CHAPTER VI.

I will pursue to death this spiteful knight:
Not earth's low centre, nor sea's deepest part,
Nor heaven, nor hell, can shield him from my might:
I will o'ertake him, take him, cleave his heart.
FAIRFAX' TASSO.


The suspicions of the Indian were confirmed beyond a doubt. It was,
perhaps, the voice and accent of the Solitary in his native tongue
that at first attracted his attention and induced him to try the
experiment which resulted as we have seen. He must have had or fancied
that he had a cause of deadly hatred of long standing against Holden.
It is impossible otherwise to explain his conduct. But no length of
time can erase the recollection of an injury from the mind of a North
American Indian. He cherishes it as something never to be parted with,
and would feel degraded in his own estimation were he to forgive.
Revenge is the central sun round which his spirit revolves; and to
gratify the feeling no hardships are too severe. For such a purpose
he will traverse, with an unerring instinct, pathless forests for
hundreds of miles, swim wide rivers, climb lofty mountains, sleep,
unrepining, on the bare ground, exposed to all vicissitudes of heat
and cold, supporting himself by the chase and fishing, and sustained
throughout by his vindictive passion and the glory he connects with
its gratification. The kindness shown by Holden to his sister and
her son, and the reverence with which she regarded him, it might
be expected would have influenced Ohquamehud; but they had no such
effect. To the kindness he ascribed a sinister motive; and of course,
Peéna's gratitude was misplaced. It was therefore with a fiendish joy