‘I don’t know anything about the stories he used to tell the girl, or what he promised her, but the rascal deceived her, I know so much. Randolph, that was the Englishman’s name, had lived in great cities, where there is all kinds of vice and evil practised, as you and I know, messmates, perhaps he didn’t think the thing so much of a crime as some others would look upon it; but that’s no matter, he betrayed her and forsook her soon afterwards, and I was not long in discovering this, for though I was a boy, I knew some things that the Englishman thought I didn’t, and when I saw that he began to leave the clearing by a different path, I understood the whole affair and told him so in secret; he offered me money, but I refused it, and told him that an Indian never forgave an injury, and that he would have to suffer for it. I told him that if she did not revenge herself, there were an hundred knives that would do it for her, aye, and find him, hide where he would. But you see, he didn’t mind me at all, and still staid thereabouts.
‘Well, time passed on, and one day I was out with my gun for some game and happened to be very near the place where Randolph and Kelmond used to meet, and coming up to it suddenly, I found the Indian girl upon the spot, and crying as I had never seen an Indian before, for they’re a stern race, you know, messmates; well, I could not but offer her all the consolation I knew how to do, and, you see, she knew where I came from, and so asked me about Randolph’s health, and the like, but never reproached him for all his deception, not a word. ‘Twould have made you blubber right out to have seen that poor, brokenhearted girl asking after him who had betrayed her, with all the warmth of an affection that could never die. There’s something queer, messmates, about a woman’s love; I never sailed much in those latitudes, but I’ve seen those that have, and I can say, on my own account, that I never could find soundings myself, throw the lead as often as I would. So it was with this beautiful Indian girl; her heart was still the same towards him who had rendered her cruise for life one of perfect misery.
‘Well, from that hour the wild flower of the mountains withered and faded like a broken reed, until the suspicion of her sister Komeoke was aroused, and she at length told her all her misery. She heard it without a word of revenge, and did all her kind heart could suggest, to make her dear sister as comfortable as she might. Well, a few days from the time she told her secret to her sister, the poor, beautiful, but broken-hearted girl, like a ship without a compass, messmates, lost her mind, they say; at any rate she climbed to the very highest part of Holyoke, where a long, sharp rock extends out from the hill-side, and looks off towards the valley, and threw herself off from the immense height upon the rocks and stones below. Her father found her body the next day all mangled and torn to pieces. Her sister, too, looked upon her dead body, and then uttered the deep, horrid curse of her tribe upon him who had caused this ruin. She did not shed a single tear, so a red warrior told me afterwards, but her spirit was awake—she was aroused and the Indian blood was at work in her veins.
‘Before another sun had gone down, messmates, Randolph fell near the door of the house where he stopped, pierced to the heart by a poisoned arrow, and a few moments after, the sister of Kelmond sought his side and told him, why that arrow was sent—told him that he would appear before the Indian’s God with Kelmond, that he would be banished into the dirty, muggy swamps that evil ones inhabit, while the good were roving the happy hunting grounds of the blessed. Well, messmates, Randolph died of that fatal wound, and I, for one, am free to say he did not deserve to live. The sister was revenged, and Komeoke became the wife of a great brave.
‘’Twas soon after this that I left the neighborhood, and came to Boston and shipped to sea; but I have seen people from the settlement who say that the story didn’t end here, for that on any clear moonlight night the form of the Indian girl is seen at midnight upon that lofty rock, that many and often are the sacrifices made by the tribe for her spirit, but still it appears nightly on the rock.
‘There, messmates, is my true yarn about the Indian Maiden of Holyoke.’
Fortune is a fickle goddess, and she now threatened to desert Fanny in the greatest need. The little fleet was fast approaching the shores of Cape Cod when the look-out shouted the usual announcement of a vessel in sight. All on board the Constance, as well as the prizes, the barque and the ship, knew the precarious nature of their present situation, for they were now coming upon a coast that literally swarmed with the cruisers of the enemy. Every precaution had been taken that prudence could suggest to strengthen the little armament, but eight fighting men to a vessel, be she ever so well armed, could not avail much against a regular man-of-war of the smallest class with her full complement of men. This they knew full well, and no effort that ingenuity could devise was left untried to render every thing available that might favor them in case of attack. The arms were all double loaded, and every thing that vigilance could do was done. At the cry we have announced, from the look-out, every one was on the alert. It was morning, and the wind being fresh and fair, all had hoped to anchor that night in the quiet little harbor of Lynn, where the crew had ascertained that the captain would drop his land tackle. It was a clear, cold day, and the chill winds of northern winter were doubly felt by those on board the Constance, and the prizes who had so lately left the milder latitudes of the South.
The strange sail proved to be a brig of about the same tonnage as the Constance, and evidently a vessel in the commission of the king, wearing the British ensign at the gaff. She stood boldly for the Constance, whom her people appeared to have discovered at about the same time that she was seen by the Americans, and soon fired a gun of defiance. Lovell, seeing the impending danger, sheered up to within hailing distance of the brig, when Fanny ordered him and also Herbert to separate from each other, but to stand in for their port without noticing the king’s vessel, saying that it was of no use to risk the loss of their prizes, and that she would get out of the trouble in some way, or at any rate draw off the attention of the enemy from the barque until they should escape.
Lovell was in dilemma,—he did not dare to disobey order’s for example’s sake, nor even to question the propriety of the order for a single moment, and there was no course left him but to obey it, which he did with great reluctance, and yet with a full confidence that Fanny would manage all for the best.
The barque and ship therefore stood on their course for port, while Fanny ordering the helm up, put the brig before the wind with the hope of outsailing the cruiser. The enemy had already got within such distance as to render her strength manifest, and also to show her clearly what her enemy was. The brig proved to be the Dolphin, of twelve guns and about fifty men. She was short of her full complement, having detailed a number of her men by order of the admiral, for one of the larger ships upon the station.