Philip shook his head, and arose suddenly that she might not see how near he was to weeping. He advanced a few paces into the forest and came to another small opening in the trees. There a fire was blazing up redly, surrounded by a group of Indian women, who were busy turning a half-dozen birds, fastened by delicate withes of bark to the branches overhead, and roasting before the fire.
"Come," said the chief, in the Indian tongue, "is all ready?"
A woman was busy peeling strips of birch bark from the trunk of a sapling close by. She cut the bark into fragments and gave them to the women about the fire, who laid the roasted birds daintily upon them, nesting each one in leaves from a golden spice bush which grew near. Then they took hot corn-cakes from the ashes, and brought from under a cool thicket two little painted baskets full of blue berries, with the bloom on them.
This rustic meal the women brought forth to the mound and placed upon the rock, without a sign of curiosity about the stranger, or a spoken word. Barbara looked on in wonder. The whole scene really did appear like enchantment to her. Philip took a case from the pouch by his side, and extracted from it a knife and fork, mounted with silver. Barbara's eye brightened: they had been her gift to the young man when he first went forth on his travels after those dreary years of bondage.
"Eat," he said, carving one of the birds with his hunting-knife, "and see if wholesome food may not be found in the woods."
"Yes, if you eat also," she answered. "In our hard journey through life we may at least take this one quiet meal together."
Philip took a piece of the bird, but could not eat; his heart was too full.
"This is our last meal together on earth, perhaps," he said, in a broken voice. "If you return to England I may perish here, and never look upon your face again."
"My friend, there is another world," Barbara answered, "and at the longest only a few short years divides us from it."
"But what if the Indian's hunting-grounds and the white man's heaven should be eternally sundered?" answered the young chief mournfully.