"Certain! They spoke like sick women, till they grew strong, and then they out-devilled the Pequots themselves in wickedness; feeding the warriors with their burning milk, and slaying with blazing inventions, that they made out of the yellow meal." "And the Pequods! was their great warrior dead, before the coming of the men from over sea?" "You are a woman that has never heard a tradition, or you would know better! A Pequot is a weak and crawling cub." "And thou--thou art then a Narragansett?" "Don't I look like a man?" "I had mistaken thee for one of our nearer neighbors, the Mohegan Pequods." "The Mohicans are basket-makers for the Yengeese; but the Narragansett goes leaping through the woods, like a wolf on the trail of the deer!" "All this is quite in reason, and now thou pointest to its justice, I cannot fail but see it. But we have curiosity to know more of the great tribe. Hast ever heard of one of thy people, Whittal, known as Miantonimoh--'tis a chief of some renown." The witless youth had continued to eat, at intervals; but, on hearing this question, he seemed suddenly to forget his appetite. For a moment he looked down, and then he answered slowly and not without solemnity-- "A man cannot live for ever." "What!" said Faith, motioning to her deeply-interested auditors to restrain their impatience--"has he quitted his people? And thou lived with him, Whittal, ere he came to his end?" "He never looked on Nipset, nor Nipset on him." "I know nought of this Nipset; tell me of the great Miantonimoh." "Dost need to hear twice? The Sachem is gone to the far land, and Nipset will be a warrior when the next snow comes!" Disappointment threw a cloud on every countenance, and the beam of hope, which had been kindling in the eye of Ruth, changed to the former painful expression of deep inward suffering. But Faith still managed to repress all speech among those who listened, continuing the examination, after a short delay that her vexation rendered unavoidable. "I had thought that Miantonimoh was still a warrior in his tribe," she said. "In what battle did he fall?" "Mohican Uncas did that wicked deed. The Pale-men gave him great riches to murder the Sachem." "Thou speakest of the father; but there was another Miantonimoh; he who in boyhood dwelt among the people of white blood." Whittal listened attentively; and after seeming to rally his thoughts, he shook his head, saying before he again began to eat-- "There never was but one of the name, and there never will be another. Two eagles do not build their nests in the same tree." "Thou sayest truly," continued Faith; well knowing that to dispute the information of her brother, was in effect to close his mouth. "Now tell me of Conanchet, the present Narragansett Sachem--he who hath leagued with Metacom, and hath of late been driven from his fastness near the sea--doth he yet live?"