"Nor widows' tears, nor tender orphans' cries
Can stop th' invader's force;
Nor swelling seas, nor threatening skies,
Prevent the pirate's course:
Their lives to selfish ends decreed
Through blood and rapine they proceed;
No anxious thoughts of ill repute,
Suspend the impetuous and unjust pursuit;
But power and wealth obtain'd, guilty and great,
Their fellow creatures' fears they raise, or urge their hate."
Congreve, "Pindaric Ode," ii.
By this time, Deerslayer had been twenty minutes in the canoe, and he began
to grow a little impatient for some signs of relief from his friends. The
position of the boat still prevented his seeing in any direction, unless it
were up or down the lake, and, though he knew that his line of sight must
pass within a hundred yards of the castle, it, in fact, passed that distance
to the westward of the buildings. The profound stillness troubled him also,
for he knew not whether to ascribe it to the increasing space between him and
the Indians, or to some new artifice. At length, wearied with fruitless
watchfulness, the young man turned himself on his back, closed his eyes, and
awaited the result in determined acquiescence. If the savages could so
completely control their thirst for revenge, he was resolved to be as calm as
themselves, and to trust his fate to the interposition of the currents and
air.
Some additional ten minutes may have passed in this quiescent manner, on both
sides, when Deerslayer thought he heard a slight noise, like a low rubbing
against the bottom of his canoe. He opened his eyes of course, in expectation
of seeing the face or arm of an Indian rising from the water, and found that
a canopy of leaves was impending directly over his head. Starting to his
feet, the first object that met his eye was Rivenoak, who had so far aided
the slow progress of the boat, as to draw it on the point, the grating on the
strand being the sound that had first given our hero the alarm. The change in
the drift of the canoe, had been altogether owing to the baffling nature of
the light currents of the air, aided by some eddies in the water.
"Come," said the Huron with a quiet gesture of authority, to order his
prisoner to land, 'my young friend has sailed about till he is tired; he will
forget how to run again, unless he uses his legs."
"You've the best of it, Huron," returned Deerslayer, stepping steadily from
the canoe, and passively following his leader to the open area of the point;
"Providence has helped you in an onexpected manner. I'm your prisoner ag'in,
and I hope you'll allow that I'm as good at breaking gaol, as I am at keeping
furloughs."
"My young friend is a Moose!" exclaimed the Huron. "His legs are very long;
they have given my young men trouble. But he is not a fish; he cannot find
his way in the lake. We did not shoot him; fish are taken in nets, and not
killed by bullets. When he turns Moose, again, he will be treated like a
Moose."
'Ay, have your talk, Rivenoak; make the most of your advantage. 'Tis your
right, I suppose, and I know it is your gift. On that p'int there'll be no
words atween us, for all men must and ought to follow their gifts. Howsever,
when your women begin to ta'nt and abuse me, as I suppose will soon happen,
let 'em remember that if a pale face struggles for life so long as it's
lawful and manful, he knows how to loosen his hold on it, decently, when he
feels that the time has come. I'm your captyve; work your will on me."
"My brother has had a long run on the hills, and a pleasant sail on the
water," returned Rivenoak, more mildly, smiling, at the same time, in a way
that his listener knew denoted pacific intentions. 'He has seen the woods; he
has seen the water. Which does he like best? Perhaps, he has seen enough, to
change his mind, and make him hear reason."
"Speak out, Huron. Something is in your thoughts, and the sooner it is said,
the sooner you'll get my answer."
"That is straight! There is no turning in the talk of my pale face friend,
though he is a fox in running. I will speak to him; his ears are now open
wider than before, and his eyes are not shut. The Sumach is poorer than ever.
Once she had a brother and a husband. She had children, too. The time came
and the husband started for the Happy Hunting Grounds, without saying
farewell; he left her alone with his children. This he could not help, or he
would not have done it; le Loup Cervier was a good husband. It was pleasant
to see the venison, and wild ducks, and geese, and bear's meat, that hung in
his lodge, in winter. It is now gone; it will not keep in warm weather. Who
shall bring it back again? Some thought the brother would not forget his
sister, and that, next winter, he would see that the lodge should not be
empty. We thought this; but the Panther yelled, and followed the husband on
the path of death. They are now trying which shall first reach the Happy
Hunting Grounds. Some think the Lynx can run fastest, and some think the
Panther can jump the farthest. The Sumach thinks both will travel so fast and
so far that neither will ever come back. Who shall feed her and her young?
