On reaching the Nausett village Coubitant had met Jyanough, and been conducted by him to his hut, where he learnt from him and Mailah all that had happened to themselves and their friends since he had lost sight of them; and it had required all the red-man’s habitual self-command and habit of dissimulation to enable him to conceal his fury and disappointment.  He did conceal them, however; and so effectually, that both the Cree and his wife were deceived, and though that the narrative excited in him no deeper interest than former intimacy would naturally create.  But this was far from being the case.  Oriana and the chieftainship were lost to him at present, it is true; but revenge might still be his—­that prize that Satan holds out to his slaves to tempt them on to further guilt and ruin.  To win that prize—­and, possibly, even more than that—­was worth some further effort:  and deceit was no great effort to Coubitant.

So he smiled in return to Henrich’s greeting, and tried to draw Oriana into friendly conversation, by noticing her lovely boy; who, however, received his advances with a very bad grace.  He also addressed Tisquantum with all that respectful deference that is expected by an aged Indian—­more especially a Sachem—­from the younger members of his race; and, at length, he succeeded in banishing from the minds of almost all his former acquaintances those doubts and suspicions that his conduct had once aroused; and he was again admitted to the same terms of intimacy with the Chief and his family that he had enjoyed in years long gone by.

Still, there was one who could not put confidence in Coubitant’s friendly manner, or believe that the feelings of enmity he once so evidently entertained towards Henrich were altogether banished from his mind.  This was Jyanough, whose devoted attachment to the white stranger had first led him to mistrust his rival; and who still resolved to watch his movements with jealous care, and, if possible, to guard his friend from any evil that might be designed against him.

For some time, he could detect nothing in Coubitant’s manner or actions that could, in any way, confirm his suspicions, which he did not communicate to any one but Mailah; for he felt it would be ungenerous to fill the minds of others with the doubts that he could not banish from his own.

The summer advanced, and became one of extreme heat.  The winding stream that flowed through the meadow—­on the skirts of which the Nausett encampment was formed—­gradually decreased, from the failure of the springs that supplied it, until, at length, its shallow waters were reduced to a rippling brook—­so narrow, that young Lincoya could leap over it, and Rodolph could carry his little charge across without any risk of wetting his feet.  The long grass and beautiful lilies, and other wild flowers, that had grown so luxuriantly along the river’s brink, now faded for want of moisture; and the fresh verdure of the meadow was changed to a dry and dusky yellow.  Day by day the brook dried up, and it became necessary for the camp to be removed to some more favored spot, where the inhabitants and their cattle could still find a sufficient supply of water.