University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

It is not our purpose to describe, step by step,
the progress of the Indian fugitives. Their sagacity
in traversing their native forests; their skill
in following and eluding an enemy, and all their
politic devices, have been so well described in a
recent popular work, that their usages have become
familiar as household words, and nothing
remains but to shelter defects of skill and knowledge
under the veil of silence; since we hold it to
be an immutable maxim, that a thing had better
not be done, than be ill-done.

Suffice it to say, then, that the savages, after
crossing the track of their pursuers, threaded the

forest with as little apparent uncertainty as to their
path, as is now felt by travellers who pass through
the same still romantic country, in a stage-coach
and on a broad turnpike. As they receded from the
Connecticut, the pine levels disappeared; the
country was broken into hills, and rose into high
mountains.

They traversed the precipitous sides of a river
that, swoln by the vernal rains, wound its way'
among the hills, foaming and raging like an angry
monarch. The river, as they traced its course,
dwindled to a mountain rill, but still retaining its
impetuous character, leaping and tumbling for
miles through a descending defile, between high
mountains, whose stillness, grandeur, and immobility,
contrasted with the noisy reckless little
stream, as stern manhood with infancy. In one
place, which the Indians called the throat of the
mountain, they were obliged to betake themselves
to the channel of the brook, there not being room
on its margin for a footpath. The branches of
the trees that grew from the rocky and precipitous
declivities on each side, met and interlaced,
forming a sylvan canopy over the imprisoned
stream. To Magawisca, whose imagination
breathed a living spirit into all the objects of nature,
it seemed as if the spirits of the wood had
stooped to listen to its sweet music.

After tracing this little sociable rill to its source,
they again plunged into the silent forest—waded
through marshy ravines, and mounted to the summits

of sterile hills; till at length, at the close of
the third day, after having gradually descended
for several miles, the hills on one side receded,
and left a little interval of meadow, through
which they wound into the lower valley of the
Housatonick.

This continued and difficult march had been
sustained by Everell with a spirit and fortitude
that evidently won the favour of the savages, who
always render homage to superiority over physical
evil. There was something more than this
common feeling, in the joy with which Mononotto
noted the boy's silent endurance, and even contempt
of pain. One noble victim seemed to him
better than a “human hecatomb.” In proportion
to his exultation in possessing an object
worthy to avenge his son, was his fear that his
victim would escape from him. During the march,
Everell had twice, aided by Magawisca, nearly
achieved his liberty. These detected conspiracies,
though defeated, rendered the chief impatient
to execute his vengeance; and he secretly
resolved that it should not be delayed longer than
the morrow.

As the fugitives emerged from the narrow defile,
a new scene opened upon them; a scene of
valley and hill, river and meadow, surrounded by
mountains, whose encircling embrace, expressed
protection and love to the gentle spirits of the
valley. A light summer shower had just fallen,
and the clouds, “in thousand liveries dight,” had

risen from the western horizon, and hung their rich
draperies about the clear sun. The horizontal
rays passed over the valley, and flushed the upper
branches of the trees, the summits of the hills,
and the mountains, with a flood of light, whilst
the low grounds reposing in deep shadow, presented
one of those striking and accidental contrasts
in nature, that a painter would have selected
to give effect to his art.

The gentle Housatonick wound through the
depths of the valley, in some parts contracted to
a narrow channel, and murmuring over the rocks
that rippled its surface; and in others, spreading
wide its clear mirror, and lingering like a lover
amidst the vines, trees, and flowers, that fringed
its banks. Thus it flows now—but not as then
in the sylvan freedom of nature, when no clattering
mills and bustling factories, threw their prosaic
shadows over the silver waters—when not
even a bridge spanned their bosom—when not a
trace of man's art was seen save the little
bark canoe that glided over them, or lay idly
moored along the shore. The savage was rather
the vassal, than the master of nature; obeying her
laws, but never usurping her dominion. He only
used the land she prepared, and cast in his corn
but where she seemed to invite him by mellowing
and upheaving the rich mould. He did not
presume to hew down her trees, the proud crest of
her uplands, and convert them into “russet lawns
and fallows grey.” The axman's stroke, that

music to the settler's ear, never then violated the
peace of nature, or made discord in her music.

Imagination may be indulged in lingering for
a moment in those dusky regions of the past; but
it is not permitted to reasonable instructed man,
to admire or regret tribes of human beings, who
lived and died, leaving scarcely a more enduring
memorial, than the forsaken nest that vanishes
before one winter's storms.

