Hope laughed a bitter, contemptuous laugh, and turned slowly homeward, followed by the repentant Bonyton, to have the indignant words of the girl and the protestations of the other overheard by the two fathers.
CHAPTER V.
THE “ELECT.”
The voyage which it was proposed for John Bonyton to take to England was deferred from time to time, and the young people resumed their careless, desultory life, now in the forest and now upon the sea—Acashee even more devoted than before in her attentions upon Hope. It might be noticed, however, that the people of the colony were more watchful, and even more critical, in their observance of the latter than usual.
Often as she passed in her short velvet tunic with her white hair floating in the wind, glances were exchanged, intermingled with now and then an ominous and malignant frown.
While the Indians watched her slightest movement with interest akin to awe, the less sympathetic colonists looked upon her with distrust amounting to aversion, and many had conceived the idea that she belonged to that dangerous class “accursed of God,” and to be destroyed by men, as in those olden times, when the King of Israel consulted one akin to Hope in the person of the Witch of Endor. But, as yet, these were surmises only whispered in secret, and concealed from the knowledge of the Governor and his friends.
The Indians of the Saco tribe, while they were more powerful than all others of the eastern tribes, were less aggressive, also. Conscious of their power, they cared little to molest those whom they could easily crush, and hence they devoted themselves warmly to the white colonists, perceiving in them at once much to excite their admiration and stimulate their own endeavor.
Hope was from the first installed a favorite, and they watched her slightest look or word with interest, and then, as years developed more and more her individual characteristics, she was invested by them with a profound awe. They had penetrated some of these marked features, even before they were divined by her own family, and they would come long miles to bring her some dainty gift, exquisite tiny baskets, broidered moccasins, or shells from the sea-shore, and seating themselves upon the mat under the broad piazza, watch her every movement, and listen to the silvery tongue of the child with hair like the snow-flake.
Had Hope been ambitious or deceitful, she might have turned her mysterious power over the savage mind to some account; but, simple-hearted and truthful, she enjoyed her little triumphs without any thought of what might lie beyond. The chief of the Saco tribe, seeing her contempt for all household avocations, looked upon her with wonder and delight as the incarnation of some of their own deities, who would eventually bring great glory to the tribe.