In the progress of generations, much that was wild and beautiful about the city of Boston has been entirely obliterated. Lovely eminences and picturesque ravines have been levelled into common-place wharves and streets. Streams, that crept through the hills, to lose their crystal brightness in the turbulent waters of the harbor, have been turned aside, or literally choked up. Bunker Hill was crowned with primeval forest-trees at the time of our story. Dorchester Heights was here and there dotted with a clearing, and all the curving line of the shore, which now bristles, like a dense forest, with shipping, was wild, and beautiful in its wildness.

There was one lovely spot on the beach, of which a perfect view could only be obtained from the harbor. Here, a forest stream of some depth stole softly out of the woods, concentrating its crystal waves in a little bay, sheltered by overhanging trees, then sweeping into the harbor, where it mingled with the waves of the ocean, and became, like them, opal-tinted under the broad sunshine.

This cove had been selected for the place of Barbara Stafford's execution. Even in the depth of winter it was not wholly devoid of beauty. Its surface, clear to the edge of the cove, was sheeted with ice, as yet untouched by a human foot, and pure as the spring from which that stream took its source. The cove was crescent shaped, and locked in by two curving promontories dense with evergreens, drooping under ten thousand garlands of snow. As the beach curved inward, these hemlocks and pines grew thinner, and in their place beech trees, maples, and sturdy oaks, pencilled their naked branches against the sky, and sent forth a low, chiming music, inexpressibly mournful, for every twig and fibre was encrusted with frozen rain, and struck together with a sort of rythm. Here and there, along the margin of the shore, logs, covered with fleeces of rich green moss, thrust themselves out from the snow, and clusters of laurel broke its white surface with the brilliant greenness of their leaves.

Little preparation had been deemed necessary for the cruel work which was to render that lovely spot a place of horror. A cart path had been widened through the woods, that the troop of soldiers which were to guard the unhappy woman from her prison might pass easily forward with their victim; and where the ice grew thin, as it approached the restless waves of the ocean, some planks had been laid down, that the guard might be in no danger of sharing the fate assigned to that helpless woman. Samuel Parris had pleaded with the sheriff, who possessed some discretion in the matter, and obtained the latest hour possible for the execution. But those winter days were short, and people came from a great distance to see a fellow-creature murdered in the face of high heaven, so four o'clock was the latest moment that the sheriff could be prevailed upon to name.

At twelve the whole shore far back into the woods was lined with human beings, though the day was unusually cold, and the wind moaned through the forest, and shook the icy tree-boughs with a sound which seemed like the whispers of weird spirits. As the time wore on, this crowd deepened, and grew blacker. The snow crust, even into the woods, was trampled down. Some, more eager than the rest, moved forward on to the ice, while little boys and men, more reckless than their fellows, climbed the trees, sending showers of shivered crystals upon the throng below. As usual in such crowds, many Indians were seen huddled close in their blankets, waiting with stolid patience for the death-scene to commence. On one of the crescent-like promontories which formed the cove, a large number of these savages had gathered, and stood under the sheltering hemlocks, looking on. Near them, and yet apart, was a young girl of remarkable beauty, with an eagle's plume in her small felt hat, which but half concealed the abundance of her hair, which was of that bluish black seldom found disconnected with the highest type of a peculiar kind of beauty. If the Indians near her seemed indifferent, she was keen and vigilant enough. Wrapped in a foreign shawl glowing with rich colors, she stood leaning against a young tree, attentive to every thing that passed. Once a young man came softly up behind her, and spoke in a whisper—

"Mahaska!"

The girl started, but did not turn or seem to notice that any one was behind her. She only answered:

"I hear, Metacomet. Speak on."

"I have been three times to her prison, in as many disguises, but they will not let me in."

"Then she is unprepared? All attempts to warn her have failed?"

"All! She has no hope that a friend is near."

"Then we have but to act with more courage and caution," answered the girl.

"Mahaska!"

"Well, Metacomet."

"If Moneto has need of me, and I fall, go to the woods with my people; be their prophetess and queen. Do not let our white foes drive them from the face of the earth."

"I will live with them or die for them!" was the firm answer.

Her promise received no rejoinder, and when Abigail Williams looked around to learn the cause of this silence, Metacomet was gone.

It was now close upon four o'clock, and the tramp of men marching in solid masses came with painful distinctness from the woods. Still it was some time before the awful cortege appeared, and Abigail Williams, who was searching both the forest and the ocean with keen glances, saw that a ship had drifted down the harbor, and lay at no great distance from the cove, as if its crew were anxious to witness the execution. This seemed a hazardous undertaking, for there had been a storm the day before, and the waves swelled heavily shoreward.

