The sun began to tinge the sky with its ruddy hue; the birds filled their little space of late autumnal song, and the shrill cicada piped amid the rustling leaves. The rainbow spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were fragments of canoes, spears and bows, and still more ghastly fragments, telling of the night’s work.
Upon the headland overlooking the falls, and hidden by the heavy but stunted vegetation of the rocky hight, stood a small group of ancient warriors, the sole remnant of a once powerful band. These, after taking into their unwilling minds the terrible truth of ambush, defeat and death, stole away to the village to hasten the departure of the women and children.
Not so Acashee. She watched intently the group below in the midst of which floated the white, abundant locks of Hope Vines. With jealous rage she saw the sagamore fold the slight form to his breast; with wild, jealous admiration she noted the manly form, the bright, tender eye—so fierce in its last look upon herself, when he cut away her virgin locks, so gentle as it fell upon the face of Hope.
As the extreme of agony merges into a sensation of pleasure, so the malign passions of Acashee were prolonged in this contemplation of the tenderness of the lovers, till she could no more endure, and she drew an arrow to its head, aimed at the heart of her rival.
Hope started, gave one last look of love at the sagamore, and then darted up the bank, up the projecting curve of water that indicated the entrance to the grotto, and thence disappeared. Her path was marked by a long trail of blood, staining the rocks like a slender serpent.
Acashee did not fly. On the contrary, she boldly stood out upon the headland, and it was a grand sight, the tall, fearless woman in her proud attitude, standing there courting the death she had inflicted.
“Acashee is avenged, John Bonyton,” she cried; but her voice was stopped by a hundred arrows, hurtling the air, and penetrating her flesh—“blood from every pore,” as Hope predicted. She did not quail, but, with a buoyant motion of feet and arms, she sung her death-song:
“Look from your misty caves, heroes and warriors!
Bend from your storm-clouds—a maiden approaches,
Slain by brave warriors—she brave as the best.”