"They would not be torn apart. When Anna Hutchinson saw this, she beckoned the Indian woman, and besought her to take the two sisters deep into the forest, away from the sound of her death cries. The sight of that little child made the woman's heart soft. She could have cried, but that the females of her race are ashamed of tears. When your grandmother saw this, she stooped and whispered, 'Take them away, and you shall fire the pile; you shall kill me with your own hands, and feast on my agony if it will please you.' "So the Pequod woman took the two children, one a young girl, the other a little thing so high, and led them away to her own lodge. When she went back to the death fire it was flaming high. The warriors had drawn close around it; the trees above were heavy with smoke, and crisping in the hot wind. Anna Hutchinson was chained to the death pyre. Her arms were tied with thongs of bark, and her hair, thick with silver threads, shone gloomily in the death light; for the flames had already seized upon her garments and were creeping up the folds, hissing as they went. She stood firm, looking toward the path where her little ones had disappeared. When the woman came back she called out, with a great sob, 'My children, my children!' "'They are safe in my lodge,' answered the Pequod woman. "Then the warriors saw a smile break over Anna Hutchinson's face, which rested there till the flames surged up and veiled her form in a cloud of fire. "Then the smoke rose blackly, and hot flashes of fire writhed in and out like serpents in torment. A great gust of wind rushed through the forest boughs and, sweeping the smoke away, drove the slumbering flames into fury. Then an awful cry broke from that poor woman. The thongs that bound her wrists snapped asunder--her arms were flung wildly outward through the hot flames and surging smoke, and her cry burst into words of awful entreaty that some one would be merciful and kill her. "The Pequod woman had a soft heart. That cry ran through her like an arrow. She could not bear to see the woman who had brought back her child from the great hunting-ground, more beautiful than ever, writhing in the hot fire which hissed, and leaped, and clung around her like fiery snakes. The Indian woman took an arrow from her quiver, and aimed at the white bosom that the flames were licking with a thousand hot tongues. The arrow lost itself in the death fire, missing its aim. Then the Indian woman took the tomahawk from her belt and poised it. Blinded with smoke and mad with pain, Anna Hutchinson saw the act, and struggled fiercely to step forth and meet the blow. But the thongs that bound her to the stake were green and defied the flames. So with one bound the Indian woman sprang into the fire and cleft that broad, white forehead open with her tomahawk."