Was I then a robber and persecutor of the orphan?  Am I now?  Perhaps so,—­but it is yourself that have made me so.  For you, I called up my evil genius to my aid; and my evil-genius aided me.  He bade me woo no longer like the turtle but strike like the falcon.  Through plots and stratagems, through storms and perils, through battle and blood, I have pursued you, and I have conquered at last.  The captive of my sword and spear, you will spurn my love no longer; for, in truth, you cannot.  I came to the wilderness to seek an heiress for your uncle’s wealth; I have found her.  But she returns to her inheritance the wife of the seeker!  In a word, my Edith,—­for why should I, who am now the master of your fate, forbear the style of a conqueror? why should I longer sue, who have the power to command?—­you are mine,—­mine beyond the influence of caprice or change,—­mine beyond the hope of escape.  This village you will never leave but as a bride.”

So spoke the bold wooer, elated by the consciousness of successful villany, and perhaps convinced from long experience of the timorous, and doubtless, feeble, character of the maid, that a haughty and overbearing tone would produce an impression, however painful it might be to her, more favourable to his hopes than the soft hypocrisy of sueing.  He was manifestly resolved to wring from her fears the consent not to be obtained from her love.  Nor had he miscalculated the power of such a display of bold, unflinching energetic determination in awing, if not bending, her youthful spirit.  She seemed indeed, stunned, wholly overpowered by his resolved and violent manner; and she had scarcely strength to mutter the answer that rose to her lips: 

“If it be so,” she faltered out, “this village, then, I must never leave; for here I will die, die even by the hands of barbarians, and die a thousand times, ere I look upon you, base and cruel man, with any but the eyes of detestation.  I hated you ever,—­I hate you yet.”

“My fair mistress,” said Braxley, with a sneer that might have well become the lip of the devil he had pronounced the then ruler of his breast, “knows not all the alternative.  Death is a boon the savages may bestow, when the whim takes them.  But before that, they must show their affection for their prisoner.  There are many that can admire the bright eyes and ruddy cheeks of the white maiden; and some one, doubtless, will admit the stranger to a corner of his wigwam and his bosom!  Ay, madam, I will speak plainly,—­it is as the wife of Richard Braxley or of a pagan savage you go out of the tent of Wenonga.  Or why go out of the tent of Wenonga at all?  Is Wenonga insensible to the beauty of his guest?  The hag that I drove from the fire, seemed already to see in her prisoner the maid that was to rob her of her husband.”

“Heaven help me!” exclaimed Edith, sinking again to her seat, wholly overcome by the horrors it was the object of the wooer to accumulate on her mind.  He noted the effect of his threat, and stealing up, he took her trembling, almost lifeless hand, adding, but in a softer voice,—­