The man who told her husband and her brother to quit her lodge, that there
might be room for him to come into it. He is a great hunter, and we know that
the woman will never want."
"Ay, Huron this is soon settled, accordin' to your notions, but it goes
sorely ag'in the grain of a white man's feelin's. I've heard of men's saving
their lives this-a-way, and I've know'd them that would prefar death to such
a sort of captivity. For my part, I do not seek my end, nor do I seek
matrimony."
'The pale face will think of this, while my people get ready for the council.
He will be told what will happen. Let him remember how hard it is to lose a
husband and a brother. Go; when we want him, the name of Deerslayer will be
called."
This conversation had been held with no one near but the speakers. Of all the
band that had so lately thronged the place, Rivenoak alone was visible. The
rest seemed to have totally abandoned the spot. Even the furniture, clothes,
arms, and other property of the camp had entirely disappeared, and the place
bore no other proofs of the crowd that had so lately occupied it, than the
traces of their fires and resting places, and the trodden earth, that still
showed the marks of their feet. So sudden and unexpected a change caused
Deerslayer a good deal of surprise and some uneasiness, for he had never
known it to occur, in the course of his experience among the Delawares. He
suspected, however, and rightly, that a change of encampment was intended,
and that the mystery of the movement was resorted to, in order to work on his
apprehensions.
Rivenoak walked up the vista of trees, as soon as he ceased speaking, leaving
Deerslayer by himself. The chief disappeared behind the covers of the forest,
and one unpractised in such scenes might have believed the prisoner left to
the dictates of his own judgment. But the young man, while he felt a little
amazement at the dramatic aspect of things, knew his enemies too well to
fancy himself at liberty, or a free agent. Still, he was ignorant how far the
Hurons meant to carry their artifices, and he determined to bring the
question, as soon as practicable, to the proof. Affecting an indifference he
was far from feeling, he strolled about the area, gradually getting nearer
and nearer to the spot where he had landed, when he suddenly quickened his
pace, though carefully avoiding all appearance of flight, and pushing aside
the bushes, he stepped upon the beach. The canoe was gone, nor could he see
any traces of it, after walking to the northern and southern verges of the
point, and examining the shores in both directions. It was evidently removed
beyond his reach and knowledge, and under circumstances to show that such had
been the intention of the savages.
Deerslayer now better understood his actual situation. He was a prisoner on
the narrow tongue of land, vigilantly watched beyond a question, and with no
other means of escape than that of swimming. He, again, thought of this last
expedient, but the certainty that the canoe would be sent in chase, and the
desperate nature of the chances of success deterred him from the undertaking.
While on the strand, he came to a spot where the bushes had been cut, and
thrust into a small pile. Removing a few of the upper branches, he found
beneath them the dead body of the Panther. He knew that it was kept until the
savages might find a place to inter it, where it would be beyond the reach of
the scalping knife. He gazed wistfully towards the castle, but there all
seemed to be silent and desolate, and a feeling of loneliness and desertion
came over him to increase the gloom of the moment.
'God's will be done!" murmured the young man, as he walked sorrowfully away
from the beach, entering again beneath the arches of the wood. 'God's will be
done, on 'arth as it is in heaven! I did hope that my days would not be
numbered so soon, but it matters little a'ter all. A few more winters, and a
few more summers, and 'twould have been over, accordin' to natur'. Ah's! me,
the young and actyve seldom think death possible, till he grins in their
faces, and tells 'em the hour is come!"
While this soliloquy was being pronounced, the hunter advanced into the area,
where to his surprise he saw Hetty alone, evidently awaiting his return. The
girl carried the bible under her arm, and her face, over which a shadow of
gentle melancholy was usually thrown, now seemed sad, and downcast. Moving
nearer, Deerslayer spoke.
"Poor Hetty," he said, "times have been so troublesome, of late, that I'd
altogether forgotten you; we meet, as it might be to mourn over what is to
happen. I wonder what has become of Chingachgook and Wah!"
"Why did you kill the Huron, Deerslayer? -" returned the girl reproachfully.
'Don't you know your commandments, which say 'Thou shalt not kill!' They tell
me you have now slain the woman's husband and brother!"
"It's true, my good Hetty-'tis gospel truth, and I'll not deny what has come
to pass. But, you must remember, gal, that many things are lawful in war,
which would be onlawful in peace. The husband was shot in open fight-or, open
so far as I was consarned, while he had a better cover than common-and the
brother brought his end on himself, by casting his tomahawk at an unarmed
prisoner. Did you witness that deed, gal?"