But that awful sound from the forest came louder and nearer. Along the cart path, plainly visible now, appeared file after file of armed men, and in their midst that woman, clad in a voluminous robe of black silk, with a lace scarf, wrapped turban-wise, on her head. Her pale hands were folded upon her bosom, and tied there as men bind felons.

Those who have seen Guido's picture of Beatrice Cenci can have some idea of the face that snowy lace and black robe but served to render more deathly pale—a face so eloquent of hopeless sorrow, that those who came to gloat upon the woman's agony grew heavy-hearted as they looked upon her.

Thus Barbara Stafford was brought through the dense multitude of men, women, and even little children, who surged up from the forest, and out upon the ice, jostling each other, wrangling for every foot of space, eager as hounds for the hunted deer, and only kept from laying hands on the prisoner by the soldiers, who forced them back with charged bayonets.

At last they brought the unhappy woman out upon the ice, beyond the line of soldiers; outside of which no one was allowed to pass. Then a picture was formed, full of solemn grandeur, and inexpressibly mournful. Behind, was the forest, stretching drearily into the distance, while its margin swarmed blackly with human life, jostling, heaving, crowding the shore and the ice, till forced back by that line of glittering bayonets.

Before them was a lake of crystal, stretching into turbulent waters of the harbor. In the near distance, riding the swell of incoming waves, lay the ship with its anchor up, and its sails unfurling one by one, as it would seem, without human aid. Beyond all this bent the horizon with the wintry sun slanting toward it in gleams of amber-tinted flame, while great ocean waves, heaving in from the chase of a spent storm, rushed shoreward, and hurled themselves against the ice, which trembled and bent under each shock.

This was the picture revealed on that winter's day. Snow upon the earth—cold sunshine in the skies—brightness and death; funereal stillness in the crowd, and the cold winds wailing over all. In the midst—midway between the ocean and the forest—that woman stood alone, waiting for death. The soldiers had unbound her hands—for that little chance of life was to be granted her. Still she kept them folded on her bosom, and stood motionless; her eyes strained wide with terror, fixed on the great waves that came heaving toward her, and her white lips apart, as if some cry of agony had torn them asunder never to be closed again.

Two men, wearing tall, conical hats, and with pistols in their leathern belts, came softly up behind her, seized both her arms, and attempted to drag her forward. She gave a sharp cry, and held back, resisting them. The waves were even then heaving up the ice beneath her feet. Before her was a yawning hollow of greenish water, scooped out like a monstrous grave, into which those men were attempting to hurl her headlong. She broke from them and turned to flee—turned upon a double line of soldiers with bayonets levelled against her. These iron-hearted men grasped her again, and dragged her to the verge of the ice. Then, above all this horror, her gentle nature and womanly pride rose against their rude handling.

"Let me go alone," she implored; "I will not falter."

The guard knew that there was no chance of escape; and perhaps even their cruel natures shrank from hurling that noble creature so rudely to death. After a moment's pause they released her arms, and fell back.

Slowly and firmly she walked forward. The ice cracked under her feet, sending out bright, silvery lines, with each tread. Then it swelled upward with a sudden heave, broke, and with one plunge hurled her into the vortex of a wave that leaped upon her like a wild beast, and carried her off.

All this had been so sudden that the multitude could hardly believe that she was gone. Some, who had been near enough to look upon her face, wept, and crowded back, shrinking at the very last from a sight they had courted an hour before. Others grumbled that the agony of the scene had been so brief; and some cursed the witch aloud, hoping that the waves would toss her well before she died. These hard-hearted ones seemed for a time to have their wish, for when the disturbed waters swelled back, the fragment of ice on which the wretched woman had fallen was hurled out to sea. Her face was turned upward to the sunshine, and it seemed as if unseen spirits were guiding her frail support.

"Look! look how the witch floats!" shouted the crowd. "Devils are holding her up; you can see them buffet the water."

Sure enough, two dark objects rose on each side of the woman, and seemed to be guiding her frail support through the turbulent waves.

"Shoot! shoot! Has any one a silver ball? else the witch will escape!" cried a voice from the crowd. But the soldiers, appalled by what they believed to be the close presence of the evil one, stood dumb and motionless.

While the general attention was fixed upon this one object, a boat shot out from the right hand promontory, rowed by six men, and, struggling fiercely against the waves, moved toward the fragment of ice to which the woman was clinging.

