Noalwa hung her head.
“Where did Mononchee meet him?” said she.
“I saw him here!” vehemently replied the warrior, “here—standing on this very spot. I saw his hand grasp yours; nay, kneeling at your feet. I saw his eager look whilst you poured into his ear words which should have been kept for Mononchee!”
“Be it so then,” cried the maiden, her lips quivering with insulted pride, and her heart torn with the agony which the unjust but perhaps reasonable suspicion of her lover caused, “be it so! for I told him to go—ere he told me a tale of love—to his tent and behold the wasted form and the sunken eye of Tituba, his wife, once loved and cherished—now neglected. I told him that I could never be his, and that any one who suspected Noalwa would so dishonor herself as to break her faith with another, could not be worthy of her love. Mononchee suspects her, and to him let her words be applied.”
“But why suffer the Namasket to hold your hand? Why play with the serpent just ready to strike deep his fangs?”
“Mononchee is a keen-eyed warrior,” said the maid in irony, “he saw the hawk, but not the wren that drove him from her nest. He saw Annawon at the feet and holding the hand of Noalwa, but did not observe with what scorn she looked upon him—did not mark how she spurned and drove him from her.”
“I was deceived,” answered the repentant lover; “Noalwa has a pure heart, and never again will I distrust her. Seest thou that moon hanging yonder over the clear water? When it is again round and full, as it is to-night, Mononchee will come to take Noalwa for his wife. Will she be ready to go with him then to dwell where the hills are high and the deer are plenty?”
“I am yours—yours only,” and her blushing face was hid in his bosom.
After sitting for about an hour, the young man arose. “I must return,” said he, “to my people. Remember the full moon, Noalwa,” and he strode rapidly away.
A few days after the above occurrence the Namaskets were invited by the Wannamoisetts to partake of a grand feast of deer and bears’ flesh at their village in the mountains. Accordingly a large party of the active men of the tribe started one morning, and the evening of the next day found them with their friends at Cohammock. The Wannamoisetts had made their preparations on a grand, and, for them, magnificent scale. Piles of plump deer and still richer bears’ meat lay around, while kettles of dried sweet corn and beans, of the last year’s growth, were already simmering over the small fires, that the hard kernels might become well softened and ready for use on the morrow.