But to return to our wanderers. They had
entered the expanded vale, by following the windings
of the Housatonick around a hill, conical
and easy of ascent, excepting on that side which
overlooked the river, where, half-way from the
base to the summit, rose a perpendicular rock,
bearing on its beetling front the age of centuries.
On every other side, the hill was garlanded with
laurels, now in full and profuse bloom; here and
there surmounted by an intervening pine, spruce,
or hemlock, whose seared winter foliage was
fringed with the bright tender sprouts of spring.
We believe there is a chord, even in the heart of
savage man, that responds to the voice of nature.
Certain it is, the party paused, as it appeared
from a common instinct, at a little grassy nook,
formed by the curve of the hill, to gaze on this
singularly beautiful spot. Everell looked on the
smoke that curled from the huts of the village,
embosomed in pine trees, on the adjacent plain.
The scene, to him, breathed peace and happiness,
and gushing thoughts of home filled his eyes with

tears. Oneco plucked clusters of laurels, and
decked his little favourite, and the old chief fixed
his melancholy eye on a solitary pine, scathed
and blasted by tempests, that rooted in the ground
where he stood, lifted its topmost branches to
the bare rock, where they seemed, in their wild
desolation, to brave the elemental fury that had
stripped them of beauty and life.

The leafless tree was truly, as it appeared to the
eye of Mononotto, a fit emblem of the chieftain of a
ruined tribe. “See you, child,” he said, addressing
Magawisca, “those unearthed roots? the tree
must fall—hear you the death-song that wails
through those blasted branches?”

“Nay, father, listen not to the sad strain; it is
but the spirit of the tree mourning over its decay;
rather turn thine ear to the glad song of this
bright stream, image of the good. She nourishes
the aged trees, and cherishes the tender flowrets,
and her song is ever of happiness, till she reaches
the great sea—image of our eternity.”

“Speak not to me of happiness, Magawisca;
it has vanished with the smoke of our homes.
I tell ye, the spirits of our race are gathered
about this blasted tree. Samoset points to that rock
—that sacrifice-rock.” His keen glance turned
from the rock to Everell.

Magawisca understood its portentous meaning,
and she clasped her hands in mute and agonizing
supplication. He answered to the silent entreaty.

“It is in vain—my purpose is fixed, and here it
shall be accomplished. Why hast thou linked
thy heart, foolish girl, to this English boy? I
have sworn, kneeling on the ashes of our hut, that
I would never spare a son of our enemy's race.
The lights of heaven witnessed my vow, and think
you, that now this boy is given into my hands to
avenge thy brother, I will spare him for thy prayer?
No—though thou lookest on me with thy
mother's eye, and speakest with her voice, I will
not break my vow.”

Mononotto had indeed taken a final and fatal
resolution; and prompted, as he fancied, by super-natural
intimations, and, perhaps, dreading the
relentings of his own heart, he determined on its
immediate execution. He announced his decision
to the Mohawks. A brief and animated consultation
followed, during which they brandished
their tomahawks, and cast wild and threatening
glances at Everell, who at once comprehended
the meaning of these menacing looks and gestures.
He turned an appealing glance to Magawisca.
She did not speak. “Am I to die now?”
he asked; she turned shuddering from him.

Everell had expected death from his savage captors,
but while it was comparatively distant, he
thought he was indifferent to it, or rather, he believed
he should welcome it as a release from the
horrible recollection of the massacre at Bethel,
which haunted him day and night. But now that
his fate seemed inevitable, nature was appalled,

and shrunk from it; and the impassive spirit, for a
moment, endured a pang that there cannot be in
any “corp'ral sufferance.” The avenues of sense
were closed, and past and future were present to
the mind, as if it were already invested with the
attributes of its eternity. From this agonizing
excitement, Everell was roused by a command
from the savages to move onward. “It is then
deferred,” thought Magawisca, and heaving a
deep sigh, as if for a moment relieved from a
pressure on her over-burthened heart, she looked
to her father for an explanation; he said nothing,
but proceeded in silence towards the village.