"I saw it, and was sorry it happened, Deerslayer, for I hoped you wouldn't
have returned blow for blow, but good for evil."
"Ah, Hetty, that may do among the Missionaries, but 'twould make an onsartain
life in the woods! The Panther craved my blood, and he was foolish enough to
throw arms into my hands, at the very moment he was striving a'ter it.
'Twould have been ag'in natur? not to raise a hand in such a trial, and
'twould have done discredit to my training and gifts. No- no -I'm as willing
to give every man his own, as another, and so I hope you'll testify to them
that will be likely to question you as to what you've seen this day."
"Deerslayer, do you mean to marry Sumach, now she has neither husband nor
brother to feed her?"
"Are such your idees of matrimony, Hetty! Ought the young to wive with the
old-the pale face with the red skin-the christian with the heathen? It's
ag'in reason and natur', and so you'll see, if you think of it a moment."
"I've always heard mother say," returned Hetty, averting her face more from a
feminine instinct, than from any consciousness of wrong, "that people should
never marry, until they loved each other better than brothers and sisters,
and I suppose that is what you mean. Sumach is old, and you are young!"
"Ay and she's red, and I'm white. Beside, Hetty, suppose you was a wife, now,
having married some young man of your own years, and state, and colour-Hurry
Harry, for instance-" Deerslayer selected this example, simply from the
circumstance that he was the only young man known to both-"and that he had
fallen on a war path, would you wish to take to your bosom, for a husband,
the man that slew him?"
'Oh! no, no, no-" returned the girl shuddering-"That would be wicked as well
as heartless! No christian girl could, or would do that! I never shall be the
wife of Hurry, I know, but were he my husband no man should ever be it,
again, after his death!"
"I thought it would get to this, Hetty, when you come to understand
sarcumstances. 'Tis a moral impossibility that I should ever marry Sumach,
and, though Injin weddin's have no priests and not much religion, a white man
who knows his gifts and duties can't profit by that, and so make his escape
at the fitting time. I do think, death would be more nat'ral like, and
welcome, than wedlock with this woman."
"Don't say it too loud," interrupted Hetty impatiently; "I suppose she will
not like to hear it. I'm sure Hurry would rather marry even me than suffer
torments, though I am feeble minded; and I am sure it would kill me to think
he'd prefer death to being my husband."
"Ay, gal, you an't Sumach, but a comely young Christian, with a good heart,
pleasant smile, and kind eye. Hurry might be proud to get you, and that, too,
not in misery and sorrow, but in his best and happiest days. Howsever, take
my advice, and never talk to Hurry about these things; he's only a borderer,
at the best."
"I would n't tell him, for the world!" exclaimed the girl, looking about her,
like one affrighted, and blushing, she knew not why. "Mother always said
young women should n't be forward, and speak their minds before they're
asked; Oh! I never forget what mother told me. Tis a pity Hurry is so
handsome, Deerslayer; I do think fewer girls would like him then, and he
would sooner know his own mind."
"Poor gal, poor gal, it's plain enough how it is, but the Lord will bear in
mind one of your simple heart, and kind feelin's! We'll talk no more of these
things; if you had reason, you'd be sorrowful at having let others so much
into your secret. Tell me, Hetty, what has become of all the Hurons, and why
they let you roam about the p'int, as if you, too, was a prisoner?"
'I'm no prisoner, Deerslayer, but a free girl, and go when and where I
please. Nobody dare hurt me! If they did, God would be angry, as I can show
them in the bible. No-no- Hetty Hutter is not afraid; she's in good hands.
The Hurons are up yonder in the woods, and keep a good watch on us both, I'll
answer for it, since all the women and children are on the look-out. Some are
burying the body of the poor girl who was shot, so that the enemy and the
wild beasts can't find it. I told 'em that father and mother lay in the lake,
but I would n't let them know, in what part of it, for Judith and I don't
want any of their heathenish company, in our burying ground."
"Ahs! me;-Well, it is an awful despatch to be standing here, alive and angry,
and with the feelin's up and ferocious, one hour, and then to be carried away
at the next, and put out of sight of mankind in a hole in the 'arth! No one
knows what will happen to him on a warpath, that's sartain."
