He looked inquiringly at the old Chief’s countenance, and pressed his withered hand.  At length, in a feeble, but calm and decided voice, Tisquantum spoke.

’My son, it is true.  I have observed and listened, but I have held my peace.  When you were a boy, you talked to me of the Christian’s God, and I smiled in my soul at your ignorance.  Then I found that you believed in the Great Mahneto, and I was satisfied.  But for years I have studied your character, to find out why, young as you were, I felt for you a respect that I never felt for any human being except my own heroic father.  At last, I understood that it was because your religion made you true, and brave, and good, and kept you from committing any of the crimes that I saw others guilty of.  If all your nation acted as you have done, Henrich, their coming to this land would have proved a blessing indeed to the red men, and our people would not hate them, and seek to destroy them, as I once sought to do.  But enough of this.  My strength is failing.  Henrich, your example has taught me that your God is holy, and just, and good; it has made me feel the truth of the Christian’s religion.’

Tears of humble joy and gratitude glistened in Henrich’s eyes at this confession.  He knelt beside the dying convert, and bowed his head upon the bed; but his heart was too full to allow him to express his thanksgivings audibly.  Oriana was equally affected; but another form knelt beside them, and another deep rich voice arose in prayer, which was uttered fluently in the Indian language, and in which the hearts of all present joined fervently, although the speaker was a stranger to all but Henrich.

It was Roger Williams, who had been an unobserved witness of the foregoing deeply interesting scene, and had listened, with deep and grateful emotion, to the words of the expiring Chief.  He now spoke the feelings of all his auditors, and, with his wonted power and eloquence, poured forth a fervent prayer for the aged ‘babe in Christ,’ and blessed the God of all spirits that it had pleased Him, even ’in the eleventh hour,’ to call the heathen Chief into the fold of Christ.

When his prayer was finished, Henrich presented his friend and brother to his father-in-law, and told him that, from his lips, he might bear all that one of the Lord’s most zealous and devoted ministers could tell him of holy and eternal things.  Gladly the old man availed himself of this opportunity of obtaining instruction, end being prepared for what he now earnestly desired—­an admittance by baptism into the once despised religion of the white men.

For this task no man was more fitted than Roger Williams.  He well knew how to deal with Indian prejudices, and bow to call forth the affections, by the relation of the simple and touching truths of the gospel.  Tisquantum heard with a willing and teachable spirit, and he believed, and was at peace.  His life was rapidly ebbing away, and no time was to be lost; for though he rallied a little after the arrival of Henrich and Roger, it was evident that his time on earth could only be counted by hours.