Abigail covered her affrighted face with both hands. Her brain was confused--the heart quaked in her bosom--all the traditions of her life were uprooted in a moment. Who was she? Who was the man, garbed like a savage, but who spoke the English tongue as if it were his own? Was the grave at her feet really that of her mother? What did the young savage mean by that haughty air--those proud words?
The Indian came closer to her, withdrew the hands from her face very gently, and held them with a tender clasp.
"Mahaska!"
Abigail looked at him steadily, till the tears rose to her wild eyes; then, as his hand grasped hers faster and tighter, she made an effort to wrench herself away.
His hands dropped, his face bent downward.
"Mahaska!"
"I listen."
"Surely as the Great Spirit looks down upon us through his stars, the woman who sleeps beneath these dark leaves commands you to listen when I speak, and believe what I shall say!"
"But you are an enemy--a savage from the woods; what could you know of my mother?"
"Every thing; it is she who charges you to believe this."
"But if she had a knowledge of you or your people, why did my uncle never mention it?"
"Why did he never mention it?" rejoined the Indian--and now the tenderness left his eyes, and the words came hissing through his shut teeth--"because he was the enemy of your race. Father and mother alike, suffered at his hands."
"What, my uncle, my good, pious uncle, the father of Elizabeth! I do not believe it!" cried Abigail indignantly, "he was never the enemy of any human being."
"Silence!" whispered the savage, "your words trouble the ashes in that grave!"
That instant a gust of wind came sobbing through the pine leaves, and the dusky creepers on the two graves shivered audibly.
Abigail drew close to the savage, and laid her hand on his arm. They bent their heads, and listened till the wind swept by.
"Is it my mother"s voice?" whispered the young girl.
"Have you never heard it before, sobbing and wailing among the trees, or whispering softly when the leaves talk to the night?"
"Yes! oh, yes!"
"Have you never felt it in the night, or here at mid-day in the forest--felt it all around you, till the heart quaked in your bosom, and your limbs refused to move?"
"Ah, me! this also--this also!"
"And yet you ask, is it the voice of my mother?"
"Alas, how should I know? I who never, till this moment, dreamed that she who rests there had wrongs to complain of."
"_Rests_ there--_rests_! why, girl, it is because she cannot rest that the wind brings her sobs to your ear--cannot rest while her youngest-born finds shelter with the most cruel of her enemies."
"The most cruel of her enemies!"
"He who sat in judgment upon a weak, helpless woman, when she came out from the wilderness with her baby sister strapped to her back, beseeching shelter among the people of her mother"s race--the very people who had driven that mother forth to die among her enemies, because she was of a different faith, and believed in a G.o.d more merciful than the one they worshipped--this man was Samuel Parris."
"And the woman, who was she?" cried Abigail, wringing her hands; for so many painful thoughts rushing together almost drove her mad.
"That woman was Anna Hutchinson, the martyr, who was driven from settlement to settlement, with her children--like a mad dog fleeing with her young. Here chained to a cart, and lashed till her white shoulders ran blood, while the strange man"s G.o.d was piously called on to sanctify the deed--there driven onward with taunts and jeers, starved, beaten, trampled upon everywhere. At last she fled with her husband and her young children into the wilderness, trusting rather to enemies embittered against her race by wrongs deeper than hers, than to the men who hunted her down like a beast of prey."
"But they killed her--they killed her--the Indians whom she would have trusted--her and her little ones," cried Abigail, interrupting him. "I have heard the story again and again. Her children were all murdered--she left nothing but a dread curse, a curse that makes the old men whom it was levelled against tremble even yet."
"A curse, yes, the terrible curse of a human being tortured to death--a curse that wails through the woods and stalks around your houses forever unappeased, unfulfilled, but which grows deeper and louder every year."
Abigail shuddered.
"But the judges, who sentenced this unhappy woman, were wise and G.o.d-fearing men. Among them was old Mr. Parris, the father of Samuel Parris, my uncle; the old man died blessing G.o.d, and at peace with all his creatures."
"He persecuted Anna Hutchinson unto death. She was a beautiful, brave woman, whose courage and truth won the hearts of liberal men to her cause. This was her fault; her smiles, her prayers, her powerful reasoning, overwhelmed their sermons, and shook the foundation of their strength. She had disciples--followers--believers--was a woman of great mind; her thoughts were like maple blossoms in spring, bright and pleasant, giving out sunshine; but those of her persecutors always crept along in shadows. This woman was driven upon the knife that stabbed her, by her own brethren. The curse which she uttered in her desperation calls louder and louder upon her children."
"But her children were all slain; she left no human soul to mourn or avenge her--I have heard the story too often; it is written on my memory as with fire; why bring it up here--what has that to do with me, or her?"
Abigail pointed to the grave with her trembling finger--for now she was shivering from head to foot. The story of Anna Hutchinson always affected her thus; from her infancy she had never heard the name without a cold chill.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANNA HUTCHINSON"S CURSE.
The savage lifted Abigail from the earth where she had fallen, and went on with kindling excitement.
"No, her children were not all slain. Two escaped--one, a young girl pale as the first cherry blossoms, with hair like the sunshine in August. The other was a babe, four weeks old, which this brave woman took from her bosom just before the tomahawk cleft her brain. These children were carried into the forest, pa.s.sed from tribe to tribe, till the eldest grew to womanhood. But she remembered her mother, and the horrible scene of her murder, while she knew nothing of the persecutions that drove that mother among the Indians, when the chiefs were on the war-path. So she never took kindly to the tribe, but always pined for a sight of her own people. At last she fled, carrying the child with her, and came here to the village of Salem."
"Here, here--great heavens, can this be!"
"But they would not let the child of Anna Hutchinson rest; she also dared to think for herself. She was also arraigned before the magnates of the church. Like Anna Hutchinson, her fair shoulders were reddened with stripes. The little child, whom she loved better than her own life, was torn from her arms. Like a wounded deer, they sent her into the wilderness, alone, alone--bleeding at every step, uttering moans with every breath."
"Oh, this is terrible!" cried Abigail, pressing both hands to her heart.
The Indian took no heed of her anguish, but went on:
"All day and all night long she wandered through the tangled undergrowth, feeding upon the honeysuckle, apples, and wild plums, that grew in her path, calling in despair on the name of her little sister, and praying to her G.o.d that she might be so happy as to die. For days and nights she toiled on with only one object--to get farther and farther from the people of her race. As a wounded deer pants for spring-water, she longed for the wigwams and the savage love from which she had fled less than a year before.
"But she was in the deep wilderness now, with no track to guide her way--no hope, nothing but her despair. She could not even cry aloud to the Great Spirit, for his face was hidden. Pale and hungry, with the shoes dropping from her feet, her poor hands torn with the thorns that sought her out as human hate had done, this poor girl wandered on and on, growing fainter and paler each moment. At last she sank down, breathless and exhausted, with great tears rolling slowly from beneath her closed lashes, and the blue of hunger settling around her mouth."
Here Abigail"s sobs broke in upon the narrative. The Indian waved his hand with a gesture that silenced this outbreak, and went on:
"The place where she fell was a deep ravine; mountains towered on either side, and rocks, covered with thick mosses, choked it up.
"Upon a shelf of these rocks, where the buck-horn moss crackled and broke beneath her, she lay panting for life. Hemlock and pine branches stooped together and shut out the sun--not a glimpse of the blue sky, not a gleam of the golden light that deluged the tree-tops, came to that dark ravine.