The lower valley of the Housatonick, at the
period to which our history refers, was inhabited
by a peaceful, and, as far as that epithet could
ever be applied to our savages, an agricultural tribe,
whose territory, situate midway between the
Hudson and the Connecticut, was bounded and
defended on each side by mountains, then deemed
impracticable to a foe. These inland people had
heard from the hunters of distant tribes, who occasionally
visited them, of the aggressions and
hostility of the English strangers, but regarding it
as no concern of theirs, they listened, much as we
listen to news of the Burmese war—Captain
Symmes' theory—or lectures on phrenology.
One of their hunters, it is true, had penetrated to
Springfield, and another had passed over the hills
to the Dutch fort at Albany, and returned with
the report that the strangers' skin was the colour

of cowardice—that they served their women, and
spoke an unintelligible language. There was little
in this account to interest those who were so
ignorant as to be scarcely susceptible of curiosity,
and they hardly thought of the dangerous strangers
at all, or only thought of them as a people
from whom they had nothing to hope or fear, when
the appearance of the ruined Pequod chief, with
his English captives, roused them from their
apathy.

The village was on a level, sandy plain, extending
for about half a mile, and raised by a
natural and almost perpendicular bank fifty feet
above the level of the meadows. At one extremity
of the plain, was the hill we have described; the
other was terminated by a broad green, appropriated
to sports and councils.

The huts of the savages were irregularly scattered
over the plain—some on cleared ground,
and others just peeping out of copses of pine
trees—some on the very verge of the plain, overlooking
the meadows—and others under the shelter
of a high hill that formed the northern boundary
of the valley, and seemed stationed there to
defend the inhabitants from their natural enemies
—cold, and wind.

The huts were the simplest structures of human
art; but, as in no natural condition of society
a perfect equality obtains, some were more
spacious and commodious than others. All were
made with flexible poles, firmly set in the ground,

and drawn and attached together at the top.
Those of the more indolent, or least skilful, were
filled in with branches of trees and hung over
with coarse mats; while those of the better
order were neatly covered with bark, prepared
with art, and considerable labour for the purpose.
Little garden patches adjoined a few of the dwellings,
and were planted with beans, pumpkins, and
squashes; the seeds of these vegetables, according
to an Indian tradition, (in which we may perceive
the usual admixture of fable and truth,)
having been sent to them, in the bill of a bird,
from the south-west, by the Great Spirit.

The Pequod chief and his retinue passed, just
at twilight, over the plain, by one of the many
foot-paths that indented it. Many of the women
were still at work with their stone-pointed
hoes, in their gardens. Some of the men
and children were at their sports on the green.
Here a straggler was coming from the river with
a string of fine trout; another fortunate sportsman
appeared from the hill-side with wild turkeys
and partridges; while two emerged from the forest
with still more noble game, a fat antlered
buck.

This village, as we have described it, and perhaps
from the affection its natural beauty inspired,
remained the residence of the savages long after
they had vanished from the surrounding country.
Within the memory of the present generation the
remnant of the tribe migrated to the west; and

even now some of their families make a summer
pilgrimage to this, their Jerusalem, and are regarded
with a melancholy interest by the present
occupants of the soil.

Mononotto directed his steps to the wigwam of
the Housatonick chief, which stood on one side of
the green. The chief advanced from his hut to
receive him, and by the most animated gestures
expressed to Mononotto his pleasure in the success
of his incursion, from which it seemed that
Mononotto had communicated with him on his
way to the Connecticut.

A brief and secret consultation succeeded,
which appeared to consist of propositions from
the Pequod, and assent on the part of the Housatonick
chief, and was immediately followed by
a motion to separate the travellers. Mononotto
and Everell were to remain with the chief, and
the rest of the party to be conducted to the hut of
his sister.

Magawisca's prophetic spirit too truly interpreted
this arrangement; and thinking or hoping
there might be some saving power in her presence,
since her father tacitly acknowledged it by
the pains he took to remove her, she refused to
leave him. He insisted vehemently; but finding
her unyielding, he commanded the Mohawks to
force her away.

Resistance was vain, but resistance she would
still have made, but for the interposition of Everell.
“Go with them, Magawisca,” he said,

“and leave me to my fate.—We shall meet
again.”

“Never!” she shrieked; “your fate is death.”

“And after death we shall meet again,” replied
Everell, with a calmness that evinced his mind
was already in a great degree resigned to the
event that now appeared inevitable. “Do not
fear for me, Magawisca. Better thoughts have
put down my fears. When it is over, think of
me.”

“And what am I to do with this scorching fire
till then?” she asked, pressing both her hands
on her head. “Oh, my father, has your heart become
stone?”

