They resolved that he should communicate all his suspicions to the Sachem the following morning, and urge him to take measures for the safety of his adopted son:  but what was Jyanough’s surprise, when he opened the subject to Tisquantum, at being informed that Coubitant had already left the camp with the Pequodees!  Jyanough knew that it was their intention that morning, at day-break, to set off on their return to their own woods and plains, and he found that the wily Nausett had expressed a desire to accompany them, and join in the war that was going on between their tribe and some of their neighbors, in order to distinguish himself as a warrior.  It was not the Sachem’s intention to rejoin his tribe for a considerable time.  He was fond of wandering, and proposed to travel towards the north when the hunting season should be over; and he also felt a reluctance to take his now greatly beloved captive back to that part of the country where it was possible he might gain intelligence of his friends, or, perhaps, even make his escape to them.  He had, therefore, consented to Coubitant’s request, and evidently felt an undefined satisfaction in his absence.

This being the case, and the departure of Coubitant having removed all present danger to Henrich from his malicious schemes, Jyanough forbore to express all he felt to the old Sachem; and he returned to Oriana with the pleasant intelligence that the enemy of her white brother had departed.

To the young Squaw-Sachem this news imparted infinite relief; and even Henrich could not regret it, although he found it difficult to believe that all the suspicions of his friends were well-founded.  Still the events of the preceding day were quite sufficient to make him doubt more than ever the sincerity of Coubitant’s professed regard; and he felt that he should be happier now that the dark-browed savage was gone.  To his pleasant life of freedom we will now leave him, and return to New Plymouth, where many events—­deeply interesting to the settlers—­had occurred since his involuntary departure, and supposed death.

CHAPTER XI.

’There went a dirge through the forest’s gloom.
...An exile was borne to a lonely tomb,
“Brother;”—­so the chant was sung
In the slumberer’s native tongue—­
“Friend and brother! not for thee
Shall the sound of weeping be."’ HEMANS.

Sadly and slowly the Pilgrim Fathers passed along the scattered village of log huts which was their home in their voluntary exile, and wound up the pathway that led towards the summit of the mount, afterwards called ‘the Burying Hill,’ on which they had constructed a rude fort or storehouse, and whither they were now bearing to his last earthly home the chief and the most respected of their community.  The Governor Carver—­he who had presided over their councils, and directed all their movements since the memorable day of their landing, and had been the friend, the physician, the comforter of his little flock, through all their trials and all their sufferings—­had fallen a victim to disease and over-exertion, just as spring, with all its brighter hopes for the future, had set in.