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50 MALAESKA.
felt the cheek beneath his waxing hard and cold. He lifted his
head and pored with breathless wonder over the face of his father’s
corpse.- He looked up at his mother. | She, too, was bending in-
tently over.the face of the dead, and her eyes were full of © wild,
melancholy light. ‘The child was bewildered. He passed his tiny
hand once more over the cold face, and then crept away, buried his
‘head in the folds of his mother’s dress, and began to ery.
Morning dawned upon the little lake, quietly and still, as if no-
thing but the dews of heaven and the flowers of earth had ever tast-
edits freshness; yet all under the trees, the tender grass and the
white blossoms, were crushed to the ground, stained and trampled
‘in human blood. he delicious light broke, like a smile from heay-
en, over the still bosom of the waters, and flickered cheeringly -
through the dewy branches of the hemlock which shadowed the
prostrate hunter. Bright dew-drops lay thickly on his dress, and
gleamed, like a shower of seed pearls, in his rich, brown hair, The
_ green moss on either side was soaked with a crimson ‘stain, and the
pile, leaden hue of dissolution had settled on his features. He was
not alone; foron thesame mossy couch lay the body of the slaughter-
ed chief; the limbs were composed, as if on a bier — the hair wiped |
smooth, and the crescent of feathers, broken and wet, were arranged
with care around-his bronzed temples. A little way off, on a hillock,
purple with flowers, lay a beautiful child, beckoning to the birds as
they fluttered by — plucking up the flowers, and uttering his tiny
shout of gladness, as if death and sorrow were not all areund him.
There, by the side of the dead hunter, sat Malaeska, the widow, her
hands dropping nervously by her side, her long hair sweeping the
moss, and her face bowed on her bosom, stupefied with the over-
whelming poignancy of her grief. Thus sne remained, motionless
and lost in sorrow, till the day was at its noon. Her child, hungry
‘and tired with play, had cried itself to sleep among the flowers; but
the mother knew it not —her heart and all her faculties seemed
closed as with a portal of ice. mo oe
That night when the moon was up, the Indian widow dug a grave,
with her own hands, on the green margin of the lake. She laid her
husband and her futher side by side, and piled sods upon them.
ThetShe lifted the wretched and hungry babe from the earth, and, ,
with a heavy heart, bent her way to the Straka.’’
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