There was no regret in that cruel heart, even in the solitude of her lodge. Though her half-savage nature had been refined by education, and softened by the best blood of France, every instinct of her soul became barbarous under the reign of her vaunting ambition, and of her desire to avenge supposed wrongs. It seemed as if the white blood in her veins had turned drop by drop to hate. So hideous a transformation it was hard to conceive, but history writes that it was so, and her extraordinary career has left behind records enough to prove her to have been more savage, more treacherous, more relentless, than the untutored barbarian would have been. Katharine Frontenac, when she threw aside her civilized life, became Mahaska, the Avenger. The avenger of what? She forced herself to say that her father, Count Frontenac, had neglected her mother, Chileli, whom he had chosen as his lawful wife, but whom he had killed by neglect. As Katharine Frontenac, she had dared to love, with a fierce, wild love, a French cavalier, but he had spurned her, and had wedded another—her rival sister, a child of Frontenac’s second wife, the beautiful Countess Adèle. It was this rejection which had decided her to cast away all the ties of civilization, to become a tigress in the wilderness—this rejection which had turned all the sweet springs of her spontaneous, exuberant nature into waters not of bitterness alone, but of qualities repulsive enough to slake the thirst of ghouls.
After a time she heard Gi-en-gwa-tah’s step in the outer room; at the sound, her hand instinctively clenched the handle of her tomahawk, in unison with the deadly thought in her mind. The loathing which she first had felt when forced to wed the noble savage, grew every day more deep. She inwardly shrunk from the earnest devotion which beamed in his eyes—from the anxious love with which he watched her every glance; but now that he stood in her path, she began to scorn and to hate him.
For the present it must be endured with that patience and craft which were the inheritance of her Indian blood; but woe to the hapless man when the hour came that should enable her to carry out the schemes which had been in her mind even on the very day when he led her to his lodge.
He swept aside the furs which hung before the entrance to Mahaska’s lodge, and entered the apartment; she sat there so peaceful and calm in her splendid beauty, that it hardly seemed possible she could have been the author of the bloody deed which had filled every heart in the tribe with consternation, scarcely an hour before. Perhaps some such thought was in the Indian’s mind as he stood looking down upon her.
The first sound of her voice was low and sweet as that of some woodland bird hushing her young:
“Gi-en-gwa-tah has left the chiefs’ company for that of Mahaska,” she said. “Mahaska thanks him for it.”
“Mahaska’s wishes are always pleasant to Gi-en-gwa-tah,” he answered; “she signed him to follow as she left the council-fire.”
The woman motioned him to her side with a smile of winning sweetness. For the present she must essay all her arts of fascination to retain him her slave; the day was not far off when she would boldly declare her will, and crush him in her path if he disputed it. But that time had not yet come, and now she was anxious to remove from his mind the impression left there by her cruel murder.
“Have they taken away that dog of a chief?” she asked, as he seated himself at her side.
“The squaws of burthen have carried him into the woods,” he answered, gravely; “there is no burial for a brave dishonored and disgraced.”