Chapter XXI: Lionne and the Indian Witch

Be it what it may—or bliss, or torment,
Annihilation dark, and endless rest,
Or some dread thing man’s wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceived, that change I’ll dare
Which makes me—any thing but what I am.—_Joanna Baillie._

One morning as usual Lionne stole off to her grotto.

Throwing herself down upon the rugged floor, she sat with her elbows on her knees and her forehead bowed upon the palms of her hands. Her long black hair escaping from its bands, fell all around her shoulders and bosom, half veiling her bent form.

Unmindful of the passage of time, she gave herself up to bitter thoughts.

While thus she sat, like another forsaken Ariadne or despairing Dido, a shadow came between the mouth of the grotto and the glimmering light of the river beyond, and at the same moment, a rough, kindly, respectful voice called out:

“Mistress!”

Lionne put aside her blinding hair and looked up to behold the dwarfed giant Vulcan, accompanied by the Indian squaw, the “great medicine” Kalougoora.

They were a strange, startling, almost terrifying pair to rise so suddenly before a spectator—the dwarfed giant with his huge, square form, clad in a rude suit of coarse, gray cloth, and his great round head and hard brown face surrounded by a thatch of iron-gray hair and beard—and by his side the tall, thin, dark figure of the Indian crone, wrapped in her long, red blanket, down which streamed her stiff black hair, bound and platted with gay vipers’ skins.

She advanced into the grotto and stood muttering weird incantations, and performing strange gestures.

Lionne arose, bound up her long, black hair, and stood with somewhat of her old native dignity to receive her singular visitor.

“Mistress,” said Vulcan, in a tone and with a manner of deep respect, intended to inspire the squaw with a proper reverence for the lady—“Mistress, this is Kalougoora, the ‘great medicine’ of the Shenandoahs, come to offer her services to your ladyship.”

Lionne looked with a shudder of repulsion towards the old creature, who stood, still moving her lips and slowly wheeling her arms, as in solemn conjuration.

“Take that seat,” said Lionne, pointing to one formed by a rock raised above the floor.

The “great medicine,” with more incantations and conjurations, sat down.

“You may leave us now; but do not go out of call,” said Lionne, turning to the dwarf.

“Mistress, I will pace up and down before the opening of the grotto, to be within the sound of your voice,” answered Vulcan, with as good a bow as a square block could make, as he retreated from the grotto, leaving Lionne alone with her formidable looking visitor.

“Midnight Star!” began the old crone, addressing Lionne in the picturesque language of her tribe—“Midnight Star, my dark, bright daughter, does not trust her red mother.”

Lionne looked wistfully at the speaker and remained silent.

“The Midnight Star fears the ‘great medicine’ of the Shenandoahs,” said the crone, in a key half affirmative, half interrogative.

“I fear nothing in the heavens, earth or Hades; but my footsteps go down the deep valley where the powers of sleep and death mingle, and my face grows dark in their shadows,” said Lionne, falling into the picturesque style of the squaw’s language.

“My dark, bright daughter need not stay for that. Her red mother has a firm foot and a strong hand, and will lead her safely through the valley of black vapors, to the sunny hills beyond.”

“Do you know why I summoned you hither, and what I need?”

“The great medicine of the Shenandoahs knows all things!”

With a shrug of her shoulders, Lionne next asked: “Can you supply me with what I need?”

“The great medicine of the Shenandoahs can do all things,” she answered, with an egotism half way between the sublime and the ridiculous.

“What is it, then, that I need?” asked Lionne, with an almost imperceptible curl of her lip.

“My pale daughter needs a medicine that shall lay her out so still that none but the Great Spirit shall know that _her_ spirit has not followed her pale warrior to the Happy Hunting Grounds.”

“She believes me to be a widow!” thought Lionne, with a secret sneer at the professed omniscience of the “great medicine;” but aloud she said—“And you have such a drug?—a drug that shall _simulate_ without _causing_ death?”

“I have an herb so potent, that when my dark, bright daughter swallows it and lies down to sleep, not all the plants that grow above ground, nor all the minerals that lurk below in the bowels of the earth, nor all the skill of man shall be able to rouse her from her death-like sleep until two suns have passed—when she will of herself awake! Does my pale daughter still doubt?”

