“It would shame me, Everell,” replied his mother, embracing him with a feeling that the proudest drawing room belle might have envied, “to take such flattery from any lips but thine.”
“Oh do not call it flattery, mother – look, Magawisca – for heaven’s sake cheer up – look, would you know mother’s eye? just turn it, mother, one minute from that road – and her pale cheek too – with this rich colour on it?”
“Alas! alas!” replied Magawisca, glancing her eyes at Mrs Fletcher, and then as if heart-struck, withdrawing them, “how soon the flush of the setting sun fades from the evening cloud.”
“Oh Magawisca,” said Everell impatiently,” why are you so dismal? your voice is too sweet for a bird of ill-omen. I shall begin to think as Jennet says – though Jennet is no textbook for me – I shall begin to think old Nelema has really bewitched you.”
“You call me a bird of ill-omen,” replied Magawisca, half proud, half sorrowful, “and you call the owl a bird of ill-omen, but we hold him sacred – he is our sentinel, and when danger is near he cries, awake! awake!”
“Magawisca, you are positively unkind – Jeremiah’s lamentations on a holiday would not be more out of time than your croaking is now – the very skies, earth, and air seem to partake our joy at father’s return, and you only make a discord. Do you think if your father was near I would not share your joy?”
Tears fell fast from Magawisca’s eye, but she made no reply, and Mrs Fletcher observing and compassionating her emotion, and thinking it probably arose from comparing her orphan state to that of the merry children about her, called her and said, “Magawisca, you are neither a stranger, nor a servant, will you not share our joy? Do you not love us?”
“Love you!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands, “love you! I would give my life for you.”
“We do not ask your life, my good girl,” replied Mrs Fletcher, kindly smiling on her, “but a light heart and a cheerful look. A sad countenance doth not become this joyful hour. Go and help Oneco – he is quite out of breath, blowing those soap bubbles for the children.”
Oneca smiled, and shook his head, and continued to send off one after another of the prismatic globes, and as they rose and floated on the air and brightened with the many-coloured ray, the little girls clapped their hands, and the baby stretched his to grasp the brilliant vapour.
“Oh!” said Magawisca, impetuously covering her eyes, “I do not like to see any thing so beautiful, pass so quickly away.”
Scarcely had she uttered these words, when suddenly, as if the earth had opened on them, three Indian warriors darted from the forest and pealed on the air their horrible yells.
“My father! my father!” burst from the lips of Magawisca, and Oneco.
Faith Leslie sprang towards the Indian boy, and clung fast to him – and the children clustered about their mother – she instinctively caught her infant and held it close within her arms as if their ineffectual shelter were a rampart.
Magawisca uttered a cry of agony, and springing forward with her arms uplifted, as if deprecating his approach, she sunk down at her father’s feet, and clasping her hands, “save them – save them,” she cried, “the mother – the children – oh they are all good – take vengeance on your enemies – but spare – spare our friends – our benefactors – I bleed when they are struck – oh command them to stop!” she screamed, looking to the companions of her father, who unchecked by her cries, were pressing on to their deadly work.
Mononotto was silent and motionless, his eye glanced wildly from Magawisca to Oneco. Magawisca replied to the glance of fire – “yes, they have sheltered us – they have spread the wing of love over us – save them – save them – oh it will be too late,” she cried, springing from her father, whose silence and fixedness showed that if his better nature rebelled against the work of revenge, there was no relenting of purpose. Magawisca darted before the Indian who was advancing towards Mrs Fletcher with an uplifted hatchet. “You shall hew me to pieces ere you touch her,” she said, and planted herself as a shield before her benefactress.
The warrior’s obdurate heart untouched by the sight of the helpless mother and her little ones, was thrilled by the courage of the heroic girl – he paused and grimly smiled on her when his companion, crying, “hasten, the dogs will be on us!” levelled a deadly blow at Mrs Fletcher – but his uplifted arm was penetrated by a musket shot and the hatchet fell harmless to the floor.
“Courage, mother!” cried Everell, reloading the piece, but neither courage nor celerity could avail – the second Indian sprang upon him, threw him on the floor, wrested his musket from him, and brandishing his tomahawk over his head, he would have aimed the fatal stroke, when a cry from Mononotto arrested his arm.
Everell extricated himself from his grasp, and one hope flashing into his mind, he seized a bugle-horn which hung beside the door, and winded it. This was the conventional signal of alarm – and he sent forth a blast – long and loud – a death-cry.
Mrs Grafton and her attendants were just mounting their horses to return home. Digby listened for a moment – then exclaiming, “it comes from our master’s dwelling! ride for your life, Hutton!” he tossed away a bandbox that encumbered him, and spurred his horse to its utmost speed.
The alarm was spread through the village, and in a brief space Mr Pynchon with six armed men were pressing towards the fatal scene.
In the mean time the tragedy was proceeding at Bethel. Mrs Fletcher’s senses had been stunned with terror. She had neither spoken nor moved after she grasped her infant. Everell’s gallant interposition, restored a momentary consciousness; she screamed to him – “Fly, Everell, my son, fly; for your father’s sake, fly.”
“Never,” he replied, springing to his mother’s side.
The savages, always rapid in their movements, were now aware that their safety depended on despatch. “Finish your work, warriors,” cried Mononotto. Obedient to the command, and infuriated by his bleeding wound, the Indian, who on receiving the shot, had staggered back, and leant against the wall, now sprang forward, and tore the infant from its mother’s breast. She shrieked, and in that shriek, passed the agony of death. She was unconscious that her son, putting forth a strength beyond nature, for a moment kept the Indian at bay; she neither saw nor felt the knife struck at her own heart. She felt not the arms of her defenders, Everell and Magawisca, as they met around her neck. She fainted, and fell to the floor, dragging her impotent protectors with her.
The savage, in his struggle with Everell, had tossed the infant boy to the ground; he fell quite unharmed on the turf at Mononotto’s feet. There raising his head, and looking up into the chieftain’s face, he probably perceived a gleam of mercy, for with the quick instinct of infancy, that with unerring sagacity directs its appeal, he clasped the naked leg of the savage with one arm, and stretched the other towards him with a piteous supplication, that no words could have expressed.
Mononotto’s heart melted within him; he stooped to raise the sweet suppliant, when one of the Mohawks fiercely seized him, tossed him wildly around his head, and dashed him on the doorstone. But the silent prayer – perhaps the celestial inspiration of the innocent creature, was not lost. “We have had blood enough,” cried Mononotto, “you have well avenged me, brothers.”
Then looking at Oneco, who had remained in one corner of the portico, clasping Faith Leslie in his arms, he commanded him to follow him with the child. Everell was torn from the lifeless bodies of his mother and sisters, and dragged into the forest. Magawisca uttered one cry of agony and despair, as she looked, for the last time, on the bloody scene, and then followed her father.
As they passed the boundary of the cleared ground, Mononotto tore from Oneco his English dress, and casting it from him – “Thus perish,”