What could Edith do?  She dared not leave him, to be carried off, perhaps, by some other prowling savage, who might still be lingering near; and she could not carry him home.  Slowly she drew him on, while every moment seemed an hour, that delayed her from giving the alarm, and sending friends to the rescue of her darling brother.

‘O! why did he leave me?’ she murmured.  ’Why did he go, when I knew that danger was near?’

As soon as she had brought the panting and terrified Ludovico within the precincts of the garden, she left him, and ran towards the house, calling loudly on her mother, who rushed out on hearing her voice of terror, and was instantly made acquainted with the appalling fact that had occurred.  Who shall tell the agony of her feelings, or describe the sufferings of that mother’s heart, when she knew that her child was in the power of the savage and relentless enemies of the white men?  She was, indeed, ignorant of the peculiar vengeance that they desired to wreak on her husband and all his race; but the malevolent character of the Nausetts had been sufficiently manifested in their repeated and destructive attacks on the settlement, and their willful desecration of the graves of the exiles, to awaken the most poignant fears in her breast.  Rodolph, too, was absent, and Brewster was still at the Wampanoge village; and where should she seek for succor or for counsel!

Hastily calling Janet, who was the only domestic at home, she committed Ludovico to her care; and taking Edith by the hand, she hurried from the garden, scarcely knowing whither she bent her steps, but in the vague hope of meeting some of the settlers returning from their labors in the fields, and inducing them to go to the rescue of her boy.

Onward she fled along the skirts of the forest, towards the fields of her husband’s friend Winslow, who, she well knew, would aid her with all his power:  but she found him not, and no human being appeared in sight to listen to her appeal for succor.  The sun was setting, and all had returned to the village.  What then could Helen do?  To retrace her steps, and seek her friends and neighbors in their homes, would be to lose precious moments, on which the life and liberty of her Henrich might depend.  To strike into the depths of the forest, and cross the belt of wood that divided the settlement from Mooanam’s encampment would be the quickest plan, and probably the most effectual, as her Wampanoge friends would know far better than the settlers how to follow in the train of the fugitives, and how either to persuade or to compel them to release their prisoners.  Helen had never dared to enter the wood, except under the protection of her husband, even in the broad light of day; and now the gloom of evening was gathering around her, and the path that led into the wood was obscured by the shadows of the thick foliage above.  Bat where were all her fears and apprehensions?  She was unconscious of such feelings now.  The timid woman’s heart was nerved to the occasion, and no danger could now make her shrink.