"Sister!"
"When thee was a little child like her, I suffered them to drive me away like a sinner and a slave; I suffered them to tear thee from my bosom, and went into the wilderness alone, never attempting to come back lest thee too might suffer, and perchance perish of want. It was like tearing my life away when thee was given up."
"Alas, alas! that I should have known so little of this!"
"It was a merciful forgetfulness; thy pure life has been all the happier for it, but I was not unmindful; many a week's journey have I taken through the woods to hear of thy welfare."
"But yourself?"
"I have been even as God wills it. Look up, Rachael: do not weep or droop thine eyes to the earth: thee has no cause. Even as thee, I have been the wife of one husband."
"I did not think otherwise; it is for myself that I am troubled. Surely this heart should have told me that you lived."
"Once more, my sister, it was a merciful forgetfulness; not till I knew by sure signs that my last moment was at hand, would I claim even this hour of thy life. Now I have come a long way alone and on foot, to give up my child, that she may dwell with the people of her mother."
"But her father?"
"He was a brave man—my benefactor and lord. His son, the first-born, was torn from me as I fled from the white fiends that murdered his father. They will make him a slave—he a king's son! The chief of his tribe a slave! a slave!"