Oriana was repulsed, but not defeated, by this reply.  ‘Nay, my father,’ she again began, ’either save all, or let all perish.  Do not take the brave young warrior from his wife and child, and leave them in poverty and sorrow; but plead for mercy to be shown to him also—­and so may mercy be shown to his conquerors, and to you, his deliverer, when—­’

‘Peace, child,’ interrupted the Sachem, with more asperity than he usually showed to Oriana.  ’These are the notions you have learned from your white brother, and I desire not to hear them.  Tisquantum knows his duty.  I will demand the lives of the woman and child of whom you speak; but the warrior must abide his fate.  And think you that he would not scorn to live when honor is gone I Go’—­he added more gently, as he saw the sorrow that dimmed her eye—­’go, and tell Jyanough to meet me at the Sachem’s lodge.  Terah may yet be saved—­this victim comes at s happy moment, and surely Mahneto demands his life as at offering for that of the venerable Pince.’

Oriana shuddered at what she saw to be her father’s meaning.  Once she would have felt as he did and have believed that their god could be propitiated by blood and agony.  But now she knew that all such cruel sacrifices were worse than vain; and deeply she regretted her own inability to bring her countrymen, and especially her own beloved father, to a knowledge of the Gospel of mercy and peace; and thus save them from imbruing their hands in the blood of their fellow men, and thinking that they did good service to the Great Spirit.

She hurried back to her companions, and, weeping, told them of her partial success.  It was all, and more than all, that Jyanough expected; and he immediately went to meet Tisquantum at the lodge of the Cree Sachem, Chingook, where he found the war party and their prisoners assembled.  After a few words to Jyanough, Tisquantum commenced a long speech to his brother Sachem, in which he dilated on the friendship that subsisted between them, and the joy that he had felt in exercising his skill for the benefit of the brave and hospitable Crees.  He then spoke of Terah’s perilous condition, and his fears that even his powers had been baffled by the spirit of evil; and that the Pince would yet be taken from them, unless some offering could be found more precious than all that were now piled before his dwelling, and only waited for the auspicious moment to be wrapped inflame, us a sacrifice to the offended deity who had brought the pestilence.  ’And have we not such an offering here?’ he added, pointing to the captive warrior, who stood, with head erect, awaiting the sentence that he knew would be pronounced.  ’Have we not here a victim, sent by Mahneto himself, at the very moment when Terah’s life seems hanging on a breath?  Lead him, then, to the sacred pile; and as his soul goes forth, the soul of Terah shall revive.

This speech was received with acclamations by the Crees; and already the warriors were hurrying away their captive, while his wife followed, as if mechanically, to share her husband’s fate.  Bat here Tisquantum interposed, and, in his daughter’s name, requested the life of the woman and her child.  His request was readily granted by Chingook; for of what value was a squaw in the eyes of these Indian braves?