“And the youth, called Charles Lincoln, what of him?” inquired the other. “It is some months since he went to scour the settlements as a spy. Have any of the tribes met with him?”
“Before the moon go her course,” answered Tuscalameetah, “the stolen bird will tread the halls of the great white man who is to him as a father. He is now left with no kindred and no people. The man that drove back the tribe of Tuscalameetah’s brethren,” continued the Indian, and his eyes flashed with successful revenge, “is brought to have his tent destroyed, and his own dust scattered by the whirlwinds.”
Again General Lincoln paced the room, and there was a silence. “You can depart,” he said at length to the savage.
“It is hard,” muttered he, as he was left alone, “to be stretched on the rack of a responsibility such as this. But things prosper, and my royal master is gliding through life enjoying the fruits of my joyless days, and sleepless nights, and periled salvation, while I am wearing myself down to the grave. He has none of the remorse which haunts me, making the dying looks of these massacred people pursue me to my fireside, and molest the joys of my home.”
“And the poor boy’s parents are dead,” he continued, after a pause. “Since blood had to be shed, better theirs than that of others, for there is now naught to come between him and his heirship to my titles and estates. God be thanked for this, for I love him as if he were the son whose place I have given him and whose name he bears.”
——
CHAPTER VIII.
Tear follows tear where long no tear hath been;
I see the present on a distant goal,
The past, revived, is present to my soul.