"And he, a king, stood by and saw this brave woman tortured?"
"Why, would you have them offer a meaner victim before the sachem?"
"It was a fearful cruelty," said Abigail, shuddering.
"She was brave for herself, but not for her children," continued Tituba. "When her little ones clung around her, holding to her garments, pale and terror-struck, she flung up her arms, and called aloud for some one to take them away and save them from torture. She asked the warriors to think of all their powers, and heap the pain on her; she would bear every thing; they might be days killing her; only take her children away, and keep them out of sight and hearing, while she died!"
"And did no one take compassion on her—even those fiends incarnate?"
"The same blood that burned in their veins beats in yours," answered the Indian woman, severely. "Who took compassion on her, when she was tied to a cart and whipped by constables from village to village, like a vicious hound? Ask yourself if the death fire was not mercy compared to that! The warriors knew how to respect her courage; but her own people mocked her shame while they tortured her."
"Both were horrible. But her little children? My mother was one of those helpless creatures!"
"There was a law in our tribe, maiden, by which a bereaved mother might adopt a captive, if she wished, in place of the child she had buried. By the side of the sachem stood a woman, who had lost a child, bright as the May blossom; and her heart was heavy with grief when she saw a little girl, with hair like sunbeams, clinging to that wretched woman, with its eyes, large like those of a young fawn, turned on the fire. Maiden, Manitou sometimes sends the soul of a dead child home again in another form, when its mother's heart is breaking. The woman knew that her child had wandered back from the great hunting-ground, with its hair turned golden, and its eyes blue like the sky in summer. So she went to the chief with many words, and asked for her child. The same mother bore the Pequod sachem and the woman who claimed the little girl, so he gave her leave to take, not only the golden-haired child, but both Anna Hutchinson's children; for the other was a brave girl, who stood between her little sister and the flames, till her hands and clothes were scorched by them."
"And the Indian woman took them both?"
"They would not be torn apart. When Anna Hutchinson saw this, she beckoned the Indian woman, and besought her to take the two sisters deep into the forest, away from the sound of her death cries. The sight of that little child made the woman's heart soft. She could have cried, but that the females of her race are ashamed of tears. When your grandmother saw this, she stooped and whispered, 'Take them away, and you shall fire the pile; you shall kill me with your own hands, and feast on my agony if it will please you.'