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Edwards lay on the bed with wide-open eyes staring at the intruders. Mr. Wells sat with bowed head. Zeisberger calmly whittled a stick, and Jim stood bolt upright, with a hard light in his eyes. Nell leaned against the side of a heavy table.
Zeisberger, wringing the old missionary's hand. "The years have not been so long but that I remember you." "Happy, indeed, am I to get here, after all these dark, dangerous journeys," returned Mr. Wells. "I have brought my nieces, Nell and Kate, who were children when you left Williamsburg, and this young man, James Downs, a minister of God, and earnest in his hope for our work."
On the way back to the cabin, while the others listened to and questioned Mr. Zeisberger, Jim was silent and thoughtful, for his thoughts reverted to his brother. Later, as he walked with Nell by the golden-fringed stream, he spoke of Joe. "Joe wanted so much to hunt with Wetzel. He will come back; surely he will return to us when he has satisfied his wild craving for adventure.
They were bloodthirsty, drunken, lewd and treacherous. They spent their time in hunting buffaloes, smoking pipes, lolling in the sun, and scalping each other's heads. They wasted their nights in tipsy revels and dances by the light of the moon. They cowered in terror of evil spirits and vicious and angry gods. But Zeisberger never feared and never despaired.
While Zeisberger, who was skilled in surgery, attended to the wounded men, Jim barred the heavy door, shut the rude, swinging windows, and made the cabin temporarily a refuge from prowling savages. Outside the clamor increased. Shrill yells rent the air, long, rolling war-cries sounded above all the din.
For Cammerhof the journey was too much; in the bloom of youth he died . But Zeisberger had a frame of steel.
I hope you have rested well," said Mr. Zeisberger, when at the conclusion of this long recital Nell and Kate came into the room. "Thank you, we feel much better," answered Kate. The girls certainly looked refreshed. The substitution of clean gowns for their former travel-stained garments made a change that called forth the minister's surprise and admiration. "My! My!
But Cammerhof addressed the chiefs, brought out the soothing pipe of tobacco, watched it pass from mouth to mouth, and received permission for two missionaries to come and settle down. From there, still accompanied by Cammerhof, Zeisberger went on to the Senecas. He was welcomed to a Pandemonium of revelry. The whole village was drunk.
He will tell of Matthew Stach, the Greenland pioneer, of Friedrich Martin, the "Apostle to the Negroes," of David Zeisberger, the "Apostle to the Indians," of Erasmus Schmidt, in Surinam, of Jaeschke, the famous Tibetan linguist, of Leitner and the lepers on Robben Island, of Henry Schmidt in South Africa, of James Ward in North Queensland, of Meyer and Richard in German East Africa, and of many another grand herald of the Cross whose name is emblazoned in letters of gold upon the Moravian roll of honour.
As soon as Zeisberger rose to speak, every eye was fixed upon him; and while he delivered his Gospel message, he knew that at any moment a tomahawk might cleave his skull, and his scalp hang bleeding at the murderer's girdle. "Never yet," he wrote, "did I see so clearly painted on the faces of the Indians both the darkness of hell and the world-subduing power of the Gospel."
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