with a struggle, reached his ears. Then came two long and heavy respirations. One was the returning breath of Uncas, and the other the dying sigh of the last Sachem of the broken and dis persed tribe of the Narragansetts.

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed:
Belov'd till life can charm no more;

And mourned till Pity's self be dead."
Collins.

AN hour later and the principal actors in the foregoing scene had disappeared. There remained only the widowed Narra-mattah, with Dudley, the divine, and Whittal Ring.

The body of Conanchet still continued where he had died, seated like a chief in council. The daughter of Content and Ruth had stolen to its side, and she had taken her seat in that species of dull woe which so frequently attends the first moments of any unexpected and overwhelming affliction. She neither spoke, sobbed, nor sorrowed in any way that grief is wont to affect the human system. The mind seemed palsied, though a withering sense of the blow was fearfully engraven on every lineament of her eloquent face. The colour had deserted her cheek the lips were bloodless, while at moments they quivered convulsively, like the tremulous movement of the sleeping infant, and at long intervals her bosom heaved, as if the spirit within struggled heavily to escape from its earthly prison. The child lay unheeded at her side, and Whittal Ring had placed himself on the opposite side of the corpse.

The two agents appointed by the colony to witness the death of Conanchet stood near, gazing mournfully on the piteous spectacle. The instant the spirit of the condemned man had fled the prayers of the divine had ceased, for he believed that then the soul had gone to judgment. But there was more of human charity and less of that exaggerated severity in his aspect, than was ordinarily seated in the deep lines of his austere countenance. Now that the deed was done, and the excitement of his exalted theories had given way to the more positive appearance of the result, he might even have moments of harassing doubts concerning the lawfulness of an act that he had hitherto veiled under the forms of a legal and necessary execution of justice. The mind of Eben Dudley vacillated with none of the subtleties of doctrine or of law. As there had been less exaggeration in his original views of the necessity of the proceeding, so was there more steadiness in his contemplation of its fulfilment. Feelings, they might be termed emotions, of a different nature troubled the breast of this resolute but justly-disposed borderer.

"This hath been a melancholy visitation of necessity, and a severe manifestation of the fore-ordering will," said the Ensign, as

he gazed at the sad spectacle before him. “Father and son have both died as it were in my presence, and both have departed for the world of spirits in a manner to prove the inscrutableness of Providence. But dost not see here, in the face of her who looketh like a form of stone, traces of a countenance that is familiar?"

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"Thou hast allusion to the consort of Captain Content Heathcote?" 'Truly, to her only. Thou art not, reverend sir, of sufficient residence at the Wish-Ton-Wish to remember that lady in her youthfulness. But to me, the hour when the Captain led his followers into the wilderness seemeth but as a morning of the past season. I was then active in limb, and something in reflection and discourse; it was in that journey that the woman who is now the mother of my children and I first made acquaintance. I have seen many comely females in my time, but never did I look on one so pleasant to the eye as was the consort of the Captain until the night of the burning. Thou hast often heard the loss she then met, and from that hour her beauty hath been that of the October leaf, rather than its loveliness in the season of fertility. Now look on the face of this mourner, and say if there be not here such an image as the water reflects from the overhanging bush. In verity, I could believe it was the sorrowing eye and bereaved look of the mother herself!"

"Grief hath struck its blow heavily on this unoffending victim," uttered Meek, with great and subdued softness in his manner. "The voice of petition must be raised in her behalf, or "Hist!-there are some in the forest; I hear the rustling of leaves !"

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The voice of Him who made the earth, whispering in the winds; his breath is the movement of nature!"

"Here are living men!-But happily the meeting is friendly, and there will be no further occasion for strife. The heart of a father is sure as ready eye and swift foot."

Dudley suffered his musket to fall at his side, and both he and his companions stood in attitudes of decent composure, to await the arrival of those who approached. The party that drew near arrived on the side of the tree opposite to that on which the death of Conanchet had occurred. The enormous trunk and swelling roots of the pine concealed the group at its feet, but the persons of Meek and the Ensign were soon observed. The instant they were discovered, he who led the new comers bent his footsteps in that direction.

