The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish

by James Fenimore Cooper

The fingers of that hand, which grasped the handle of the tomahawk, appeared to bury themselves in the wood; the glittering axe itself was slightly raised; but the fierce gleaming of resentment subsided, as the anger of the young Sachem vanished, and a dignified calm again settled on his countenance.

"Go, Wampanoag," he said, waving a hand proudly, as if determined to be no longer harassed by the language of his wily associate. "My young men will raise the whoop, when they hear my voice; and they will kill deer for their women. Sachem, my mind is my own."

Philip answered to the look which accompanied these words, with one that threatened vengeance; but smothering his anger, with his accustomed wisdom, he left the hill, assuming an air that affected more of commiseration than of resentment.

"Why has Conanchet sent for a woman from the woods?" repeated the same soft voice, nearer to the elbow of the young Sachem, and which spoke with less of the timidity of the sex, now that the troubled spirit of the Indians of those regions had disappeared.

"Narra-mattah, come near;" returned the young chief, changing the deep and proud tones in which he had addressed his restless and bold companion in arms, to those which better suited the gentle ear for which his words were intended. "Fear not, daughter of the morning, for those around us are of a race used to see women at the council-fires. Now look, with an open eye--is there anything among these trees that seemeth like an ancient tradition? Hast ever beheld such a valley, in thy dreams? Have yonder Pale-faces, whom the tomahawks of my young men spared, been led before thee by the Great Spirit, in the dark night?"

The female listened, in deep attention. Her gaze was wild and uncertain, and yet it was not absolutely without gleamings of a half-reviving intelligence. Until that moment, she had been too much occupied in conjecturing the subject of her visit, to regard the natural objects by which she was surrounded: but with her attention thus directly turned upon them, her organs of sight embraced each and all, with the discrimination that is so remarkable in those whose faculties are quickened by danger and necessity. Passing from side to side, her swift glances ran over the distant hamlet, with its little fort; the buildings in the near grounds; the soft and verdant fields; the fragrant orchard, beneath whose leafy shades she stood, and the blackened tower, that rose in its centre, like some gloomy memorial, placed there to remind the spectator not to trust too fondly to the signs of peace and loveliness that reigned around. Shaking back the ringlets that had blown about her temples, the wondering female returned thoughtfully and in silence to her place.

"'Tis a village of the Yengeese!" she said, after a long and expressive pause. "A Narragansett woman does not love to look at the lodges of the hated race."

"Listen.--Lies have never entered the ears of Narra-mattah. My tongue hath spoken like the tongue of a chief. Thou didst not come of the sumach, but of the snow. This hand of thine is not like the hands of the women of my tribe; it is little, for the Great Spirit did not make it for work; it is of the color of the sky in the morning, for thy fathers were born near the place where the sun rises. Thy blood is like spring-water. All this thou knowest, for none have spoken false in thy ear. Speak--dost thou never see the wigwam of thy father? Does not his voice whisper to thee, in the language of his people?"

The female stood in the attitude which a sibyl might be supposed to assume, while listening to the occult mandates of the mysterious oracle, every faculty entranced and attentive.

"Why does Conanchet ask these questions of his wife? He knows what she knows; he sees what she sees; his mind is her mind. If the Great Spirit made her skin of a different color, he made her heart the same. Narra-mattah will not listen to the lying language; she shuts her ears, for there is deceit in its sounds. She tries to forget it. One tongue can say all she wishes to speak to Conanchet; why should she look back in dreams, when a great chief is her husband?"