Here the stirring of leaves and the cracking of dried twigs interrupted the
discourse, and apprised Deerslayer of the approach of his enemies. The Hurons
closed around the spot that had been prepared for the coming scene, and in
the centre of which the intended victim now stood, in a circle, the armed men
being so distributed, among the feebler members of the band, that there was
no safe opening through which the prisoner could break. But the latter no
longer contemplated flight, the recent trial having satisfied him of his
inability to escape when pursued so closely by numbers. On the contrary, all
his energies were aroused, in order to meet his expected fate, with a
calmness that should do credit to his colour and his manhood; one equally
removed from recreant alarm, and savage boasting.
When Rivenoak re-appeared in the circle, he occupied his old place at the
head of the area. Several of the elder warriors stood near him, but, now that
the brother of Sumach had fallen, there was no longer any recognised chief
present, whose influence and authority offered a dangerous rivalry to his
own. Nevertheless, it is well known that little which could be called
monarchical, or despotic entered into the politics of the North American
tribes, although the first colonists, bringing with them to this hemisphere,
the notions and opinions of their own countries, often dignified the chief
men of those primitive nations, with the titles of kings and princes.
Hereditary influence did certainly exist, but there is much reason to believe
it existed rather as a consequence of hereditary merit and acquired
qualifications, than as a birth-right. Rivenoak, however, had not even this
claim, having risen to consideration purely by the force of talents,
sagacity, and, as Bacon expresses it, in relation to all distinguished
statesmen, "by a union of great and mean qualities;" a truth of which the
career of the profound Englishman himself furnishes so apt an illustration.
Next to arms, eloquence offers the great avenue to popular favor, whether it
be in civilized or savage life, and Rivenoak had succeeded, as so many have
succeeded, before him, quite as much by rendering fallacies acceptable to his
listeners, as by any profound or learned expositions of truth, or the
accuracy of his logic. Nevertheless, he had influence; and was far from being
altogether without just claims to its possession. Like most men who reason
more than they feel, the Huron was not addicted to the indulgence of the more
ferocious passions of his people: he had been commonly found on the side of
mercy, in all the scenes of vindictive torture and revenge that had occurred
in his tribe, since his own attainment to power. On the present occasion, he
was reluctant to proceed to extremities, although the provocation was so
great. Still it exceeded his ingenuity to see how that alternative could well
be avoided. Sumach resented her rejection more than she did the deaths of her
husband and brother, and there was little probability that the woman would
pardon a man who had so unequivocally preferred death to her embraces.
Without her forgiveness, there was scarce a hope that the tribe could be
induced to overlook its loss, and even to Rivenoak, himself, much as he was
disposed to pardon, the fate of our hero now appeared to be almost hopelessly
sealed.
When the whole band was arrayed around the captive, a grave silence, so much
the more threatening from its profound quiet, pervaded the place. Deerslayer
perceived that the women and boys had been preparing splinters of the fat
pine roots, which he well knew were to be stuck into his flesh, and set in
flames, while two or three of the young men held the thongs of bark with
which he was to be bound. The smoke of a distant lire announced that the
burning brands were in preparation, arid several of the elder warriors passed
their fingers over the edges of their tomahawks, as if to prove their
keenness and temper. Even the knives seemed loosened in their sheathes,
impatient for the bloody and merciless work to begin.
"Killer of the Deer," recommenced Rivenoak, certainly without any signs of
sympathy or pity in his manner, though with calmness and dignity, "Killer of
the Deer, it is time that my people knew their minds. The sun is no longer
over our heads; tired of waiting on the Hurons, he has begun to fall near the
pines on this side of the valley. He is travelling fast towards the country
of our French fathers; it is to warn his children that their lodges are
empty, and that they ought to be at home. The roaming wolf has his den, and
he goes to it, when he wishes to see his young. The Iroquois are not poorer
than the wolves. They have villages, and wigwams, and fields of corn; the
Good Spirits will be tired of watching them alone. My people must go back,
and see to their own business. There will be joy in the lodges when they hear
our whoop from the forest! It will he a sorrowful whoop; when it is
understood, grief will come after it. There will be one scalp-whoop, but
there will be only one. We have the fur of the Muskrat; his body is among the
fishes. Deerslayer must say whether another scalp shall he on our pole. Two
lodges are empty; a scalp, living or dead, is wanted at each door."