"Look! look! A boat rowed by Indians! The red devils will save her! Fire upon them—fire on her!"

A dozen guns were uplifted. The click of their ponderous locks sounded fearfully distinct, for a deadly stillness had fallen on the multitude. But on the moment a tumult arose in the crowd, from which the Indians had cautiously separated themselves. With the leap of panthers they sprung upon the soldiers, and failing to wrench the muskets from their hands, flung them headlong to the ice. Then making a sudden dash through the crowd the savages plunged into the forest, leaving wild commotion behind. While the tumult raged fiercest, half a dozen guns went off at random, and others were fired blindly as the soldiers scrambled up from the ice. But they failed to reach the boat, which moved steadily toward the mass of black drapery, now visible, now submerged in the water. An almost superhuman sweep of the oars brought that toiling craft close to the wretched woman, who clung, cold and senseless, to that crumbling fragment of ice. While the boat rocked like an egg-shell on the waves, the tall figure of a man rose upright among the oarsmen, made a desperate leap into the water, and tore that deathly form from its hold on the ice. Aided by the two Indians who had swam from their covert under the sheeted ice, and bravely kept the fragment which bore Barbara Stafford from submerging, he lifted her to the strong arms stretched down to help him, and clambered into the boat. There, upon a pile of blankets, she lay, white as snow, and cold as the ice that clung to her wet garments. The young man stooped to make sure that she was not quite dead, when a bullet hurtled out from the shore and struck him in the side. A wild leap in the air—a cry, sharp and clear as the yell of a wounded eagle, and Metacomet fell, bathed in blood, by the woman he had served so faithfully.

Now the tumult on the shore raged with fearful vehemence. Shouts and shrieks of cruel triumph swept over the waters. A boat was pushed across the ice, and shot out into the harbor, giving chase to the fugitives. The dying chief lifted himself up and saw this new danger. He struggled for speech, but fell back gasping for breath.

Wahpee dropped his oar and attempted to staunch the blood which flowed in a crimson stream down his side.

"Let me die—but save her!" shouted the young man, in his last agony. "Pull for the ship—or never dare to look for your chief up yonder!"

The savage sprang to his oar—and now the strength of fifty men seemed urging the boat forward. It fairly leaped through the water. Panting for breath, straining those sinewy arms till the muscles stood out like whip-cords, the savages bent to their desperate work, and by main strength distanced their pursuers. The ship's crew gathered on the deck watched this pursuit, and stood ready to aid the fugitives. A rope ladder was flung over the side of the vessel. Up its knotted cordage the savages toiled, carrying the rescued woman with them. They laid her on the deck, leaped like wild deer into the boat again, and pulled for the promontory they had left. The good ship, hired to do this merciful work by the last gold Metacomet possessed, was ready, with her anchor up, and with her sails all set. As the savages leaped down her side, she bore on her way, almost sinking the boatful of armed men that had daringly crossed her bows. In a desperate effort to save themselves these men allowed the craft, in which the dying chief lay, to gain a safe distance, and approach the promontory. But now a storm of bullets swept over it from the shore. Two of the oarsmen fell headlong to the water; another lay upon his face in the bottom of the boat. Still the little craft cut its way through all danger.

Abigail Williams stood on a strip of white sand at the extreme point of the promontory. Curving around the inner crescent of the bay, the soldiers were crowding back from the ice which was breaking up under their feet, but with their guns still levelled, and their bayonets flashing like tongues of flame in the sunbeams that slanted across them.

When the fugitives drew near the promontory, Abigail stood directly within range of the guns. Metacomet had lifted himself to a sitting posture, and saw her, through the blinding agonies of death. Then, with his last strength, he pointed her out, and, speaking to a chief who still kept to his oar unharmed, cried with his last breath—

"She is my sister—the daughter of your king; take her to the forest. Obey her—pro—"

He broke off. A shot struck the chief to whom he appealed. Concentrating all the life that was in him in one hoarse shout of defiance, which filled his mouth with blood, the son of King Philip fulfilled the destiny of his race, and fell dead upon the bodies of his slain friends.

Cold as stone, and white as a corpse, Abigail Williams stood upon the beach while this awful scene was enacted, and saw her brother fall. Again the soldiers levelled their guns for another volley, heedless of her danger—heedless of every thing. Right in the pathway of the bullets levelled at the boat, she stood. They flew over her head—they fell like rain in the water; and at last, one more merciful than the rest, pierced her through the heart. She fell without a moan, just as the savages, landing under a shower of hurtling lead, carried the body of their chief from the boat in open defiance, and bore him into the forest.

