As thus he spake, across their pathway sped The startled partridge on her whirring wings; An arrow glanced--it grazed the hunter’s head, And the shrill forest with the bowstring rings; Red Waban’s eyes flash fire, and anger dread Flames in his blood, and every muscle strings; He stooped to mark where twanged that hostile bow, Then sprang from tree to tree, to reach the foe. XXIII. But ere he gained the purposed point, or viewed The fell assassin, the dry fagots’ crash, The waving coppice, and re-echoing wood, And sounding footfalls down the brakes that dash, Told him how vainly he his foe pursued, Or that pursuit were dangerously rash; And turning slowly he retraced his track, As his foiled leap the lion measures back. XXIV. The matron trembled, at the scene dismayed, For she had marked that hostile arrow’s flight, And Williams’ glance, and Waban’s mien betrayed That instant peril did their fears excite; And yet no frantic shrieks her acts degrade; A mother’s cares did every thought invite; And o’er the little scions of her blood She stretched her arms’ frail fence, and trembling stood. XXV. Calmer in bearing but with equal dread, The anxious father viewed the threatening harm; And, under God, what was there now to aid, Save his own firmness and red Waban’s arm? Behind--before--a dreary forest spread; Far was Neponset; here the dire alarm Of lurking savage; whilst the gathering night Still added horror to a dubious flight. XXVI. He paused a moment, and his means forlorn, To guard the onward march, he thus arrayed: The palfreys shielded by the burdens borne, On either side the moving group, were led, This by himself, that by his eldest born, Whilst nimble Waban scoured the threatening shade, And, keeping wary watch where’er he ran, Now fenced their flanks, now pioneered their van. XXVII. Like as the eagle,--when, from airy rest She wards her callow young with watchful eye, And sees the thickets move, by footsteps prest Within the precinct of her nursery,-- Wheels first on outstretched pinions round her nest, Searching below, then darts into the sky For far espial,--gathering every sound,-- And soars aloft or sails along the ground; XXVIII. So Waban watched and ran, while, moving slow, The anxious father aids the group along. In dreadful silence sleeps the forest now, Hushed is the prattling of each infant’s tongue; No sound is there, save that of footsteps low, Or of the breeze that sighs the leaves among, Or palfrey’s tramp--whose hoofs, with iron shod, Now clink on rocks, now deaden on the sod. XXIX.