Her father turned from her appeal, and motioned
to Everell to enter the hut. Everell obeyed;
and when the mat dropped over the entrance
and separated him from the generous creature,
whose heart had kept true time with his through
all his griefs, who he knew would have redeemed
his life with her own, he yielded to a burst of
natural and not unmanly tears.

If this could be deemed a weakness, it was his
last. Alone with his God, he realized the sufficiency
of His presence and favour. He appealed
to that mercy which is never refused, nor
given in stinted measure to the humble suppliant.
Every expression of pious confidence and resignation,
which he had heard with the heedless ear
of childhood, now flashed like an illumination
upon his mind.

His mother's counsels and instructions, to which

he had often lent a wearied attention—the passages
from the sacred book he had been compelled
to commit to memory, when his truant
thoughts were ranging forest and field, now returned
upon him as if a celestial spirit breathed
them into his soul. Stillness and peace stole
over him. He was amazed at his own tranquillity.
`It may be,' he thought, `that my mother
and sisters are permitted to minister to me.'

He might have been agitated by the admission
of the least ray of hope; but hope was utterly
excluded, and it was only when he thought of his
bereft father, that his courage failed him.

But we must leave him to his solitude and silence,
only interrupted by the distant hootings of
the owl, and the heavy tread of the Pequod chief,
who spent the night in slowly pacing before the
door of the hut.

Magawisca and her companions were conducted
to a wigwam standing on that part of the plain
on which they had first entered. It was completely
enclosed on three sides by dwarf oaks.
In front there was a little plantation of the edible
luxuries of the savages. On entering the hut,
they perceived it had but one occupant, a sick
emaciated old woman, who was stretched on her
mat covered with skins. She raised her head, as
the strangers entered, and at the sight of Faith
Leslie, uttered a faint exclamation, deeming the
fair creature a messenger from the spirit-land—
but being informed who they were and whence

they came, she made every sign and expression
of courtesy to them, that her feeble strength permitted.

Her hut contained all that was essential to savage
hospitality. A few brands were burning on
a hearth-stone in the middle of the apartment.
The smoke that found egress, passed out by a
hole in the centre of the roof, over which a mat
was skilfully adjusted, and turned to the windward-side
by a cord that hung within. The old
woman, in her long pilgrimage, had accumulated
stores of Indian riches; piles of sleeping-mats
laid in one corner; nicely dressed skins garnished
the walls; baskets, of all shapes and sizes, gaily
decorated with rude images of birds and flowers,
contained dried fruits, medicinal herbs, Indian
corn, nuts, and game. A covered pail, made of
folds of birch-bark, was filled with a kind of beer—
a decoction of various roots and aromatic shrubs.
Neatly turned wooden spoons and bowls, and culinary
utensils of clay supplied all the demands of
the inartificial housewifery of savage life.

The travellers, directed by their old hostess,
prepared their evening repast, a short and simple
process to an Indian; and having satisfied the
cravings of hunger, they were all, with the exception
of Magawisca and one of the Mohawks, in a
very short time, stretched on their mats and fast
asleep.

Magawisca seated herself at the feet of the
old woman, and had neither spoken nor moved

since she entered the hut. She watched
anxiously and impatiently the movements of the
Indian, whose appointed duty it appeared to be,
to guard her. He placed a wooden bench
against the mat which served for a door, and stuffing
his pipe with tobacco from the pouch slung
over his shoulder, and then filling a gourd with
the liquor in the pail and placing it beside him,
he quietly sat himself down to his night-watch.

The old woman became restless, and her loud
and repeated groans, at last, withdrew Magawisca
from her own miserable thoughts. She inquired
if she could do aught to allay her pain; the
sufferer pointed to a jar that stood on the embers
in which a medicinal preparation was simmering.
She motioned to Magawisca to give her a spoonful
of the liquor; she did so, and as she took it,
“it is made,” she said, “of all the plants on which
the spirit of sleep has breathed,” and so it seemed
to be; for she had scarcely swallowed it, when
she fell asleep.

Once or twice she waked and murmured something,
and once Magawisca heard her say, “Hark
to the wekolis![1] —he is perched on the old oak, by
the sacrifice-rock, and his cry is neither musical,
nor merry—a bad sign in a bird.”

