Silent Struggles Part 17

"There the young girl laid herself down to die--hopeless, speechless, alone! A wolf, half-way up the ravine, gave out a howl. She did not move or open her eyes. It might have torn at her garments and found no resistance. A glittering snake lay coiled on the flat of a rock close by, with its tail erect and its crest in the air, but, more merciful than the men who had driven her forth, it shook the rattles of ten years in gentle warning, uncoiled itself lazily, and, gliding over the moss within half a yard of her feet, crept into its hole. She saw the serpent through her half-shut eyes, without a wish to stir. Why not death in that shape as well as another?

"Then the thoughts died in her brain, and the breath sank to a quiver on her blue lips. A stillness like the grave crept over her. She did not hear it, but a footstep sounded on the side of the ravine. A leap from rock to rock--and an Indian in his war garments stood twenty feet above the young girl, looking down upon her. He turned aside, seized a sapling which bent to his weight like a bow, and swung himself downward upon the rock.

"She did not stir. The lashes lay motionless on her cold cheeks. There was no breath on those lips. The young Indian gathered the pale creature in his arms, and strove to warm her against his own brave heart. But it was of no avail. Then he thought of the flask of fire-water in his bosom, and forced a few drops through those pale lips--a s.h.i.+ver and a deep sigh--the lashes unclose, and the deathly eyes look into his.

"The chief laid her softly down, took a corn-cake from the pouch at his side, and fed her with the crumbs, as if she had been a bird. After the first morsel she grew eager and craving, but the chief was no common savage. He knew that enough would be death, and kept the food in his own grasp, pacifying her with gentle words.

"The daughter of Anna Hutchinson understood his language; her great mournful eyes had opened upon him like those of a wounded doe; now they brightened with grat.i.tude, and tears came stealing up, one by one, till they overflowed.

"That day the maiden rested in the ravine, for the spot seemed like heaven to her then. The chief gathered green moss fleeces from the other rocks and heaped a couch, softer than velvet, upon which she slept sweetly, beneath the shelter of his blanket. All night long the chief sat guarding her slumbers. To him she was a gift from the Great Spirit, who had wrought the sunlight in her golden hair.

"When the morning broke, he took his rifle and shot a bird for her breakfast; for the danger was over, and she might fare sumptuously now.

Striking sparks from his flint, he built a fire in the ravine, and roasted the game, serving it up daintily on the last corn-cake left in his pouch. Then he found a spring gus.h.i.+ng from under a rock, and brought her a draught of sparkling water, in a cup formed of leaves which he made with a single twist of the hand. The maiden smiled upon him in her sweet thankfulness, and, though a brave chief, he forgot the war-path which his tribe was pursuing without a leader. It was a pleasant exchange for the maiden, from the cart wheel and the white man's lash."

"Oh, it was paradise!" murmured Abigail, with tears in her eyes.

"Yes, it was paradise. But a true brave turns resolutely from the wigwam to the council. The young chief could not remain forever in the ravine, for he was the head of a great nation, and the warriors waited for him on the war-path. The next moon, Philip, the young king of the Pomperoags, had given the maiden a name that he loved well--which signified wounded bird, and, with this name, he led her to the royal lodge, with her embroidered robes sweeping the earth, and crowned like a princess."

"And he loved her always, this savage king?" said Abigail, smiling through her tears.

"Yes, he loved her, and her only, all the days of his life. It was a regal marriage, royally fulfilled. For a time Anna Hutchinson's curse slept."

"Oh, me! I grow cold again--that curse!" cried Abigail.

CHAPTER XV.

GIVEN UP TO REVENGE.

"Anna Hutchinson had charged her daughter, that golden-haired young girl, with the consummation of her curse. But where love is, vengeance sleeps. Her husband's tribe was at peace with the whites, and the 'wounded bird' had a child in her lodge; so she put the wrongs of her mother on one side, and lived contentedly in her forest kingdom. Why should she urge her husband's warriors to the red path while they could plant corn and hunt venison unmolested? She did not yet fully understand the persecutions which had driven her mother to death. The tribe that ma.s.sacred her family had been long ago chastised and driven from their hunting-grounds by the valor of her husband--was not this enough?

"No, no; the wail of that curse still troubled the air around her lodge, and its spirit worked slowly but surely in the white settlements. Years wore on; another little child laughed and clapped its hands in the doorway of King Philip; and now, when the kingly husband and wife were in their prime, the whites, who had grown powerful, began to cast rapacious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Pomperoags. It was the old story of the wolf and the lamb--causes of offence were soon found. The colonies arose and armed themselves. King Philip of Mount Hope was a formidable enemy. It took brave men to cope with him. He was a statesman as well as a warrior, wise as a serpent and brave as steel. The most powerful tribes flocked to his alliance, some won to his aid by the eloquence of his wife, others by sympathy and common danger. You have read in your school books how the war against King Philip was conducted.

