"No, no," answered Otaitsa, "he was a bad man, a treacherous man, one whom my father loved not. But that matters little. They will have blood for his blood."
The truth flashed upon Edith's mind at once; for though less acquainted with the Indian habits than her brother or her father, she knew enough of their revengeful spirit to feel sure that they would seek the death of the murderer with untiring eagerness, and she questioned her sweet companion earnestly as to all the particulars of the sad tale. Otaitsa told her all she knew, which was indeed nearly all that could be told. The man called the Snake, she said, had been shot by the white man Woodchuck, in the wood to the northeast of Mr. Prevost's house. Intimation of the fact had spread like fire in dry grass through the whole of the Oneidas, who were flocking to the meeting at Sir William Johnson's Castle, and from them it would run through the whole tribe.
"Woodchuck has escaped," she said, "or he would have been slain ere now; but they will have his life yet, my sister;" and then she added, slowly and sorrowfully, "or the life of some other white man, if they cannot catch this one."
The words presented to Edith's mind a sad and terrible idea--one more fearful in its vagueness and uncertainty of outline than in the darkness of particular points. That out of a narrow and limited population someone was foredoomed to be slain; that out of a small body of men, all feeling almost as brethren, one was to be marked out for slaughter; that one family was to lose husband or father or brother, and no one could tell which, made her feel like one out of a herd of wild animals cooped up within the toils of the hunters.
Edith's first object was to learn more from her young companion, but Otaitsa had told almost all she knew.
"What they will do I know not," she said; "they do not tell us women. But I fear, Edith, I fear very much; for they say our brother Walter was with the Woodchuck when the deed was done."
"Not so! not so!" cried Edith. "Had he been so, I should have heard of it. He has gone to Albany, and had he been present I am sure he would have stopped it if he could. If your people tell truth they will acknowledge that he was not there."
Otaitsa raised her head suddenly with a look of joy, exclaiming: "I will make her tell the truth were she as cunning a snake as he was--but yet, my sister Edith, someone will have to die if they find not the man they seek."
The last words were spoken in a melancholy tone again; but then she started up, repeating, "I will make her tell the truth."
"Can you do so?" asked Edith. "Snakes are always very crafty."