t 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