Bending his head in superstitious
reverence, he turned gravely to those who, appearing to possess more of
the world in their natures, were more fitting subjects for the designs he
meditated.
"The mind of my father is strong, but his body is like a branch of the
scorched hemlock!" was the pithy declaration with which he prefaced his
next remark. "Why is this?" he continued, looking severely at the three
who had so lately been opposed to him in deadly contest. "Here are men
with skins like the blossom of the dog-wood, and yet their hands are so
dark that I cannot see them!"
"They have been blackened by toil, beneath a burning sun," returned
Content, who knew how to discourse in the figurative language of the
people in whose power he found himself. "We have labored, that our women
and children might eat."
"No--the blood of red men hath changed their color."
"We have taken up the hatchet, that the land which the Great Spirit hath
given might still be ours, and that our scalps might not be blown about in
the smoke of a wigwam. Would a Narragansett hide his arms, and tie up his
hands, with the war-whoop ringing in his ears?"
When allusion was made to the ownership of the valley, the blood rushed
into the cheek of the warrior in such a flood, that it it deepened even
the natural swarthy hue; but, clenching the handle of his axe
convulsively, he continued to listen, like one accustomed to entire
self-command.
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