Louis’s sympathy was also warmly aroused for the young savage, and he commended Hector for his bravery and humanity.
He then set to work to light a good fire, which was a great addition to their comfort as well as cheerfulness. They did not go back to their cave beneath the upturned trees, to sleep, preferring lying, with their feet to the fire, under the shade of the pine. Louis, however, was despatched for water and venison for supper.
The following morning, by break of day, they collected their stores, and conveyed them back to the shanty. The boys were thus employed, while Catharine watched beside the wounded Indian girl, whom she tended with the greatest care. She bathed the inflamed arm with water, and bound the cool healing leaves of the tacamahac [FN: Indian balsam.] about it with the last fragment of her apron, she steeped dried berries in water, and gave the cooling drink to quench the fever-thirst that burned in her veins, and glittered in her full soft melancholy dark eyes, which were raised at intervals to the face of her youthful nurse, with a timid hurried glance, as if she longed, yet feared to say, “Who are you that thus tenderly bathe my aching head, and strive to soothe my wounded limbs, and cool my fevered blood? Are you a creature like myself, or a being sent by the Great Spirit, from the far-off happy land to which my fathers have gone, to smooth my path of pain, and lead me to those blessed fields of sunbeams and flowers where the cruelty of the enemies of my people will no more have power to torment me?”
CHAPTER VI.
“Here the wren of softest note
Builds its nest and warbles well;
Here the blackbird strains his throat;
Welcome, welcome to our cell.”—COLERIDGE.
The day was far advanced, before the sick Indian girl could be brought home to their sylvan lodge, where Catharine made up a comfortable couch for her, with boughs and grass, and spread one of the deer-skins over it, and laid her down as tenderly and carefully as if she had been a dear sister. This good girl was overjoyed at having found a companion of her own age and sex. “Now,” said she, “I shall no more be lonely, I shall have a companion and friend to talk to and assist me;” but when she turned in the fulness of her heart to address herself to the young stranger, she felt herself embarrassed in what way to make her comprehend the words she used to express the kindness that she felt for her, and her sorrow for her sufferings.
The young stranger would raise her head, look intently at her, as if striving to interpret her words, then sadly shake her head, and utter her words in her own plaintive language, but, alas! Catharine felt it was to her as a sealed book.
She tried to recall some Indian words of familiar import, that she had heard from the Indians when they came to her father’s house, but in vain; not the simplest phrase occurred to her, and she almost cried with vexation at her own stupidity; neither was Hector or Louis more fortunate in attempts at conversing with their guest.
At the end of three days, the fever began to abate; the restless eye grew more steady in its gaze, the dark flush faded from the cheek, leaving it of a grey ashy tint, not the hue of health, such as even the swarthy Indian shows, but wan and pallid, her eyes bent mournfully on the ground.