resting-place; while his gentle Indian child knelt beside him, and
offered him the food of which he was so much in need. Henrich was
gratefully thanking her; and as the Sachem entered, he heard him
exclaim in mournful accents--

‘But why do you thus so kindly treat me? It were better to let me die
of hunger and fatigue; for I know that to-morrow my blood is to be
shed: the cold knife is to pierce my heart.'

'It shall not be,' replied Oriana, fervently. 'I have said that I will
save you.' And then she raised her sparkling eyes as she heard her
father's entrance; and springing on her feet, she darted forward, and
caught his arm.

'Father!' she cried--and now she spoke so rapidly and energetically,
that Henrich could only guess the purport of her words, and read it in
her sweet expressive countenance--'Father! do not slay the white boy.
He says that he is doomed to die because his father caused my brother's
death. But surely Tekoa's generous spirit does not ask the blood of a
child. My brother is now happy in the great hunting grounds where our
fathers dwell. He feels no wrath against his slayer's son: he never
would have sought revenge against an innocent boy. Give me the captive,
O my father! and let him grow up in our lodge, and be to me a
playfellow and a brother.'

Tisquantum gazed at his child in wonder, and his countenance softened.
She saw that he was moved and hastily turning from him, she approached
Henrich, who had risen from the couch, and now stood an earnest
spectator of the scene, on the issue of which his life or death,
humanly speaking, depended. She took his band, and led him to her