"Then take 'em dead, Huron," firmly, but altogether without dramatic
boasting, returned the captive. "My hour is come, I do suppose, and what must
be, must. If you are bent on the tortur', I'll do my indivours to bear up
ag'in it, though no man can say how far his natur' will stand pain, until
he's been tried."
"The pale face cur begins to put his tail between his legs!" cried a young
and garrulous savage, who bore the appropriate title of the Corbeau Rouge; a
sobriquet he had gained from the French, by his facility in making
unseasonable noises, and an undue tendency to hear his own voice; "he is no
warrior; he has killed the Loup Cervier when looking behind him not to see
the flash of his own rifle. He grunts like a hog, already; when the Huron
women begin to torment him, he will cry like the young of the catamount. He
is a Delaware woman, dressed in the skin of a Yengeese!"
"Have your say, young man; have your say," returned Deerslayer, unmoved; "you
know no better, and I can overlook it. Talking may aggravate women, but can
hardly make knives sharper, fire hotter, or rifles more sartain."
Rivenoak now interposed, reproving the Red Crow for his premature
interference, and then directing the proper persons to bind the captive. This
expedient was adopted, not from any apprehensions that he would escape, or
from any necessity, that was yet apparent, of his being unable to endure the
torture with his limbs free, but from an ingenious design of making him feel
his helplessness, and of gradually sapping his resolution, by undermining it,
as it might be, little by little. Deerslayer offered no resistance. He
submitted his arms and legs, freely if not cheerfully, to the ligaments of
bark, which were bound around them, by order of the chief, in a way to
produce as little pain as possible. These directions were secret, and given
in the hope that the captive would finally save himself from any serious
bodily suffering, by consenting to take the Sumach for a wife. As soon as the
body of Deerslayer was withed in bark sufficiently to create a lively sense
of helplessness, he was literally carried to a young tree, and bound against
it, in a way that effectually prevented him from moving, as well as from
falling. The hands were laid flat against the legs, and thongs were passed
over all, in a way nearly to incorporate the prisoner with the tree. His cap
was then removed, and he was left half-standing, half-sustained by his bonds,
to face the coming scene, in the best manner he could.
Previously to proceeding to any thing like extremities, it was the wish of
Rivenoak to put his captive's resolution to the proof, by renewing the
attempt at a compromise. This could be effected only in one manner, the
acquiescence of the Sumach being indispensably necessary to a compromise of
her right to be revenged. With this view, then, the woman was next desired to
advance, and to look to her own interests; no agent being considered as
efficient as the principal, herself, in this negotiation. The Indian females,
when girls, are usually mild, and submissive, with musical tones, pleasant
voices, and merry laughs, but toil and suffering generally deprive them of
most of these advantages, by the time they have reached an age which the
Sumach had long before passed. To render their voices harsh, it would seem to
require active, malignant, passions, though, when excited, their screams can
rise to a sufficiently conspicuous degree of discordancy, to assert their
claim to possess this distinctive peculiarity of the sex. The Sumach was not
altogether without feminine attraction, however, and had so recently been
deemed handsome in her tribe, as not to have yet learned the full influence
that time and exposure produce on man, as well as on woman. By an arrangement
of Riven-oak's, some of the women around her, had been employing the time in
endeavoring to persuade the bereaved widow, that there was still a hope
Deerslayer might be prevailed on to enter her wigwam, in preference to
entering the world of spirits, and this, too, with a success that previous
symptoms scarcely justified. All this was the result of a resolution on the
part of the chief to leave no proper means unemployed, in order to get
transferred to his own nation the greatest hunter that was then thought to
exist in all that region, as well as a husband for a woman who he felt would
be likely to be troublesome, were any of her claims to the attention and care
of the tribe overlooked.
In conformity with this scheme, the Sumach had been secretly advised to
advance into the circle, and to make her appeal to the prisoner's sense of
justice, before the band had recourse to the last experiment. The woman,
nothing loth, consented, for there was some such attraction in becoming the
wife of a noted hunter, among the females of the tribes, as is experienced by
the sex, in more refined life, when they bestow their hands on the affluent.
As the duties of a mother were thought to be paramount to all other
considerations, the widow felt none of that embarrassment, in preferring her
claims, to which even a female fortune hunter among ourselves, might be
liable. When she stood forth, before the whole party, therefore, the children
that she led by the hands, fully justified all she did.
"You see me before you, cruel pale face," the woman commenced; "your spirit
must tell you my errand. I have found you; I cannot find le Loup Cervier, nor
the Panther; I have looked for them, in the lake, in the woods, in the
clouds. I cannot say where they have gone."
