Catharine’s arms released their hold and fell to her side; a sickly pallor gathered about her mouth, and her sad eyes grew dim.
“Everywhere the same!” she murmured, “everywhere! Life, life, if we could only escape it—cast it forth!”
“What do you say, mother? How white your lips are. Oh, you do pity Tahmeroo—hold me to your heart again, and tell me that you pity me!”
Catharine took the unhappy girl to her bosom in a long embrace, and Tahmeroo wept for a time in silence. But soon her impatience came back, and again she began pleading for aid to send after her husband.
“Let a band of warriors go to their city,” she said; “we will burn it to ashes, if they refuse to give him up!”
“Oh, Tahmeroo!” shuddered Catharine; “do not become a fiend like the rest—let not my own child be an added curse to me! Think of the bloodshed, the innocent lives that would suffer; the loving hearts—hearts like your own—that would be tortured!”
“Forgive me, mother; but ah, I suffer so! I seem going mad! Then the whole tribe will pity me, for when the Great Spirit tortures a brain with fire, they can pity.”
She fell at her mother’s feet, with renewed prayers and supplications; but Catharine was powerless, and though she pitied her child, she was so worn out by the struggles of the past months that she had no energy left. She arose at length, and pushing Tahmeroo gently away, walked slowly out of the room.
The girl stood for some moments in despairing silence; then a gleam of hope brightened over her face.
“I will go,” she exclaimed aloud, “I will go myself to Albany—at least, I shall be near him. And the young pale face of Wyoming—the Great Spirit has given her strange power—I will go to her, she will help me.”