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The arms of Henrich snatched his unconscious wife from the threatened peril; and, as he bore her away from the scene of conflict, Jyanough again closed on the villain, and the deadly struggle was resumed. It was brief, but awful. The strength of Coubitant was becoming exhausted his grasp began to loosen, and his foot to falter.
'What is that distant cloud, Henrich? inquired Oriana, as they rode by Tisquantum's side on the evening of the day of their journey towards the Missouri.
The vows of Henrich and his Christian bride were made in the presence of that God who instituted marriage, and hollowed it; and they were sanctified by the 'prayer of faith, which rises as freely, and as acceptably, from the wilderness as from the stately cathedral.
But in this he invariably failed; for the pale-face was brave, honest, and truthful, to a degree that baffled the ingenuity of his wily foe: and Coubitant found that, instead of lowering Henrich in the regard of the Sachem, he only excited him to take his part still more, and also ran a great risk of losing all the favor which he had himself attained in Tisquantum's eyes.
The youth of both parties, the position that Henrich occupied in his family as his adopted son, and the difference of race and color, prevented him from even anticipating that a warmer sentiment than fraternal affection could arise between them; and he fully regarded his daughter as the future inmate and mistress of an Indian warrior's lodge whether that of Coubitant or of some other brave, would, he considered, entirely depend on the comparative prowess in war and hunting, and the value of the presents that would be the offering of those who claimed her hand.
The terrified guard now reached to the gate, accompanied by Henrich and Jyanough, when, to their dismay, they beheld in the faint moonlight a large body of men approaching close to the fort. They easily discerned that the foremost of the troop were Europeans; and they raised a loud cry of Owannux! Owannux! Englishmen!
He did not speak perchance he could not trust his voice in that trying moment but he followed his guards, and his eye was again steadfast, and his step was firm. Henrich and Oriana waited anxiously for the return of Jyanough: but he came not; and they almost feared that Tisquantum's request had been too coldly urged to prove successful.
The emissary was instructed to say nothing of the quarrel with the English; for Coubitant wished to get Henrich into the power of the Pequodees, before he became aware of the service that was to be required of him; and he trusted that no intelligence would reach him in the desolate country through which he and his warriors would have to march.
Tisquantum still sat dozing on his favorite seat before his dwelling, and Henrich and Oriana remained beside him, silently watching the peaceful slumbers of their venerable parent, and the playful sports of their child, who was again roiling on the soft green turf at their feet, and busily engaged in decking the shaggy head and neck of a magnificent dog with the gay flowers that were scattered around him.
Henrich often assured her with sincerity that he had no idea of venturing on so hopeless an attempt; but whenever the Indian girl saw his eyes fixed sadly on the eastern horizon, and dimmed, as they often were, by tears of sad remembrance, she felt her fears again arise, and longed more earnestly to leave the spot, and plunge into the trackless forest that lay between the Pequodee encampment and she proposed hunting grounds.
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