Catharine buried her face in both hands, while a struggle for composure shook her whole frame.
“See, see,” whispered Tahmeroo, pointing toward the opposite mountains, “the council-fires have gone out. There, now that the moon gleams, I can see their canoes on the water. In a few moments he will be here.”
Catharine looked suddenly up.
“Come,” she said, taking Tahmeroo by the hand, “we must be ready.”
As she spoke, a noise in the brushwood made her pause and listen; directly a man came forward, walking quietly toward the lodge.
Even in the darkness Tahmeroo could see that her mother turned pale.
It was the missionary who, punctual to his appointment, had found his way to the encampment. He sat down in the dim lights of the lodge. No one spoke; for he, too, seemed impressed by the solemn sadness of the hour. The next ten minutes were spent in dead silence—you could almost have heard the wild bound of Tahmeroo’s heart, when sound of coming footsteps came up from the forest. Still no word was spoken. The pine knots heaped on the hearth gleamed up suddenly, and sent a ruddy glow over the lodge, revealing a strange, strange picture.
Catharine Montour sat on the couch of scarlet cloth and soft furs, robed in the same dress which she wore in the morning. Her arms were folded over her bosom, and her eyes dwelt sadly on the ground, though at every noise from without they were directed with a sharp, anxious look towards the door, that changed to a dull troubled glow, as if the approaching footsteps had something terrible in them.
Tahmeroo nestled to her mother’s side, and looked wonderingly around the lodge; now upon the missionary, who sat in a rude chair opposite, with his face shaded by his hand, then on her own strange dress, with a sort of shy curiosity; she did not quite recognize herself in that rich satin and those yellow old laces. Indeed her dress would have been remarkable to any one, either savage or civilized. Her Indian costume had been replaced by a robe of gold-colored satin, of an obsolete but graceful fashion, which had prevailed twenty years before in England. A chain of massive gold was interwoven among the braids of long hair, for the first time enwreathed about her beautiful head, after the fashion of the whites; and a pair of long filagree earrings broke the exquisite outline of her throat on the other side.
There was something a little stiff and awkward in the solemn stillness of those around her, and in the strangeness of her dress, which kept her bright eyes on the ground, and sent the smile quivering from her lips as the tramp of feet came nearer and nearer to the lodge.