As the well-meaning but enthusiastic missionary spoke with great fervor, the announcement of such an event, coming as it did from one whom they respected, even while they could not understand him, did not fail to produce a deep sensation.  If their fortunes were really the care of the Great Spirit, and justice was to be done to them by his love and wisdom, then would the projects of Peter, and those who acted and felt with him, be unnecessary, and might lead to evil instead of to good.  That sagacious savage did not fail to discover this truth; and he now believed it might be well for him to say a word, in order to lessen the influence Parson Amen might otherwise obtain among those whom it was his design to mould in a way entirely to meet his own wishes.  So intense was the desire of this mysterious leader to execute vengeance on the pale-faces, that the redemption of the tribes from misery and poverty, unaccompanied by this part of his own project, would have given him pain in lieu of pleasure.  His very soul had got to be absorbed in this one notion of retribution, and of annihilation for the oppressors of his race; and he regarded all things through a medium of revenge, thus created by his feelings, much as the missionary endeavored to bend every fact and circumstance, connected with the Indians, to the support of his theory touching their Jewish origin.

When Peter arose, therefore, fierce and malignant passions were at work in his bosom; such as a merciful and a benignant deity never wishes to see in the breast of man, whether civilized or savage.  The self-command of the Tribeless, however, was great, and he so far succeeded in suppressing the volcano that was raging within, as to speak with his usual dignity and an entire calmness of exterior.

“My brothers have heard what the medicine-man had to say,” Peter commenced.  “He has told them that which was new to them.  He has told them an Indian is not an Indian.  That a red man is a pale-face, and that we are not what we thought we were.  It is good to learn.  It makes the difference between the wise and the foolish.  The palefaces learn more than the red-skins.  That is the way they have learned how to get our hunting-grounds.  That is the way they have learned to build their villages on the spots where our fathers killed the deer.  That is the way they have learned how to come and tell us that we are not Indians, but Jews.  I wish to learn.  Though old, my mind craves to know more.  That I may know more, I will ask this medicine-man questions, and my brothers can open their ears, and learn a little, too, by what he answers.  Perhaps we shall believe that we are not red-skins, but pale-faces.  Perhaps we shall believe that our true hunting-grounds are not near the great lakes of sweet water, but under the rising sun.  Perhaps we shall wish to go home, and to leave these pleasant openings for the pale faces to put their cabins on them, as the small-pox that they have also given to us, puts its sores on our bodies.  Brother—­” turning toward the missionary—­ “listen.  You say we are no longer Indians, but Jews:  is this true of all red men, or only of the tribes whose chiefs are here?”