“Does Wenonga, at last, feel he has brought a devil upon his people?” said Nathan, speaking for the first time since his capture, and speaking in a way well suited to strike the interrogator with surprise.  A sneer, as it seemed, of gratified malice crept over his face, and was visible even through the coat of paint that still invested his features; and to crown all, his words were delivered in the Shawnee tongue, correctly and unhesitatingly pronounced; which was itself, or so Wenonga appeared to hold it, a proof of his superhuman acquirements.

The old chief started, as the words fell upon his ear, and looked around him in awe, as if the prisoner had already summoned a spirit to his elbow.

“I have heard the voice of the dead!” he cried.  “My brother is a great Medicine!  But I am a chief;—­I am not afraid.”

“The chief tells me lies,” rejoined Nathan, who, having once unlocked his lips, seemed but little disposed to resume his former silence;—­“the chief tells me lies:  there is no white-devil hurts his people!”

“I am an old man, and a warrior,—­I speak the truth!” said the chief, with dignity; and then added, with sudden feeling,—­“I am an old man:  I had sons and grandsons—­young warriors, and boys that would soon have blacked their faces for battle[12]—­where are they?  The Jibbenainosay has been in my village, he has been in my wigwam—­there are none left—­the Jibbenainosay killed them!”

[Footnote 12:  The young warriors of many tribes are obliged to confine themselves to black paint, during their probationary campaigns.]

“Ay!” exclaimed the prisoner, and his eyes shot fire as he spoke, “they fell under his hand, man and boy—­there was not one of them spared—­they were of the blood of Wenonga!”

“Wenonga is a great chief!” cried the Indian:  “he is childless; but childless he has made the Long-knife.”

“The Long-knife, and the son of Onas!” said Nathan.

The chief staggered back, as if struck by a blow, and stared wildly upon the prisoner.

“My brother is a medicine-man,—­he knows all things!” he exclaimed.  “He speaks the truth:  I am a great warrior; I took the scalp of the Quakel[13]—­”

[Footnote 13:  Quakels—­a corruption of Quakers, whom the Indians of Pennsylvania originally designated as the sons of Onos, that being one of the names they bestowed upon Penn.]

“And of his wife and children—­you left not one alive!—­Ay!” continued Nathan, fastening his looks upon the amazed chief, “you slew them all!  And he that was the husband and father was the Shawnees’ friend, the friend even of Wenonga!”

“The white-men are dogs and robbers!” said the chief:  “the Quakel was my brother; but I killed him.  I am an Indian—­I love white-man’s blood.  My people have soft hearts; they cried for the Quakel:  but I am a warrior with no heart.  I killed them:  their scalps are hanging to my fire-post!  I am not sorry; I am not afraid.”