"So the Pequod woman took the two children, one a young girl, the other a little thing so high, and led them away to her own lodge. When she went back to the death fire it was flaming high. The warriors had drawn close around it; the trees above were heavy with smoke, and crisping in the hot wind. Anna Hutchinson was chained to the death pyre. Her arms were tied with thongs of bark, and her hair, thick with silver threads, shone gloomily in the death light; for the flames had already seized upon her garments and were creeping up the folds, hissing as they went. She stood firm, looking toward the path where her little ones had disappeared. When the woman came back she called out, with a great sob, 'My children, my children!'
"'They are safe in my lodge,' answered the Pequod woman.
"Then the warriors saw a smile break over Anna Hutchinson's face, which rested there till the flames surged up and veiled her form in a cloud of fire.
"Then the smoke rose blackly, and hot flashes of fire writhed in and out like serpents in torment. A great gust of wind rushed through the forest boughs and, sweeping the smoke away, drove the slumbering flames into fury. Then an awful cry broke from that poor woman. The thongs that bound her wrists snapped asunder—her arms were flung wildly outward through the hot flames and surging smoke, and her cry burst into words of awful entreaty that some one would be merciful and kill her.
"The Pequod woman had a soft heart. That cry ran through her like an arrow. She could not bear to see the woman who had brought back her child from the great hunting-ground, more beautiful than ever, writhing in the hot fire which hissed, and leaped, and clung around her like fiery snakes. The Indian woman took an arrow from her quiver, and aimed at the white bosom that the flames were licking with a thousand hot tongues. The arrow lost itself in the death fire, missing its aim. Then the Indian woman took the tomahawk from her belt and poised it. Blinded with smoke and mad with pain, Anna Hutchinson saw the act, and struggled fiercely to step forth and meet the blow. But the thongs that bound her to the stake were green and defied the flames. So with one bound the Indian woman sprang into the fire and cleft that broad, white forehead open with her tomahawk."
"It was a brave, a kind act," cried Abby, while the tears that had stood in her eyes, flashed downward like broken diamonds. "And was this the woman who died uttering curses, and denouncing her persecutors—whose terrible maledictions cling to my own life? Tituba, tell me! Did you hear Anna Hutchinson's curse come out from those death flames?"
"No, maiden—that was wrung from her when her family were butchered at Aquiday, to which place she had been driven by the people of Boston. Then she grew mad, and words fell from her lips like hot coals; for the sight of her mangled children made her a prophetess; but afterward, at the stake, when the two youngest of her children were safe, she broke into smiles amid the flames."
The old woman spoke in the Indian language, and her narrative took a depth and force which no modern tongue can reach. Abby Williams sat trembling under the influence of the fearful picture she had drawn, for the blood of Anna Hutchinson beat loud in her heart.
"And the Pequod woman—where did she go with the children?"
"She took them to her lodge, and loved them both as her own children. But when her tribe was broken up, and Uncas dead, she wandered with them among such fragments of the Pequods as still dwelt in the old hunting-grounds. But the elder maiden never took kindly to the woods; her heart turned to her mother's people; and she pined for a sight of them. The Indian woman had a soft heart; so she came with the maiden and her little sister to the sea-shore, to find a home for them among the whites."