One thing there was to be done ere we quitted the Indian encampment. It was to try and bring away with us those who, alas! poor souls, had come there as white prisoners and had remained of their own free will, becoming savages in all but complexion. We knew that it would be hard to tear them from those to whom they had attached themselves. We knew that girls, who should have grown up to become the wives of sturdy English colonists or trappers, had stayed willingly with the Indians to become their squaws and the mothers of their dusky children. We remembered Anuza's air of confidence when he told us how he doubted of our being able to persuade them to return with us. Yet we hoped. How our hopes succeeded you shall see.
We had remarked from our first arrival that there were no signs of any white people amongst the Indians of the various tribes who dwelt here together. Yet they had been eagerly sought for. Men from Pomfret and the small holdings round about it had scanned the stained and painted faces they gazed down upon while the fight between Anuza and Senamee had been taking place, in the hopes--perhaps, in some cases, the fears--that underneath those dreadful pigments the might recognise the features of some long lost kinsman or kinswoman. And even I, knowing the stories of those who had been carried off at various periods and had never returned, had whispered to Joice, asking her if she could see any whom she had ever known as children dwelling near her? But she had only shaken her head and answered that she could see none, and that she almost prayed she should not do so. And I knew why she thus hoped none would be forthcoming; I knew that, to her tender heart, it would be more painful to see these renegades than to gaze upon those who were born savages and had never known the blessings of dwelling in a Christian community.
Yet now she had to see them.
At a sign from Anuza an Indian servant went forth amongst the tents and wigwams, returning presently followed by three women--white! Yes, white, in spite of the stained skin, the Indian trappings of fringed moccasins and gaiters, of quills and beads and feathers, and of dressed fawn-skin tunics. Who could doubt it who saw above two of their heads the fair yellow hair of the northern European woman--was it some feminine vanity that had led them to keep this portion of their original English beauty untampered with?--and above that of the other the chestnut curls which equally plainly told that in her veins there ran no drop of savage blood.
As they stepped towards us, casting glances of no friendly nature at those of their own race, one of the women, young and comely and leading by her hand a child, went directly towards Anuza and, embracing him, disposed herself at his feet while the child played with the great hand that, but a few hours ago, had slain Senamee. Her form was lithe and graceful--in that she might have been Indian born--upon her head glistened her yellow hair which the Bear softly stroked; her garb was rich though barbaric. It consisted of a fawn-skin, bleached so white that it might have been samite, that reached below the knee, and it was fringed with beads and white shells. Her leggings were also of some white material but softer; her moccasins were stained red and fringed also with shells.
She turned her eyes up at Anuza--we saw that they were hazel ones, soft and clear--and spake some words to him in a whisper, and then was heard his answer:
"My beloved," he said, "those whom you see around us are of your race, and we have sworn but now eternal peace with them--a peace that must never more be broken. Yet to ensure that peace we have granted one request to the pale faces; we have consented that, if those who dwell with us, yet are of their land, desire to leave us and go back with them, they are free to do so. Do you desire thus to return?"
"To return!" she said, looking first with amazement at him and then at us, "to return and leave you? Oh! Anuza, Anuza! My heart's dearest love!" while, as she spoke, she embraced the knee against which she reclined.
"You see," he said to us, "you see. And as it is with her so will it be with the others. Yet make your demand if you will."
Alas! all was in vain. In vain that Joice and Miss Mills pleaded with them as women sometimes can plead with their sisters for their good--what could they hope to effect? If they implored them to return to their own people they were answered that they could not leave their husbands, for so they spoke of the chiefs to whom they were allied. If they asked them to return to Christianity the reply was that their husbands' faith was their faith. It was hopeless, and soon we knew it to be so. The lives they led now were the only lives they had any knowledge of--their earlier ones at home, amongst their own people, were forgotten if they had ever understood them; their very parents, they told us, were but the shadow of a memory.