Oriana said all she could to console her; and assured her of her protection and friendship, and of a home in her lodge when they returned to their own country, where she should live as her sister, and bring up her little Lincoya to emulate his father’s courage and virtues:  and, ere long, the simple young savage again grew calm, said lifted up her soft black eyes, and smiled gratefully at her new friend and benefactor.  She said she bad no wish to return to her own tribe, for all her family and friends had been destroyed in the recent massacre; and the village where she had spent such happy days was reduced to ashes.  She, therefore, was well content to remain with the youthful Squaw-Sachem, to whose intercession she knew she owed her own life and that of her child, and in whose service she professed her willingness to live and die.

Her manner and appearance greatly interested Henrich, for they were marked by much greater refinement than he had seen in any of the Indian females, except Oriana.  This was to be accounted for by her noble birth; for in those days the Indian chieftains prided themselves on the purity and nobility of their lineage; and no member of a Sachem’s family was allowed to marry one of an inferior race.  A certain air of dignity generally distinguished the privileged class, even among the females; although their lives were not exempt from much of hardship and servitude, and they were regarded as altogether the inferiors of their lords and masters.

To Oriana the arrival of the young mother and her playful child was a source of much pleasure and comfort; for she had begun to feel the want of female society, and the women who accompanied Tisquantum’s party, and assisted her in the domestic duties of the family, were no companions to her.  In Mailah she saw that she could find a friend; and her kindness and sympathy soon attached the lonely young squaw to her, and even restored her to cheerfulness and activity.  It was only when she visited the grave in which Henrich and Jyanough had laid the murdered Lincoya, and decked it with flowers and green boughs, that the widow seemed to feel the greatness of her affliction.  Then she would weep bitterly, and, with passionate gestures, lament her brave warrior.  But, at other times, she was fully occupied with the care of her little Lincoya, or in assisting Oriana in the light household duties that devolved upon her.  And her sweet voice was often heard singing to the child, which generally hung at her back, nestled in its soft bed of moss.

CHAPTER X.

’The noble courser broke away. 
   And bounded o’er the plain? 
The desert echoed to his tread,
   As high he toss’d his graceful head,
And shook his flowing name.

King of the Western deserts!  Thou
   Art still untam’d and free! 
Ne’er shall that crest he forced to bow
Beneath the yoke of drudgery low: 
But still in freedom shalt thou roam
The boundless fields that form thy home
   Thy native Prairie!’ ANON.