claws and fangs have torn his people, whose breath has scorched the hearts of the Montauks and dried the blood in their veins! He must die! The dead, whose spirits wander in the forests they loved, are calling, their voices sound in the ear of Wyancombone, cold and hollow as the moaning of the deep water when the storm is upon it, bidding the Montauks to take vengeance upon the cold, proud paleface who would have robbed Wyandance of his land. They point with skeleton fingers, and whisper:‘The sea-wolf shall have land, but only to cover his bones!' Wyancombone hears and will obey. The white wolf must die, but not by the hand of a Montauk, lest it bring Englishmen like sea-wolves to destroy the tribes of Sea-wan-ha-ka. Let Wyancombone be silent, that not a warrior of his tribe may know what is in his heart. Great Spirit!" he cried aloud, his voice ringing over the waters like the vibrations of a deep-toned bell, spirits of dead warriors that cannot rest, listen to the voice of Wyancombone while he breathes the words he has spoken in his heart. Wyancombone swears by the bones of his fathers, never to rest until the Englishman finds a grave in the earth he would have stolen ! "

More than revenge breathed in that cry-there was a dull, dreary note of desolation, for that vow was a renunciation of the hopeless love he bore the daughter of the man he had sworn to destroy.

CHAPTER XXXII

VENGEANCE CONQUERS LOVE

"If we do but watch the hour
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long,
Of him who treasures up a wrong."

AGH!"

W

The guttural utterance came from the throat of an Indian who was lying, securely bound, upon the earth, within a low-browed lodge in the centre of the Indian village, a Mohawk runner, the ambassador from his tribe bearing overtures to the Montauk king, that the tribes of Sea-wan-ha-ka would dig up the hatchet and unite with the fierce tribes of the Five Nations in a contemplated massacre of the English upon the islands and the mainland.

Not for a moment did the noble old Sachem waver in his loyalty to those he yet deemed his friends, but instantly disarmed the messenger and confined him within a lodge.

The savage captive had been sleeping soundly when a light hand upon his shoulder elicited the exclamation.

The warning came in a sibilant whisper, and by the pencil of moonlight sifting through a crack in the entrance the captive beheld the youthful Wyancombone, whose slender hand had pressed his

shoulder, causing the sleeper to raise himself to a sitting position, while he peered in the face of the youth half in surprise, half in anger.

"Would Wa-ne-no return to his people?" asked the young Indian in a cautious tone.

Deeming the question but an insult, the Mohawk vouchsafed no reply; but the visitor was not to be baffled, and again he asked the question, with the explanation of his singular query.

"Wa-ne-no came to the great Sachem of the Montauks with the wampum belt as a token that Wyandance should dig up the hatchet and join with the Mohawks to destroy the pale-faces who are the friends of the Montauks. The great Sachem will not make war upon his friends, but he has bound the Mohawk brave with thongs.'

A grunt of defiance was the only reply.

"Listen! In the council of wise men the fire has been lighted, and when the sun burns in the east Wa-ne-no will be sent away to the great council fire of the pale-faces, who, maybe, will kill him; maybe keep him a prisoner for many moons; maybe hang him up like a snared fox. Does the Mohawk brave know this?"

66

Wa-ne-no is a great brave of the Mohawksnot a papoose," muttered the warrior, with a shrug of his shoulders, and an intonation that pointed his meaning to the stripling. "Let the papoose listen. Wa-ne-no is not afraid. The Sachem of the Montauks is blind like an old squaw. The pale-faces spit on him-take away his land-take dogs-by-andbye take all-take the burial place of his fathers!

"Listen! Let the ears of the papoose hear the words of Wa-ne-no, let his tongue speak them to the blind squaw who is his father. When his red brother comes with the token, asking him to go upon the war

path and drive away the white wolf who is making the red man without a country, without a home, he makes him a prisoner and carries him to the white man's council fire to make sport for the white warriors! Does the chief of the Montauks forget the lashes his white brothers gave to Poniute? A little bird sung it in the ears of the Montauks, but the Sachem of the Montauks forgets!

"Listen, papoose! When the pale-face came across the great water he was but as a feeble sprout; the red man was a strong oak, and the little, withering plant would fain be sheltered under its branches. But the plant was poison and sapped the strength of the great oak until it began to wither and its trunk to decay; the feeble plant was a thrifty, poisonous sapling sucking up the moisture that was the blood of the green oak for hundreds of moons. By-and-bye the oak will be leafless, its trunk dry for the burning, the poison sapling will be a green tree with spreading branches that will take all the moisture of the earth, and the roots of the oak will be dead. But the Mohawks are not squaws; they will come like the leaves of the forest in number, like the great whirlwind when the voice of Manitou speaks in the clouds, and flashes the light that tears the forest trees and burns the green boughs; they will dig up the root of the poison sapling before it has grown stronger, they will burn the pale-face wigwams, and pull down the strong lodges, they will carry away many pale-faces for the torture, as a sacrifice to the gods of their fathers.

"Wa-ne-no would go to the land where his fathers have gone straight from the battle-ground bearing with him his tough bow, his tomahawk red with the blood of his enemies, their scalps at his belt.

"Wa-ne-no will live and die in the faith of his

ancestors, and be buried with his face toward the setting sun. Wa-ne-no has spoken."

Something of the fire in the heart of the Mohawk communicated in an electric spark with the volcanic flame seething in the breast of the stripling, the Iroquois blood inherited from his mother flowed hot in his veins and flushed his cheek.

"Let the ears of Wa-ne-no be open," he replied in a tense whisper. "Wyancombone, the son of Wyandance does not forget that Wic-chi-tau-bit, a princess of the Iroquois, is his mother; he does not come to his red brother to ask for peace, nor to cry like a sick papoose, but to bid Wa-ne-no, who is a great brave, go tell Sine-rong-ni-rese to dig up the hatchet.

"Listen! A serpent has hissed in the ear of Wyandance and asked for more of the land of his fathers. His tongue was forked, and while he gave the right hand to the great Sachem of the Montauks, he held his left hand behind his back with an open palm to the Narragansetts."

"Ugh!" assented Wa-ne-no.

"Listen!" continued the young Indian.

"From

the far north where the guide-star rides in the clouds, to the place where the soft south winds whisper in the caves, from away toward the setting sun to the great waters where he rises, the name of Heather Flower has been heard in praise of her beauty."

"Wa-ne-no has heard," assented the Mohawk, almost reverently.

Listen! When the Sachem, her father, would have given her to go to the lodge of the great warrior To-cus, the White Fox whispered the secret to the enemies of the Montauks that they might come while the Montauks were making merry, and with no weapons of war in their hands. Ninigret brought