He fell headlong to the earth, he knew not how or why; a feeling of exultation—a something by which he felt as if all sense of weight, of obstacle had been removed. It was but a moment, and the same cold, bony hand wrenched the crystal from his grasp, and was no more seen.
The impressions, whatever it might be, remained, and without trying to account for what he had seen, a new and abiding conviction that he should once more behold the dear object of his lifelong thoughts took possession of his soul. He returned to the camp, buoyed up by brighter thoughts than he had experienced for long and dreary years.
It is well known that the images to be read in the “crystal stone” was a popular belief with the Indians, though only a few persons were gifted with power of sight. They believed the magician must be originally endowed with the power of prescience, and he must educate and develop this power by a long course of fasting and incantation. They believed, also, that a person upon whom had fallen any great calamity became spontaneously endowed with this gift.
The mad-dog stone is a different species, used medicinally for the cure of hydrophobia, and the bite of venomous serpents. This latter is of oriental origin.
The sagamore would gladly have left all, and followed the oracle of the wizard, traveling toward the rising sun, where he now felt sure he should find Hope; but, as chief of the tribe he could not cast off the duties it involved, or forget the grave decorums of the office. He must await the return of the scout, and then follow the Terrentines and Androscoggins to their villages or hunting-grounds. Accordingly, he made ready for the eastern campaign.
CHAPTER XV.
ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.
In the mean time Acashee went her solitary way alone, lashed by the furies of shame and revenge. So fierce burned the wild passions of her breast, she was unconscious of hunger or fatigue. She ground her teeth, and planted her foot as if she could crush those who were far from her, but whom her rage presented as visible objects. A serpent crossed her path, and she seized it with her hand by the tail, as she had seen the young boys of her people do, and with one fell slat-dash, severed the head from its body.
She forded the Saco river, not yet swollen by autumnal rains, and as the morning dawned, she crawled under the shadow of an intervening rock, and fell into a profound sleep.