While the shot that killed that unhappy girl was still ringing in the air, two horsemen rode fiercely into the crowd, scattering it right and left, till their horses dashed out in bold relief on the ice in front of the soldiers. One was a gray-headed old man, who reeled in his saddle, and looked wildly from the soldiers to the water without the power to utter a word. The other, young and strong of purpose but wild with apprehension, called out in a voice so full of horror that it could scarcely be heard:

"Magistrates and soldiers! where is the woman you came here to murder? I bring her full pardon, signed by our governor, Sir William Phipps."

The sheriff came close to Norman Lovel's horse. "It is too late; she has gone."

With a groan that left his white lips in a single heave of agony, Samuel Parris dropped from his horse. He had fainted quite away.

"Not dead, peradventure, but yonder!" cried the sheriff, pointing to the vessel which was still clearly visible. "A party of Indians, led by the young man who defended her at the trial, rescued the sorceress—stark or living; I cannot affirm which."

"And she is gone safe—she is in that ship?" cried the young man, starting up exultingly in his stirrups, and gazing after the vessel with a great outburst of thankfulness. "God forever bless the man that saved her!"

"The pestilent heathen is dead, and half his boat's crew with him," answered the sheriff, with a grim smile. "We gave them three volleys. See—their boat is drifting this way, bottom upwards, riddled through and through. They got off to the forest with the body of their leader; but I have sent a company after them."

"Recall that company, I command you, on the authority of Sir William Phipps! I would myself stand by the body of this young man, were it permitted, and do him the reverence his bravery has earned. March your soldiers back to the city, good master sheriff; they are no longer wanted here."

The sheriff received this order with a stiff bow, and turned away to muster his men.

Then for the first time Lovel discovered that Samuel Parris was lying prone upon the ice insensible, with scattered locks of gray hair blown across his face. The young man got down from his saddle at once, and dropping on one knee lifted the old man in his arms.

"Has no one a drop of brandy?" he inquired in great alarm. "See how cold and pale he is!"

A flask of spirits was handed over his shoulder by one of the by-standers. Lovel poured some of its contents by force into those cold lips, and after a little the minister revived.

"Oh, my son, God is against us! She is dead! dead!" murmured the old man. Great tears rose and swelled in his eyes, choking his voice; but the anguish he could not speak swept over his face.

"She is safe, father; she has escaped! Lift your eyes, and they can yet discern the ship which carries her out of danger."

"Art thou sure—quite sure, Norman?" cried the old man, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of gratitude.

"Here are those who saw her borne up the sides of the vessel."

"Let us go home, my son. Elizabeth will be sorely anxious," said the old man, struggling to his feet. "But you avouch for this? a mistake would be terrible."

"Yes, yes. Dear lady! She is out of their reach at last, and I much fear neither you nor I will ever see her face again."

"Nay, nay; but I have great need of rest and thought. Let us go home."

Norman helped the old man to his saddle, and the two rode slowly away, following the soldiers. When the sun went down that night, not a human form could be seen along all that trampled shore save one, so cold and beautiful, that but for the garments and those masses of rich, black hair, it might have been chiselled from parian marble. Thus, partly on the sand, partly on the crusted snow, all that was left of that unhappy girl, called Abigail Williams, lay, till the sun set behind those naked trees and the moon arose. Then out of the black depths of the wilderness, came the figure of an old woman, toiling through the snow, and almost bent double. She sat down by the lifeless girl, and attempted to lift her head; but it resisted her hands, and fell back on the snow like marble. Then poor old Tituba stretched out her withered limbs by the side of her dead charge, and winding her arms around that cold form broke into a funereal chant, so sad, so thrillingly mournful, that it wailed through the whispers of those naked tree-boughs with the anguish of a soul in pain. Then along the track she had made in the snow came a file of Indians, whose death-chant swelled with hers into a wild, fierce music. They lifted the young girl from the ground, and bore her away, filling the winter's night with that weird chant as they went. Behind them, following meekly along the beaten path, the lone Indian woman crept, her slow footsteps faltering with age. Still her feeble voice sent forth its death-wail, and thus like a shadow she disappeared.

In a hollow lined with crusted snow and overhung with naked forest-trees, they had laid the young chief Metacomet upon a rude bier formed of evergreen branches, with the foliage fresh upon them. By his side they placed the sister whose life had been broken up so fatally by his kingly ambition. Then these savages, chiefless and wanderers forever more, lifted the bier, and turned their footsteps toward Mount Hope, where the brother and sister were laid in one grave, the last of a kingly and most persecuted race.