This being the case, and the departure of Coubitant having removed all present danger to Henrich from his malicious schemes, Jyanough forbore to express all he felt to the old Sachem; and he returned to Oriana with the pleasant intelligence that the enemy of her white brother had departed.
To the young Squaw-Sachem this news imparted infinite relief; and even Henrich could not regret it, although he found it difficult to believe that all the suspicions of his friends were well-founded. Still the events of the preceding day were quite sufficient to make him doubt more than ever the sincerity of Coubitant's professed regard; and he felt that he should be happier now that the dark-browed savage was gone. To his pleasant life of freedom we will now leave him, and return to New Plymouth, where many events—deeply interesting to the settlers—had occurred since his involuntary departure, and supposed death.
CHAPTER XI.
'There went a dirge through the forest's gloom.
An exile was borne to a lonely tomb,
Brother;—so the chant was sung
In the slumberers native tongue—
Friend and brother! not for thee
Shall the sound of weeping be. HEMANS.
Sadly and slowly the Pilgrim Fathers passed along the scattered village of log huts which was their home in their voluntary exile, and wound up the pathway that led towards the summit of the mount, afterwards called 'the Burying Hill,' on which they had constructed a rude fort or storehouse, and whither they were now bearing to his last earthly home the chief and the most respected of their community. The Governor Carver—he who had presided over their councils, and directed all their movements since the memorable day of their landing, and had been the friend, the physician, the comforter of his little flock, through all their trials and all their sufferings—had fallen a victim to disease and over-exertion, just as spring, with all its brighter hopes for the future, had set in.
It was but a few days after Henrich's capture that this heavy affliction befell the colony, and added greatly to the gloom which the loss of young Maitland had already cast over the whole village. The departure, also, of the vessel in which the Pilgrims had come out to America, occurred at the same time; and, although not one of the exiles desired to return to the land of their birth, and to abandon the enterprise on which they had entered so devotedly, yet it was a melancholy hour when they bade adieu to the captain and his crew, and saw the Mayflower sail away towards their still much-loved, country.
The scurvy and other diseasescombined with the hardships and privations to which they had been exposed during the winter and early spring—had fearfully reduced the number of the ship's company; and of those who remained, the greater part were weakened by illness, and dispirited by the loss of so many of their brave comrades, whose graves they had dug on the bleak shores of New England. The return of spring, and the supply of provisions that the settlers were able to obtain from the friendly Indians, had checked the progress of the fatal complaints that had so fearfully ravaged the colony during the severity of winter; and had restored the survivors of the ship's crew to comparative health and strength. The captain was, therefore, glad to seize the first opportunity of abandoning a shore which had presented to him so cheerless and melancholy an aspect, and of leaving the steadfast and devoted exiles to the fate which they had chosen, and which they were resolved to abide in faith and hope.
On the very day that the Mayflower set sail, and while its white sails could still be distinguished in the eastern horizon, the Governor—who took an active part in every occupation, and even every labor that engaged the settlers—was busily employed in sowing corn in the fields that were considered as the common property of the colony. In directing and superintending this work, he was greatly assisted by the skill and experience of Squanto, the native who, as we have already related, had been so treacherously carried off to England by Hunt, and had, on his return to America, sought out, and attached himself to, the settlers. By them he was greatly regarded, and his knowledge of the English language rendered his services of inestimable value in all their intercourse with the Indian tribes; while his acquaintance with the soil on which they had established themselves, and the native modes of cultivating grain and other vegetable produce, was of the greatest use to men who were only accustomed to European agriculture.
The maize and other grain were sown in the fields that had been richly manured with fish, to ensure an abundant crop;[*] and the laborers returned in a body to the village, led by their venerable and respected President; but no sooner had Carver re-entered his dwelling than he swooned away and never recovered his consciousness. In a few days he breathed his last, to the unutterable grief of his widow, and the deep regret of all the settlers, whose love and confidence he had won during his brief government, by his clear-sighted wisdom and his universal kindness.