"Anna Hutchinson had charged her daughter, that golden-haired young girl, with the consummation of her curse. But where love is, vengeance sleeps. Her husband's tribe was at peace with the whites, and the 'wounded bird' had a child in her lodge; so she put the wrongs of her mother on one side, and lived contentedly in her forest kingdom. Why should she urge her husband's warriors to the red path while they could plant corn and hunt venison unmolested? She did not yet fully understand the persecutions which had driven her mother to death. The tribe that massacred her family had been long ago chastised and driven from their hunting-grounds by the valor of her husband—was not this enough?

"No, no; the wail of that curse still troubled the air around her lodge, and its spirit worked slowly but surely in the white settlements. Years wore on; another little child laughed and clapped its hands in the doorway of King Philip; and now, when the kingly husband and wife were in their prime, the whites, who had grown powerful, began to cast rapacious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Pomperoags. It was the old story of the wolf and the lamb—causes of offence were soon found. The colonies arose and armed themselves. King Philip of Mount Hope was a formidable enemy. It took brave men to cope with him. He was a statesman as well as a warrior, wise as a serpent and brave as steel. The most powerful tribes flocked to his alliance, some won to his aid by the eloquence of his wife, others by sympathy and common danger. You have read in your school books how the war against King Philip was conducted. You have heard old men and women call him a fiend, and speak of him as the companion of fiends."

"Yes, yes, the old women tell us stories of his cruelty."

"And of his wrongs, of his courage, his wonderful magnanimity, his noble statesmanship—do they tell you nothing of this?"

"No; only of his cruelties."

"And your heart, how does that receive the lie? calmly, or bursting with indignation?"

"My heart aches within me when I hear these legends—aches and burns as if a wound at its core were rudely touched."

"Ah! and there is a wound, a cruel wound, deep in your life. It shall spread and burn through your whole being. Listen: These Englishmen voted themselves munitions of war, raised regiments, linked colony to colony, and made each settlement the rivet of a chain which swept the coast. Their bravest men took the field—the whole country was astir. These very preparations were a tribute to the heroism they were intended to crush—all this force was brought against the kingly savage. He met it bravely where courage was most likely to prevail; cautiously where prudence promised to husband human life. He seized upon their own tactics, and turned them in his favor; marched, countermarched, and manoeuvred as no general of Europe has ever done. This queen went side by side with him upon the war-path. She was his council, the companion of his danger. There was not a warrior in the tribe who would have refused to lay down his life for her. But why tell you this history? You know how the strong man was betrayed by a traitor, murdered in cold blood, hacked limb from limb. Oh, Great Spirit, hear me, and kindle in her breast the rage that consumes mine! Listen, girl: His wife and son were taken prisoners; the wife of King Philip was dragged out of the forest with her son at her side and the last-born in her arms!

"Again the magnates of the church sat in judgment upon her. A ship lay on the coast, a battered old vessel bound for Bermuda. This brave woman could not be trusted in the country—the ship would bear her and her children into slavery. The wife and children of a king were taken from the broad forest, with its fresh winds and sumptuous leafiness, and condemned to herd with negroes and slaves under a tropic sun. That night, no one could ever tell how, the wife of Philip escaped from her captors, and fled with her youngest child, a little girl scarcely yet three years old. That child inherited its mother's beauty, its father's lofty pride, and the solemn obligations of Anna Hutchinson's curse."

Again Abigail felt the cold chills creeping over her.

"Ah me!" she muttered, "that terrible inheritance—better that the child had died."

"Better that the child had died than avenge such wrongs—a grandmother's butchery, a father's murder, stripes and slavery for the mother, chains, hard labor, brutal blows for the young boy—better that she had died! Wretched girl, unsay these words!"

The anger in his face was terrible, his hand sprung upwards as if to smite her. She shrunk away into the shadow of the pine, thinking thus to escape his fiery glances.

"Step into the light again, that your face may unsay the cowardly words of your tongue!"

"I dare not—you terrify me. Why tell this horrible story here? I am young, helpless, afraid sometimes, and talk like this takes away my strength. I cannot think of this dying woman's curse without dread. The judgment of God must follow it, and the helpless child, with whom its power was left—but perhaps she died."

"And if she had, was not the son left, the Bermuda slave, with King Philip's blood burning beneath the lash, to remind him of the legacy of hate left against her people by his martyred ancestress?"

"It was an evil inheritance from a woman who wrought much trouble in the church, though the atonement was enough to wring one's heart. This Anna Hutchinson, who died under the tomahawk, was a heretic—a free thinker, who would not forgive her enemies as Christ did, but died hurling curses back upon the people who perhaps only sought to win her once more to the true faith."

"Hold!" shouted the chief, seizing her by the arm and dragging her into the moonlight; "hold, before the word withers your tongue—Anna Hutchinson was your grandmother."

Abigail Williams cried out like a doe when the arrow pierces it.

"The woman who sleeps there is her eldest daughter, the wife of King Philip!"

"And I—I," whispered the poor creature—writhing as if in pain.

"You are the child."

"The child to whom the power of her curse descends! oh, my God, have mercy—have mercy!"

"Mahaska."

"I hear, oh heavens, I feel that the name was mine!"

"Mahaska, listen: The blood of that brave woman—of that most kingly of kings—both betrayed, both murdered—beats in our veins."

Abigail was cowering upon the ground at his feet; she had no strength to stand, but as he spoke she lifted her face with a dull, hopeless look, which contracted her features into ice.

"Who is it that speaks? who is it that hurls this terrible birthright at me?"

"It is the son of King Philip, the runaway slave, the man whose boyhood has been crucified beneath the driver's lash, while his people were scattered abroad—sold, shot, plundered like mad dogs and wolves. Mahaska, it is your brother!"

Up to this time the girl had been palsied; now a flash of fire kindled through and through her, an intolerable weight seemed flung from her brain, she stood up and held forth her arms.

The young savage took her hands with a grasp of iron, but he did not embrace her.

"Is it the hand of a king's daughter that I hold?" he questioned, with a sort of stern tenderness, but keeping her at arm's length.

"It is King Philip's daughter—try me, brother: lead the way into the wilderness: I will follow: see if I cannot trample down all love for my mother's enemies!"

The chief opened his arms, and drew the young girl to his bosom, as he had done years before, when his mother, striving to introduce some of the amenities of life into the Indian lodge, had given the infant sister up to his caresses.

Then the blood spoke out, her air was proud and firm as his own, she began to realize that she was indeed the daughter of martyrs and kings, that their wrongs were her wrongs—their people her people.

"Take me with you to our people, before my heart softens, or memory comes back. Here I fling away the love of a life-time—uncle, cousin, home."

She spoke wildly, her eye burned, her cheek was like flame; she left her brother's arms, and fell upon her knees between the two graves.

"Mother," she whispered—"mother, hear me; check those sobs on the wind, they break my heart. I am giving myself up to you body and soul; mother, teach me the vow that will content you; I will take it here, while the last of our race looks on!"

The wind swept over her, sighing like a soul relieved from pain—swept over her in sweet, warm gushes, as if it had been asleep in the blossoming trees. Abigail covered her face and wept; when she looked up again the young chief had gone.