"No man knows, good Sumach, no man knows," interposed the captive. "When the
spirit leaves the body, it passes into a world beyond our knowledge, and the
wisest way, for them that are left behind, is to hope for the best. No doubt
both your warriors, have gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds, and at the proper
time you will see 'em ag'in, in their improved state. The wife and sister of
braves, must have looked forward to some such tarmination of their 'arthly
careers."
"Cruel pale-face, what had my warriors done that you should slay them! They
were the best hunters, and the boldest young men of their tribe; the Great
Spirit intended that they should live until they withered like the branches
of the hemlock, and fell of their own weight-"
"Nay - nay - good Sumach," interrupted Deerslayer, whose love of truth was
too indomitable to listen to such hyperbole, with patience, even though it
came from the torn breast of a widow-"Nay-nay, good Sumach, this is a little
out-doing red skin privileges. Young man was neither, any more than you can
be called a young woman, and as to the Great Spirit's intending that they
should fall otherwise than they did, that's a grievous mistake, inasmuch as
what the Great Spirit intends, is sartain to come to pass. Then, agin, it's
plain enough neither of your fri'nds did me any harm; ~ raised my hand ag'in
'em on account of what they were striving to do, rather than what they did.
This is nat'ral law, 'to do lest you should be done by.'"
"It is so. Sumach has but one tongue; she can tell but one story. The Pale
face struck the Hurons lest the Hurons should strike him. The Hurons are a
just nation; they will forget it. The chiefs will shut their eyes and pretend
not to have seen it; the young men will believe the Panther and the Lynx have
gone to far off hunts, and the Sumach, will take her children by the hand,
and go into the lodge of the pale face and say- 'See; these are your
children; they are also mine-feed us, and we will live with you.'
"The tarms are onadmissable, woman, and though I feel for your losses, which
must he hard to bear, the tarms cannot be accepted. As to givin' you ven'son,
in case we lived near enough together, that would be no great expl'ite; but
as for becomin' your husband, and the father of your children, to be honest
with you, I feel no callin' that-a-way."
"Look at this boy, cruel pale face; he has no father to teach him to kill the
deer, or to take scalps. See this girl; what young man will come to look for
a wife in a lodge that has no head? There are more among my people in the
Canadas, and the Killer of Deer will find as many mouths to feed, as his
heart can wish for."
"I tell you, woman," exclaimed Deerslayer, whose imagination was far from
seconding the appeal of the widow, and who began to grow restive under the
vivid pictures she was drawing, "all this is nothing to me. People and
kindred must take care of their own fatherless, leaving them that have no
children to their own loneliness. As for me, I have no offspring, and I want
no wife. Now, go away Sumach; leave me in the hands of your chiefs, for my
colour, and gifts, and natur' itself cry out ag'in the idee of taking you for
a wife."
It is unnecessary to expatiate on the effect of this downright refusal of the
woman's proposals. If there was any thing like tenderness in her bosom-and no
woman was probably ever entirely without that feminine quality-it all
disappeared at this plain announcement. Fury, rage, mortified pride, and a
volcano of wrath burst out, at one explosion, converting her into a sort of
maniac, as it might beat the touch of a magician's wand. Without deigning a
reply in words, she made the arches of the forest ring with screams, and then
flew forward at her victim, seizing him by the hair, which she appeared
resolute to draw out by the roots. It was some time before her grasp could be
loosened. Fortunately for the prisoner her rage was blind; since his total
helplessness left him entirely at her mercy. Had it been better directed it
might have proved fatal before any relief could have been offered. As it was,
she did succeed in wrenching out two or three handsful of hair, before the
young men could tear her away from her victim.
The insult that had been offered to the Sumach was deemed an insult to the
whole tribe; not so much, however, on account of any respect that was felt
for the woman, as on account of the honor of the Huron nation. Sumach,
herself, was generally considered to be as acid as the berry from which she
derived her name, and now that her great supporters, her husband and brother,
were both gone, few cared about concealing their aversion. Nevertheless, it
had become a point of honor to punish the pale face who disdained a Huron
woman, and more particularly one who coolly preferred death to relieving the
tribe from the support of a widow and her children. The young men showed an
impatience to begin to torture, that Rivenoak understood, and, as his older
associates manifested no disposition to permit any longer delay, he was
compelled to give the signal, for the infernal work to proceed.
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