“Have you never passed the curtain of water since Samoset brought you here?” asked the net-weaver; and she fixed her eyes searchingly upon the face of the other, who neither quailed nor changed color beneath her gaze, but answered in the same sorrowful accent:
“How should little Hope penetrate the vail of water? Who is left to her now!”
“You remember that I once told you, ‘You had a friend; you have a foe.’ The white boy and girl shouldn’t have scorned the red girl. Acashee is glad down to the bottom of her soul. John Bonyton is more wretched than I am.”
Hope’s eyes dilated and her breast heaved.
“Tell me where you saw John Bonyton, Acashee?”
“Oh, he wears the eagle tuft bravely, and they call him Sagamore of Saco now.” And she laughed in scorn.
“Oh, the long, weary years!” murmured Hope.
“Where is O-ye-ah?” asked the other.
“She died a moon ago.”