As soon as the little girl appeared, the young Indian, kneeling gracefully, presented her with his gift. After the tiny snow-shoes had been passed from hand to hand for inspection and their use had been explained, Lady Effingham said,—
"Now, Betty, give him the present fetched from Bristol."
Thus saying she placed a small packet in the child's hand, and the latter, advancing shyly, handed it to Nahma. With a smiling face the young warrior undid the wrappings of the packet until its contents were exposed. Suddenly his expression changed to one of consternation and bewilderment. For a moment he held the object in his hands gazing at it wildly and in evident perplexity. Then he uttered a great cry and a gush of tears filled his eyes. He gasped and seemed about to speak; but, words failing him, he turned and fled from the hall, leaving its occupants amazed at his strange actions.
"It is doubtless a native charm of some kind," quoth the knight, breaking the silence, "and a powerful one at that, for never did I see a man so upset by a trifle. After a little, when he has had time to quiet down, I will question him concerning his agitation, but until then we must amuse ourselves with conjecture."
In the mean time Nahma had not paused in his flight until reaching his own lodge. There he sat down and examined his newly acquired prize with minutest care, alternately laughing and crying as he did so. At length, apparently satisfied with his inspection, he said aloud in the long forgotten tongue of the Wampanoags,—
"Truly it is my father's wampum, and I am Nahma, the son of Longfeather."
It was indeed the Belt of Seven Totems, thus marvellously restored to him from whose unconscious form it had been taken nearly three years earlier in the far-away land of the Iroquois. Not only had Nahma thus regained his father's badge of authority, but at sight of it the memory of his earlier years, lost to him ever since he had been struck down by Miantinomo, was abruptly and fully restored. He recalled who he was and found himself once more in command of his native tongue. He also remembered every incident of his journey to the country of the Maqua as though it had been undertaken but the day before. He even remembered lying down for a brief rest after eating his supper on the western bank of the Shatemuc; but beyond that came a blank, and his next memory was of Aeana in the lodge of Kaweras.
As these things passed through his mind in rapid review, he was also whelmed by a great wave of home-sickness. The voices of his own people rang in his ears, and he heard the plash of waves on the beach at Montaup. The scent of burning cedar from the evening camp-fires was in his nostrils, and he felt the spring of brown pine needles beneath his feet as he threaded the dim forest trails of his native land. In a bark canoe he once more ran the foaming rapids of great rivers, or, lying beside Tasquanto, he was lulled to sleep by the roar of mighty cataracts. So distinct were the pictures thus flashed before him by the magic belt that he had no longer a wish to live unless he could once more gaze upon them in reality. Every other feeling was merged in an intense desire to regain his own country and rejoin his own people.
At length the longing for these things became so great that the youth sprang to his feet, determined to set forth at once in quest of them. His reason told him that such an adventure was well-nigh hopeless; but the wampum belt urged him forward and persuaded him that by some means he would succeed. So Nahma departed forever from the lodge that, but an hour earlier, had seemed his home for life, and set forth on the tremendous journey. He took with him only his weapons, a fur cloak, the fire-bag that had once belonged to Aeana, and the Belt of Seven Totems girded about his body next his skin.
As he emerged from the lodge he stood for a moment irresolute. Whither should he turn? What path would lead him to Montaup? Then the last word uttered in his hearing by Betty's mother rang again in his ears. It was "Bristol." From there the belt had but recently come, and there he would begin to retrace its mysterious course to the place where he had lost it. He had heard the foresters speak of Bristol, and he knew that it lay in the direction of the setting sun. What Bristol was, or how far away, he did not know, any more than what he should do upon getting there. It was enough that his first step was decided upon, and without a single backward glance he began his long homeward journey.