A party of her tribe having been surprised by the Sacos, and herself taken prisoner, Acashee had again beheld John Bonyton, and felt a revival in her breast of that fatal love which had for years been the bane of her existence; but when he had recognized her, when he had cut away those locks, as precious to the Indian maiden as the snood to the Highland virgin, or the scalp-lock to the warrior, her hatred knew no bounds, and she resolved, with the consent of the chiefs, to hide herself in the sacred cave of the Pejipscot till her hair should grow again, and where she might feast her eyes upon the misery of Hope Vines; but silence and solitude are great prompters, and she, who had come to revile and torture, found herself awed in the presence of one whose claims to superior and supernatural wisdom she had heretofore met with derisive skepticism.
CHAPTER XX.
THE VIGIL.
Thus passed away many a night and day. Hope waited and watched and hoped, but in vain. Her companion never relaxed her vigilance, but her cold irony, her malignant sneer, had given place to a deference amounting to awe. Hope was calm, grave and taciturn; her old freakishness had all gone, and in its place was that quiet, burning look, allied only to subdued passion.
At length Hope divined, from the preparations made by her keepers, that some important event was about to transpire. As midnight approached, a group of the chief men of the tribe emerged from amid the spray at the entrance of the grotto, and seated themselves in front of the council-fire. Burning torches were placed under the arches, and the cave glowed with the ruddy light of a crackling fire in the center.
Acashee, blessed or cursed with an almost sleepless vitality, paced the solitary and echoless void in a tumult of contending passions. She was dressed with care, and had, since her return, assumed the air and tone of one who had a right to command.
Hope slept, or affected to sleep, in front of the stone of sacrifice, couched amid snowy furs gorgeously ornamented with wampum, and branches of evergreen, cool and aromatic, spread at her feet. Several familiar pets slumbered around the fair and mystic-enshrouded form, while the panther had placed his broad head upon her shoulder.
As Acashee paced back and forth, she sometimes paused in front of this dainty couch, and eyed the recumbent Hope with a malignant scowl that showed the envy and rage that contended within, but, as Hope had said, she dared not lift a finger against her; and as Hope was now doomed to perpetual imprisonment, separated forever, as she deemed, from John Bonyton, her revenge grew like honey under the tongue, because of the protracted misery of its object.
More than once, as Acashee thus paused in front of Hope, the panther raised himself into a couchant attitude, and eyed her with a sidelong glance, as a cat will watch a mouse, which she is sure is within reach, and therefore may be allowed to gambol with impunity.