"If, as thou hast supposed, the Narragansett hath again led her thou hast so long mourned into the forest," said Submission, who acted as guide to those who followed, "here are we at no great distance from the place of his resort. It was near yon rock that he gave the meeting with the bloody-minded Philip, and the place where I received the boon of an useless and much-afflicted life, from his care, is within the bosom of that thicket which borders the brook. The minister of the Lord, and our stout friend the Ensign, may have further matter to tell us of his movements."

The speaker had stopped within a short distance of the two he named, but still on the side of the tree opposite to that where the

body lay. He had addressed his words to Content, who also halted to await the arrival of Ruth, who came in the rear, supported by her son, and attended by Faith and the physician, all equipped like persons engaged in a search through the forest. A mother's heart had sustained the feeble woman, for many a weary mile, but her steps had begun to drag, shortly before they so happily fell upon the signs of human beings, near the spot where they now met the two agents of the colony.

Notwithstanding the deep interest which belonged to the respective pursuits of the individuals who composed these two parties, the interview was opened with no lively signs of feeling on either side. To them a journey in the forest possessed no novelties, and after traversing its mazes for a day, the newly arrived encountered their friends as men meet on more beaten tracks, in countries where roads unavoidably lead them to cross each other's paths. Even the appearance of Submission, in front of the travellers, elicited no marks of surprise in the unmoved features of those who witnessed his approach. Indeed the mutual composure of one who had so long concealed his person, and of those who had more than once seen him in striking and mysterious situations, might well justify a belief that the secret of his presence near the valley had not been confined to the family of the Heathcotes. This fact is rendered still more probable by the recollection of the honesty of Dudley, and the professional characters of the two others.

"We are on the trail of one fled, as the truant fawn seeketh again the covers of the woods," said Content. "Our hunt was uncertain, and it might have been vain, so many feet have lately crossed the forest, were it not that Providence hath cast our route on that of our friend here, who hath had reason to know the probable situation of the Indian camp. Hast seen aught of the Sachem of the Narragansetts, Dudley? and where are those thou ledst against the subtle Philip? That thou fell upon his party we have heard, though further than thy general success we have yet to learn. The Wompanoag escaped thee?"

"The wicked agencies that back him in his designs profited the savage in his extremity; else would his fate have been that which I fear a far worthier spirit hath been doomed to suffer."

"Of whom dost speak?-but it mattereth not. We seek our child; she whom thou hast known, and whom thou hast so lately seen, hath again left us. We seek her in the camp of him who hath been to her-Dudley, hast seen aught of the Narragansett Sachem?"

The Ensign looked at Ruth, as he had once before been seen to gaze on the sorrowing features of the woman, but he spoke not. Meek folded his arms on his breast, and seemed to pray inwardly. There was, however, one who broke the silence, though his tones were low and menacing.

"It was a bloody deed!" muttered the innocent. "The lying Mohican hath struck a great chief from behind. Let him dig the prints of his moccasin from the earth with his nails, like a burrow

ing fox, for there'll be one on his trail before he can hide his head. Nipsett will be a warrior the next snow!"

"There speaks my witless brother!" exclaimed Faith, rushing ahead; she recoiled, however, covered her face with her hands, and sunk upon the ground, under the violence of the surprise that followed.

Though time moved with his ordinary pace, it appeared to those who witnessed the scene which succeeded as if the emotions of many days were collected within the brief compass of a few minutes. We shall not dwell on the first harrowing and exciting moments of the appalling discovery.

A short half-hour served to make each person acquainted with all that it was necessary to know. We shall therefore transfer the narrative to the end of that period.