You have heard old men and women call him a fiend, and speak of him as the companion of fiends."

"Yes, yes, the old women tell us stories of his cruelty."

"And of his wrongs, of his courage, his wonderful magnanimity, his n.o.ble statesmans.h.i.+p--do they tell you nothing of this?"

"No; only of his cruelties."

"And your heart, how does that receive the lie? calmly, or bursting with indignation?"

"My heart aches within me when I hear these legends--aches and burns as if a wound at its core were rudely touched."

"Ah! and there is a wound, a cruel wound, deep in your life. It shall spread and burn through your whole being. Listen: These Englishmen voted themselves munitions of war, raised regiments, linked colony to colony, and made each settlement the rivet of a chain which swept the coast.

Their bravest men took the field--the whole country was astir. These very preparations were a tribute to the heroism they were intended to crush--all this force was brought against the kingly savage. He met it bravely where courage was most likely to prevail; cautiously where prudence promised to husband human life. He seized upon their own tactics, and turned them in his favor; marched, countermarched, and manoeuvred as no general of Europe has ever done. This queen went side by side with him upon the war-path. She was his council, the companion of his danger. There was not a warrior in the tribe who would have refused to lay down his life for her. But why tell you this history? You know how the strong man was betrayed by a traitor, murdered in cold blood, hacked limb from limb. Oh, Great Spirit, hear me, and kindle in her breast the rage that consumes mine! Listen, girl: His wife and son were taken prisoners; the wife of King Philip was dragged out of the forest with her son at her side and the last-born in her arms!

"Again the magnates of the church sat in judgment upon her. A s.h.i.+p lay on the coast, a battered old vessel bound for Bermuda. This brave woman could not be trusted in the country--the s.h.i.+p would bear her and her children into slavery. The wife and children of a king were taken from the broad forest, with its fresh winds and sumptuous leafiness, and condemned to herd with negroes and slaves under a tropic sun. That night, no one could ever tell how, the wife of Philip escaped from her captors, and fled with her youngest child, a little girl scarcely yet three years old. That child inherited its mother's beauty, its father's lofty pride, and the solemn obligations of Anna Hutchinson's curse."

Again Abigail felt the cold chills creeping over her.

"Ah me!" she muttered, "that terrible inheritance--better that the child had died."

"Better that the child had died than avenge such wrongs--a grandmother's butchery, a father's murder, stripes and slavery for the mother, chains, hard labor, brutal blows for the young boy--better that she had died!

Wretched girl, unsay these words!"

The anger in his face was terrible, his hand sprung upwards as if to smite her. She shrunk away into the shadow of the pine, thinking thus to escape his fiery glances.

"Step into the light again, that your face may unsay the cowardly words of your tongue!"

"I dare not--you terrify me. Why tell this horrible story here? I am young, helpless, afraid sometimes, and talk like this takes away my strength. I cannot think of this dying woman's curse without dread. The judgment of G.o.d must follow it, and the helpless child, with whom its power was left--but perhaps she died."

"And if she had, was not the son left, the Bermuda slave, with King Philip's blood burning beneath the lash, to remind him of the legacy of hate left against her people by his martyred ancestress?"

"It was an evil inheritance from a woman who wrought much trouble in the church, though the atonement was enough to wring one's heart. This Anna Hutchinson, who died under the tomahawk, was a heretic--a free thinker, who would not forgive her enemies as Christ did, but died hurling curses back upon the people who perhaps only sought to win her once more to the true faith."

"Hold!" shouted the chief, seizing her by the arm and dragging her into the moonlight; "hold, before the word withers your tongue--Anna Hutchinson was your _grandmother_."

Abigail Williams cried out like a doe when the arrow pierces it.

"The woman who sleeps there is her eldest daughter, the wife of King Philip!"

"And I--I," whispered the poor creature--writhing as if in pain.

"You are the child."

"The child to whom the power of her curse descends! oh, my G.o.d, have mercy--have mercy!"

"Mahaska."

"I hear, oh heavens, I feel that the name was mine!"

"Mahaska, listen: The blood of that brave woman--of that most kingly of kings--both betrayed, both murdered--beats in our veins."

Abigail was cowering upon the ground at his feet; she had no strength to stand, but as he spoke she lifted her face with a dull, hopeless look, which contracted her features into ice.

"Who is it that speaks? who is it that hurls this terrible birthright at me?"

"It is the son of King Philip, the runaway slave, the man whose boyhood has been crucified beneath the driver's lash, while his people were scattered abroad--sold, shot, plundered like mad dogs and wolves.

Mahaska, it is your brother!"

Up to this time the girl had been palsied; now a flash of fire kindled through and through her, an intolerable weight seemed flung from her brain, she stood up and held forth her arms.

The young savage took her hands with a grasp of iron, but he did not embrace her.