Historical fiction; King Philip's War, 1675-1676 -- Fiction; War stories
The peculiarities that distinguished this female from the others of her
tribe, were not confined alone to the indelible marks of nature. Her step
was more elastic; her gait more erect and graceful; her foot less inwardly
inclined, and her whole movements freer and more decided than those of a
race doomed from infancy to subjection and labor. Though ornamented by
some of the prized inventions of the hated race to which she evidently
owed her birth, she had the wild and timid look of those with whom she had
grown into womanhood. Her beauty would have been remarkable in any region
of the earth, while the play of muscle, the ingenuous beaming of the eye,
and the freedom of limb and action, were such as seldom pass beyond the
years of childhood, among people who, in attempting to improve, so often
mar the works of nature.
Although the color of the eye was so very different from that which
generally belongs to one of Indian origin, the manner of its quick and
searching glance, and of the half-alarmed and yet understanding look with
which this extraordinary creature made herself mistress of the more
general character of the assemblage before which she had been summoned,
was like the half-instinctive knowledge of one accustomed to the constant
and keenest exercise of her faculties. Pointing with a finger towards
Whittal Ring, who stood a little in the background, a low, sweet voice was
heard asking, in the language of the Indians--
"Why has Conanchet sent for his woman from the woods?"
The young Sachem made no reply; an ordinary spectator could not have
detected about him even a consciousness of the speaker's presence. On the
contrary, he maintained the lofty reserve of a chief engaged in affairs of
moment. However deeply his thoughts might have been troubled, it was not
easy to trace any evidence of the state of his mind in the calmness of
features that appeared habitually immovable. For a single treacherous
instant, only, was a glance of kindness shot towards the timid and
attentive girl, and then throwing the still bloody tomahawk into the
hollow of one arm, while the hand of the other firmly grasped its handle,
he remained unchanged in feature, as he was rigid in limb. Not so, with
Philip. When the intruder first appeared, a dark and lowering gleam of
discontent gathered at his brow. It quickly changed to a look of sarcastic
and biting scorn.
"Does my brother again wish to know what I see?" he demanded, when
sufficient time had passed, after the unanswered question of the female,
to show that his companion was not disposed to answer.
"What does the Sachem of the Wampanoags now behold?" returned Conanchet,
proudly; unwilling to show that any circumstance had occurred to interrupt
the subject of their conference.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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