feared that pity might gain the mastery over him in the sight of so much beauty, assumed a stem aspect, and commanded her to lay down her child.
"Nito-me-ma!" he exclaimed, "prepare to die instantly, as the penalty of unfaithfulness. I am the avenging messenger of your husband, and I dare not disobey his bidding. That the blow may be surer and less painful, do not resist a fate which is inevitable. Kneel!"
He snatched his tomahawk from his girdle, and raised it on high. Gentle Dove, who, for her own sake, would have gladly died, looked on her innocent child; then, with a wild, impassioned eloquence, begged a few moments' respite to send up a prayer to God. Her request was granted, and she poured forth her soul for heavenly aid in such a strain as well might make the angels weep. The Great Spirit heard it. The delay which had been allowed by Omaint-si-ar-nah's messenger was fatal to his resolution. Three times be whirled his hatchet round his head, then struck it deep into the trunk of the nearest tree, and yielded to compassion. In truth, his savage soul had first been melted when he stood before the tent.
He spared the life of Nito-me-ma on one condition: that she would retire into the thickest forest, and never more be seen among her tribe. Having exacted such a promise, he shore a long lock of her raven hair, gazed at her in a long, admiring silence, replaced his hatchet in his girdle, and then, as loth to go, he turned upon his heel and stalked away. "I have disobeyed my chieftain," he wailed aloud when at a little distance; then he beat his breast and exclaimed, "The Great Spirit is my chieftain, and He spoke to me from here." He was inclined to turn again and shield the unprotected wanderer; but when he reached the river's brink he flung himself into his bark canoe, and waiting for the moon to rise, he slept upon the murky tide.
Gentle Dove, when left alone to perish, as might be supposed, by a more cruel, lingering death, moved slowly onward through the dark, she knew not where. Entering a deep hollow, she found it filled with dry leaves, and, lying down with her child, the breeze of the night came along, and with a sudden gust, covered them lightly with the same, so that the chilling dews should not benumb them. More useful thus