But all signs and portents were alike to Magawisca—every
sound rung a death-peal to her ear,
and the hissing silence had in it the mystery and

fearfulness of death. The night wore slowly and
painfully away, as if, as in the fairy tale, the
moments were counted by drops of heart's-blood.
But the most wearisome nights will end; the
morning approached; the familiar notes of the
birds of earliest dawn were heard, and the twilight
peeped through the crevices of the hut, when
a new sound fell on Magawisca's startled ear.
It was the slow measured tread of many feet.
The poor girl now broke silence, and vehemently
entreated the Mohawk to let her pass the door, or
at least to raise the mat.

He shook his head with a look of unconcern,
as if it were the petulant demand of a child, when
the old woman, awakened by the noise, cried out
that she was dying—that she must have light and
air, and the Mohawk started up, impulsively,
to raise the mat. It was held between two
poles that formed the door-posts, and while he
was disengaging it, Magawisca, as if inspired, and
quick as thought, poured the liquor from the jar on
the fire into the hollow of her hand, and dashed
it into the gourd which the Mohawk had just replenished.
The narcotic was boiling hot, but she
did not cringe; she did not even feel it; and she
could scarcely repress a cry of joy, when the savage
turned round and swallowed, at one draught,
the contents of the cup.

Magawisca looked eagerly through the aperture,
but though the sound of the footsteps had
approached nearer, she saw no one. She saw nothing

but a gentle declivity that sloped to the
plain, a few yards from the hut, and was covered
with a grove of trees; beyond and peering above
them, was the hill, and the sacrifice-rock; the
morning star, its rays not yet dimmed in the
light of day, shed a soft trembling beam on
its summit. This beautiful star, alone in the
heavens, when all other lights were quenched,
spoke to the superstitious, or, rather, the imaginative
spirit of Magawisca. `Star of promise,' she
thought, `thou dost still linger with us when day
is vanished, and now thou art there, alone, to
proclaim the coming sun; thou dost send in upon
my soul a ray of hope; and though it be but as
the spider's slender pathway, it shall sustain my
courage.' She had scarcely formed this resolution,
when she needed all its efficacy, for the train,
whose footsteps she had heard, appeared in full
view.

First came her father, with the Housatonick
chief; next, alone, and walking with a firm undaunted
step, was Everell; his arms folded over
his breast, and his head a little inclined upward, so
that Magawisca fancied she saw his full eye turned
heavenward; after him walked all the men of
the tribe, ranged according to their age, and the
rank assigned to each by his own exploits.

They were neither painted nor ornamented according
to the common usage at festivals and
sacrifices, but every thing had the air of hasty
preparation. Magawisca gazed in speechless despair.

The procession entered the wood, and for
a few moments, disappeared from her sight—
again they were visible, mounting the acclivity of
the hill, by a winding narrow foot-path, shaded
on either side by laurels. They now walked singly
and slowly, but to Magawisca, their progress
seemed rapid as a falling avalanche. She felt
that, if she were to remain pent in that prisonhouse,
her heart would burst, and she sprang towards
the door-way in the hope of clearing her
passage, but the Mohawk caught her arm in his
iron grasp, and putting her back, calmly retained
his station. She threw herself on her knees
to him—she entreated—she wept—but in vain:
he looked on her with unmoved apathy. Already
she saw the foremost of the party had
reached the rock, and were forming a semicircle
around it—again she appealed to her determined
keeper, and again he denied her petition, but with
a faltering tongue, and a drooping eye.

Magawisca, in the urgency of a necessity that
could brook no delay, had forgotten, or regarded
as useless, the sleeping potion she had infused into
the Mohawk's draught; she now saw the powerful
agent was at work for her, and with that quickness
of apprehension that made the operations of
her mind as rapid as the impulses of instinct, she
perceived that every emotion she excited but hindered
the effect of the potion, suddenly seeming
to relinquish all purpose and hope of escape, she
threw herself on a mat, and hid her face, burning

with agonizing impatience, in her mantle. There
we must leave her, and join that fearful company
who were gathered together to witness what they
believed to be the execution of exact and necessary
justice.

Seated around their sacrifice-rock—their holy
of holies—they listened to the sad story of the
Pequod chief, with dejected countenances and
downcast eyes, save when an involuntary glance
turned on Everell, who stood awaiting his fate,
cruelly aggravated by every moment's delay, with
a quiet dignity and calm resignation, that would
have become a hero, or a saint. Surrounded by
this dark cloud of savages, his fair countenance
kindled by holy inspiration, he looked scarcely
like a creature of earth.

