swarthy hue; but, clenching the handle of his axe convulsively, he continued to listen, like one accustomed to entire self-command.

"What a red man does may be seen," he answered, pointing with a grim smile towards the orchard; exposing, by the movement of the blanket, as he raised his arm, two of the reeking trophies of victory attached to his belt. "Our ears are open very wide. We listen, to hear in what manner the hunting-grounds of the Indian have become the plowed fields of the Yengeese. Now let my wise men hearken, that they may grow more cunning, as the snows settle on their heads. The pale-men have a secret to make the black seem white!"

"Narragansett----"

"Wampanoag!" interrupted the chief, "with the lofty air with which an Indian identifies himself with the glory of his people--then glancing a milder look at the young warrior at his elbow, he added, hastily, and in the tone of a courtier: ""tis very good--Narragansett, or Wampanoag--Wampanoag or Narragansett. The red men are brothers and friends. They have broken down the fences between their hunting-grounds, and they have cleared the paths, between their villages, of briars. What have you to say to the Narragansett?--he has not yet shut his ear."

"Wampanoag, if such be thy tribe," resumed Content, "thou shalt hear that which my conscience teacheth is language to be uttered. The G.o.d of an Englishman is the G.o.d of men of all ranks, and of all time." His listeners shook their heads doubtingly, with the exception of the youngest chief, whose eye never varied its direction while the other spoke, each word appearing to enter deep within the recesses of his mind. "In defiance of these signs of blasphemy, do I still proclaim the power of him I worship!"

Content continued; "My G.o.d is thy G.o.d; and he now looketh equally on the deeds, and searcheth, with inscrutable knowledge, into, the hearts of both. This earth is his footstool; yonder heaven his throne! I pretend not to enter into his sacred mysteries, or to proclaim the reason why one-half of his fair work hath been so long left in that slough of ignorance and heathenish abomination in which my fathers found it; why these hills never before echoed the songs of praise or why the valleys have been so long mute. These are truths hid in the secret designs of his sacred purpose, and they may not be known, until the last fulfilment. But a great and righteous spirit hath led hither men, filled with the love of truth and pregnant with the designs of a heavily-burthened faith, inasmuch as their longings are for things pure, while the consciousness of their transgressions bends them in deep humility to the dust. Thou bringest against us the charge of coveting thy lands, and of bearing minds filled with the corruption of riches This cometh of ignorance of that which hath been abandoned, in order that the spirit of the G.o.dly might hold fast to the truth. When the Yengeese came into this wilderness, he left behind him all that can delight the eye, please the senses, and feed the longing of the human heart, in the country of his fathers: for fair as is the work of the Lord in other lands, there is none that is so excellent as that from which these pilgrims in the wilderness have departed. In that favored isle, the earth groaneth with the abundance of its products; the odors of its sweet savors salute the nostrils, and the eye is never wearied in gazing at its loveliness.--No: the men of the Pale-faces have deserted home, and all that sweeteneth life, that they might serve G.o.d; and not at the instigations of craving minds, or of evil vanities!"

Content paused, for as he grew warm with the spirit by which he was animated, he had insensibly strayed from the closer points of his subject.

His conquerors maintained the decorous gravity with which an Indian always listens to the speech of another, until he had ended; and then the Great Chief, or Wampanoag, as he had proclaimed himself to be, laid a finger lightly on the shoulder of his prisoner, as he demanded--

"Why have the people of the Yengeese lost themselves on a blind path? If the country they have left is pleasant, cannot their G.o.d hear then from the wigwams of their fathers? See--if our trees are but bushes, leave them to the red man he will find room beneath their branches to lie in the shade. If our rivers are small, it is because the Indians are little. If the hills are low and the valleys narrow, the legs of my people are weary with much hunting, and they will journey among them the easier. Now what the Great Spirit hath made for a red man, a red man should keep. They whose skins are like the light of the morning should go back towards the rising sun, out of which they have come to do us wrong."

The chief spoke calmly, but it was like a man much accustomed to deal in the subtleties of controversy, according to the fashion of the people to whom he belonged.

"G.o.d hath otherwise decreed," said Content. "He hath led his servants. .h.i.ther, that the incense of praise may arise from the wilderness."

"Your Spirit is a wicked Spirit. Your ears have been cheated. The counsel that told your young men to come so far, was not spoken in the voice of the Manitou. It came from the tongue of one that loves to see game scarce, and the squaws hungry. Go--you follow the mocker, or your hands would not be so dark."

"I know not what injury may have been done the Wampanoags, by men of wicked minds, for some such there are, even in the dwellings of the well-disposed; but wrong to any hath never come from those that dwell within my doors. For these lands, a price hath been paid; and what is now seen of abundance in the valley, hath been wrought by much labor. Thou art a Wampanoag, and dost know that the hunting-grounds of thy tribe have been held sacred by my people. Are not the fences standing, which their hands placed, that not even the hoof of colt should trample the corn? and when was it known that the Indian came for justice against the trespa.s.sing ox, and did not find it?"

"The moose doth not taste the gra.s.s at the root; he liveth on the tree!

He doth not stoop to feed on that which he treadeth under foot! Does the hawk look for the musketoe? His eye is too big. He can see a bird.

Go--when the deer have been killed the Wampanoags will break down the fence with their own hands. The arm of a hungry man is strong. A cunning Pale-face hath made that fence--it shutteth out the colt, and it shutteth in the Indian But the mind of a warrior is too big; it will not be kept at gra.s.s with the ox."

A low but expressive murmur of satisfaction from the mouths of his grim companions, succeeded the reply of the chief.