"Ah me! I know it all," cried Abby. "They came here into this very town. She, my mother, was forced into the wilderness, as her mother had been, driven with the constable's scourge. She was found almost dying in the woods by King Philip, who made her his wife. I know how he fought and died, leaving that woman a widow with two children. One, a noble boy, was sold into slavery, under the hot sun of Bermuda, from which he was rescued to be a fugitive and an outcast in the woods where his father once reigned. The other was brought by the dying widow to this dwelling, and left with the golden-haired daughter of Anna Hutchinson, who had become the wife of her sister's judge, Samuel Parris. The fair minister's wife, and King Philip's widow, met in this very room. The widow was dying from exposure, grief, and starvation; and fled to find shelter for her child before she joined her husband. From her cold lips the minister's wife heard, for the first time, that she was Anna Hutchinson's child; that her only sister had been scourged by the orders of her husband. The truth killed her. That night her child, Elizabeth Parris, was born. Two days after, King Philip's widow and the minister's wife were laid in the burying-ground back of that meeting-house. The two children were left together, and grew up lovingly, as sisters should, till all the mournful details of this story were told to King Philip's daughter by her fugitive brother, the Bermuda slave.
"You see I have forgotten nothing of this terrible story; how could I? it is graven on my heart, and every mark has left a wound. But let me tell you more, old woman; more of the poor forest-girl your love has tended so long. When this story first reached her ear, she stood by the double grave of these two sisters, and learned how they had been wronged. Then all the sweet love of her nature was turned to gall; she dreaded the sight of that fair being who had slept with her in the same trundle-bed, who had been her second life. She trembled with constant fear that her heart would fall back to its old love again. The sight of these rude walls reminded her no longer of domestic peace, but of her mother's wrongs. She was embittered by her grandmother's curse. Oh, Tituba, Tituba, this fearful thing have I become, I, Abigail Williams!"
"No, not Abigail Williams. That name was given in the meeting-house, out there, and does not belong to King Philip's daughter. He called her Mahaska."
"Yes," said Abby; and her head fell forward upon her bosom in deep despondency; "that is my name; it is burned upon my heart! All the waters of the ocean would not wash it out."
CHAPTER XXIII.
TITUBA'S STORY CONTINUED.
Abigail looked up again, after a little, with something of animation.
"But the Pequod Indian—what became of her? If the saviour of my mother is alive, I must see her!"
Tituba cowered down to the floor again, and clasped both hands over her knees, as she answered: