Three years had elapsed since that day, and no event had occurred to interrupt the domestic happiness of those young couples, or to disturb the perfect friendship and unanimity that reigned between them.  They were a little Christian community—­small indeed, but faithful and sincere, and likely to increase in time; for little Lincoya was carefully instructed in the blessed doctrines which his mother and his step-father had received, and when Henrich’s own son was born, he baptized him in the name of the Holy Trinity, and gave him the Christian name of his own loved brother Ludovico; and earnestly he asked a blessing on his child, and prayed that he might be enabled to bring him up a Christian, not in name only, but in deed and in truth.

CHAPTER XVI.

’Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?  ’Open rebuke is better than secret love.  ’Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.’  PROV. xxii, 4—­6

Tisquantum still sat dozing on his favorite seat before his dwelling, and Henrich and Oriana remained beside him, silently watching the peaceful slumbers of their venerable parent, and the playful sports of their child, who was again roiling on the soft green turf at their feet, and busily engaged in decking the shaggy head and neck of a magnificent dog with the gay flowers that were scattered around him.

It was Rodolph—­the faithful Rodolph—­who had once saved Henrich’s life from the treacherous designs of Coubitant, and who had often since proved his guard and his, watchful protector in many seasons of peril and difficulty.  His devotion to his master was as strong as ever; and his strength and swiftness were still unabated, whether in the flood or the field.  But years had somewhat subdued the former restless activity of his spirits, and, now that he had dwelt so long in a settled home, his manners had become so domestic, that he seemed to think his chief duty consisted in amusing the little Ludovico, and carrying him about on his bread shaggy shoulders, where he looked like the infant Hercules mounted on his lion.  They were, indeed, a picturesque pair, and no wonder that the young parents of the beautiful child smiled as they watched him wreathing his little hands in the long curling mane of the good-tempered animal, and laying his soft rosy cheek on his back.

Such was the group that occupied the small cultivated spot in front of the chief, lodges of the village:  and thus happy and tranquil might they have remained, until the fading light had warned Oriana that it was time to lay her child to rest in his mossy bed, and to prepare the usual meal for her husband and her father.  But they were interrupted by the approach of Jyanough and Mailah, accompanied by the young Lincoya; and also by a stranger, whose form seemed familiar to them, but whose features the shadow of the over-hanging trees prevented them at first from recognizing.