There might have been among the spectators,
some who felt the silent appeal of the helpless
courageous boy; some whose hearts moved them
to interpose to save the selected victim; but they
were restrained by their interpretation of natural
justice, as controlling to them as our artificial
codes of laws to us.

Others of a more cruel, or more irritable disposition,
when the Pequod described his wrongs,
and depicted his sufferings, brandished their
tomahawks, and would have hurled them at the
boy, but the chief said—“Nay, brothers—the
work is mine—he dies by my hand—for my first-born—life
for life—he dies by a single stroke, for
thus was my boy cut off. The blood of sachems

is in his veins. He has the skin, but not the soul
of that mixed race, whose gratitude is like that
vanishing mist,” and he pointed to the vapour
that was melting from the mountain tops into the
transparent ether; “and their promises are like
this,” and he snapped a dead branch from the pine
beside which he stood, and broke it in fragments
“Boy, as he is, he fought for his mother, as the
eagle fights for its young. I watched him in the
mountain-path, when the blood gushed from his
torn feet; not a word from his smooth lip, betrayed
his pain.”

Mononotto embellished his victim with praises,
as the ancients wreathed theirs with flowers.
He brandished his hatchet over Everell's head,
and cried, exultingly, “See, he flinches not. Thus
stood my boy, when they flashed their sabres
before his eyes, and bade him betray his father.
Brothers—My people have told me I bore a woman's
heart towards the enemy. Ye shall see.
I will pour out this English boy's blood to the last
drop, and give his flesh and bones to the dogs and
wolves.”

He then motioned to Everell to prostrate himself
on the rock, his face downward. In this
position the boy would not see the descending
stroke. Even at this moment of dire vengeance,
the instincts of a merciful nature asserted their
rights.

Everell sunk calmly on his knees, not to supplicate
life, but to commend his soul to God.

He clasped his hands together. He did not—he
could not speak; his soul was

At this moment a sun-beam penetrated the
trees that enclosed the area, and fell athwart
his brow and hair, kindling it with an almost
supernatural brightness. To the savages, this
was a token that the victim was accepted, and
they sent forth a shout that rent the air. Everell
bent forward, and pressed his forehead to the
rock. The chief raised the deadly weapon, when
Magawisca, springing from the precipitous side
of the rock, screamed—“Forbear!” and interposed
her arm. It was too late. The blow was
levelled—force and direction given—the stroke
aimed at Everell's neck, severed his defender's
arm, and left him unharmed. The lopped quivering
member dropped over the precipice. Mononotto
staggered and fell senseless, and all the
savages, uttering horrible yells, rushed toward the
fatal spot.

“Stand back!” cried Magawisca. “I have
bought his life with my own. Fly, Everell—nay,
speak not, but fly—thither—to the east!” she
cried, more vehemently.

Everell's faculties were paralyzed by a rapid
succession of violent emotions. He was conscious
only of a feeling of mingled gratitude and
admiration for his preserver. He stood motionless,
gazing on her. “I die in vain then,” she

cried, in an accent of such despair, that he was
roused. He threw his arms around her, and pressed
her to his heart, as he would a sister that had
redeemed his life with her own, and then tearing
himself from her, he disappeared. No one offered
to follow him. The voice of nature rose from
every heart, and responding to the justice of Magawisca's
claim, bade him “God speed!” To
all it seemed that his deliverance had been
achieved by miraculous aid. All—the dullest
and coldest, paid involuntary homage to the heroic
girl, as if she were a superior being, guided and
upheld by supernatural power.

Every thing short of miracle she had achieved.
The moment the opiate dulled the senses of
her keeper, she escaped from the hut; and
aware that, if she attempted to penetrate to her
father through the semicircular line of spectators
that enclosed him, she should be repulsed, and
probably borne off the ground, she had taken the
desperate resolution of mounting the rock, where
only her approach would be unperceived. She
did not stop to ask herself if it were possible,
but impelled by a determined spirit, or rather,
we would believe, by that inspiration that teaches
the bird its unknown path, and leads the goat,
with its young, safely over the mountain crags,
she ascended the rock. There were crevices in
it, but they seemed scarcely sufficient to support
the eagle with his grappling talon, and twigs issuing

from the fissures, but so slender, that they
waved like a blade of grass under the weight of
the young birds that made a rest on them, and
yet, such is the power of love, stronger than
death, that with these inadequate helps, Magawisca
scaled the rock, and achieved her generous
purpose.