"What Huron gal do, dat you kill
him? What you t'ink Manitou say? What you t'ink Manitou feel?
What Iroquois do? No get honour- no get camp - no get prisoner -no
get battle - no get scalp - no get not'ing at all! Blood come
after blood! How you feel, your wife killed? Who pity you, when
tear come for moder, or sister? You big as great pine - Huron
gal little slender birch - why you fall on her and crush her? You
t'ink Huron forget it? No; red-skin never forget! Never forget
friend; never forget enemy. Red man Manitou in dat. Why you so
wicked, great pale-face?"
Hurry had never been so daunted as by this close and warm attack
of the Indian girl. It is true that she had a powerful ally in
his conscience, and while she spoke earnestly, it was in tones so
feminine as to deprive him of any pretext for unmanly anger. The
softness of her voice added to the weight of her remonstrance, by
lending to the latter an air of purity and truth. Like most vulgar
minded men, he had only regarded the Indians through the medium
of their coarser and fiercer characteristics. It had never struck
him that the affections are human, that even high principles -
modified by habits and prejudices, but not the less elevated within
their circle - can exist in the savage state, and that the warrior
who is most ruthless in the field, can submit to the softest and
gentlest influences in the moments of domestic quiet.
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