As the well-meaning but enthusiastic missionary spoke with great fervor, the announcement of such an event, coming as it did from one whom they respected, even while they could not understand him, did not fail to produce a deep sensation. If their fortunes were really the care of the Great Spirit, and justice was to be done to them by his love and wisdom, then would the projects of Peter, and those who acted and felt with him, be unnecessary, and might lead to evil instead of to good. That sagacious savage did not fail to discover this truth; and he now believed it might be well for him to say a word, in order to lessen the influence Parson Amen might otherwise obtain among those whom it was his design to mould in a way entirely to meet his own wishes. So intense was the desire of this mysterious leader to execute vengeance on the pale-faces, that the redemption of the tribes from misery and poverty, unaccompanied by this part of his own project, would have given him pain in lieu of pleasure. His very soul had got to be absorbed in this one notion of retribution, and of annihilation for the oppressors of his race; and he regarded all things through a medium of revenge, thus created by his feelings, much as the missionary endeavored to bend every fact and circumstance, connected with the Indians, to the support of his theory touching their Jewish origin. When Peter arose, therefore, fierce and malignant passions were at work in his bosom; such as a merciful and a benignant deity never wishes to see in the breast of man, whether civilized or savage. The self-command of the Tribeless, however, was great, and he so far succeeded in suppressing the volcano that was raging within, as to speak with his usual dignity and an entire calmness of exterior.