strange
sweet voice speaking the Indian language with a foreign accent; and
hastily drawing aside the heavy drapery, he was astonished to see his
prisoner, and intended victim, liberated from the cord that had bound
him, and reclining on the furs and cushions that formed Oriana's usual
resting-place; while his gentle Indian child knelt beside him, and
offered him the food of which he was so much in need. Henrich was
gratefully thanking her; and as the Sachem entered, he heard him
exclaim in mournful accents--

'But why do you thus so kindly treat me? It were better to let me die
of hunger and fatigue; for I know that to-morrow my blood is to be
shed: the cold knife is to pierce my heart.'

'It shall not be,' replied Oriana, fervently. 'I have said that I will
save you.' And then she raised her sparkling eyes as she heard her
father's entrance; and springing on her feet, she darted forward, and
caught his arm.

'Father!' she cried--and now she spoke so rapidly and energetically,
that Henrich could only guess the purport of her words, and read it in
her sweet expressive countenance--'Father! do not slay the white boy.
He says that he is doomed to die because his father caused my brother's
death. But surely Tekoa's generous spirit does not ask the blood of a
child. My brother is now happy in the great hunting grounds where our
fathers dwell. He feels no wrath against his slayer's son: he never
would have sought revenge against an innocent boy. Give me the captive,
O my father! and let him grow up in our lodge, and be to me a
playfellow and a brother.'

Tisquantum gazed at his child in wonder, and his countenance softened.
She saw that he was moved and hastily turning from him, she approached
Henrich, who had risen from the couch, and now stood an earnest
spectator of the scene, on the issue of which his life or death,
humanly speaking, depended. She took his band, and led him to her
father, and again pleaded earnestly and passionately for his life;
while the touching expression of his own deep blue eyes, and the beauty
of his fair young face, added greatly to the power of her appeal.

I have a little sister at home,' said Henrich--and the soft Indian
language sounded sweetly from his foreign lips--'and she will weep for
me as Oriana has wept for her brother. Let me return to Patupet, and
she and my parents will bless you.'

At the mention of his parents, Tisquantum's brow grew dark again. He
thought of Rodolph as