The body of Conanchet still rested against the tree. The eyes were open; and, though glazed in death, there still remained about the brow, the compressed lips, and the expansive nostrils, much of that lofty firmness which had sustained him in the last trial of life. The arms were passive at its sides, but one hand was clenched in the manner with which it had so often grasped the tomahawk, while the other had lost its power in a vain effort to seek the place in the girdle where the keen knife should have been. These two movements had probably been involuntary, for, in all other respects, the form was expressive of dignity and repose. At its side, the imaginary Nipsett still held his place, menacing discontent betraying itself through the ordinary dull fatuity of his countenance.

The others present were collected around the mother and her stricken child. It would seem that all other feelings were for the moment absorbed in apprehensions for the latter. There was much reason to dread that the recent shock had suddenly deranged some of that fearful machinery which links the soul to the body. This dreaded effect, however, was more to be apprehended by a general apathy and failing of the system, than by any violent and intelligible symptom.

The pulses still vibrated, but it was heavily, and like the irregular and faltering evolutions of the mill, which the dying breeze is ceasing to fan. The pallid countenance was fixed in its expression of anguish. Colour there was none; even the lips resembling the unnatural character which is given by images of wax. Her limbs, like her features, were immovable; and yet there was at moments a working of the latter which would seem to imply, not only consciousness, but vivid and painful recollections of the realities of her situation.

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This surpasseth my art," said Dr. Ergot, raising himself from a long and silent examination of the pulse; "there is a mystery in the construction of the body which human knowledge hath not yet unveiled. The currents of existence are sometimes frozen in an incomprehensible manner, and this I conceive to be a case that would confound the most learned of our art, even in the oldest countries of the earth. It hath been my fortune to see many arrive,

and not few depart from this busy world, and yet do I presume to foretell that here is one destined to quit its limits ere the natural number of her days has been filled!"

"Let us address ourselves in behalf of that which shall never die to Him who hath ordered the event from the commencement of time," said Meek, motioning to those around him to join in prayer.

The divine then lifted up his voice under the arches of the forest in an ardent, pious, and eloquent petition. When this solemn duty was performed, attention was again bestowed on the sufferer. To the surprise of all, it was found that the blood had revisited her face, and that her radiant eyes were lighted with an expression of brightness and peace. She even motioned to be raised, in order that those near her person might be better seen.

"Dost thou know us?" asked the trembling Ruth. "Look on thy friends, long mourned and much suffering daughter! 'Tis she who sorrowed over thy infant afflictions, who r joiced in thy childish happiness, and who hath so bitterly wept thy loss, that craveth the boon. In this awful moment recall the lessons of youth. Surely, surely, the God that bestowed thee in mercy, though he hath led thee on a wonderful and inscrutable path, will not desert thee at the end! Think of thy early instruction, child of my love; feeble of spirit as thou art, the seed may yet quicken, though it hath been cast where the glory of the promise hath so long been hid."

"Mother!" said a low, struggling voice in reply. The word reached every ear, and it caused a general and breathless attention. The sound was soft and low, perhaps infantile, but it was uttered without accent and clearly.

"Mother-why are we in the forest?" continued the speaker. "Have any robbed us of our home, that we dwell beneath the trees?"

Ruth raised a hand imploringly, for none to interrupt the illusion.

"Nature hath revived the recollections of her youth," she whispered. "Let the spirit depart, if such be his holy will, in the blessedness of infant innocence!"

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Why do Mark and Martha stay?" continued the other. "It is not safe, thou knowest mother, to wander far in the woods; the heathen may be out of their towns, and one cannot say what evil chance might happen to the indiscreet.'

"A groan struggled from the chest of Content, and the muscular hand of Dudley compressed itself on the shoulder of his wife, until the breathlessly attentive woman withdrew unconsciously with pain.

"I've said as much to Mark, for he does not always remember thy warnings, mother; and those children do so love to wander together!-but Mark is in common good; do not chide if he stray too far-mother thou wilt not chide!"

The youth turned his head, for even at that moment the pride of ing manhood prompted him to conceal his weakness.