“No! I do not care enough about it to doubt! Even if the ‘death-like sleep’ should be the sleep of death, perhaps it were as well!” said Lionne, in a despairing tone.

Then after a pause of some moments, she suddenly said—

“Our interview is closed for to-day. Come to me to-morrow at this place, and at this hour, that we may confer further.”

And placing her finger to her lips, she blew a clear, high, shrill call, that summoned the dwarf to her presence.

The “great medicine” then arose, and with a repetition of her incantations, accompanied by Vulcan, she retired from the grotto. Lionne returned home, and entered the sitting-room, where she found her father busy in packing up his books and papers.

When he saw her, he looked up and smiled, saying—“Ten years’ practice has enabled me to perform the duties of my own valet with some skill, my dear. And you, my child, find the functions of _lady’s maid to yourself_ very easy.”

“Quite so,” replied Lionne,—“any successor to _me_ as _attendant_ upon me, might prove awkward and embarrassing.”

The earl laughed. How strange that laugh upon “lips of life-long sadness.” Did it bode good?

It was a fortnight after her first meeting with the “Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs,” that Lionne, in the seclusion of her grotto, and attended only by Kalougoora, became the mother of a female infant, only in its unconsciousness of its misery, less wretched than its parent.

Her father, in the habitual abstraction of his mind, in the absorption of business, and in his full acquaintance with her wandering habits, scarcely, for a day or two, missed the presence of his daughter. But when three days passed, and she had not made her appearance, he inquired on the fourth morning at breakfast—

“Where is Lionne?”

“Oh, your honor, she went out, before you were up!” answered Vulcan.

(And so she had—_three days before_.)

But unconscious of the prevarication practised upon him, the recluse merely answered to himself—

“That girl grows more eccentric every day—well! well! let her have her run of the wilderness while she remains! it will not be for long.”

Immediately after breakfast, Vulcan hurried to the grotto, where Lionne, exhausted more by despair than by illness, reposed upon her rude pallet.

“Lionne, my child, the master has at last inquired for you.”

“And—how did you answer for me?” exclaimed the wretched girl, starting up and leaning upon her elbow.

“I said that you had gone out before he was up.”

“_Oh_, this necessity of lying!” exclaimed Lionne, falling back upon her pillow, in intense disgust.

“Nay, but it wasn’t lying—_didn’t_ you leave home on Monday before he was up?—I say it _wasn’t_ lying.”

“It was as bad!”

“Very well, then I take the sin on myself! But now, dear mistress, you must try to come home to satisfy the master,—that is, if you can come, without hurting yourself.”

“Nothing can _hurt_ me now,” said the miserable girl, in a hopeless tone.

“And then you will be so much more comfortable at home.”

“Nothing can _comfort_ me now!” exclaimed the lost one, with a look of deep despair.

“Don’t say so, Lionne! You are but sixteen, and a long life full of changes is before you!”

“A long life! that is the very worst of it!—Well, but I must think of my father, and how to keep from him the knowledge of this blasting dishonor, the very suspicion of which would kill him. Kalougoora has left me for an hour; when she returns, I will leave this hapless infant in her charge and go home.”

“Dear mistress, let me suggest something. Do not go home until late in the afternoon, and see your father about twilight. Then——”

“Oh, I understand! he will not be startled by my changed face.”

“No; and if in the morning he notices it, you can just tell him that you had a bad night’s rest.”

“Which would be no falsehood, Vulcan, since I never have a good one!”

“And you will stay until the evening?”

“Yes! and now do _you_ return, lest my father should want you.”

Vulcan obeyed, and Lionne was again left alone.

When evening came, Lionne dressed herself, and leaving her child in the care of the old Indian woman, she set out from the grotto for her home. Walking feebly and resting frequently, she succeeded in passing the rapids, at the foot of which Vulcan waited with a boat to row her down the stream.

She reached her home at early twilight.

“Now, dear mistress, the master is still in his room; come away into the kitchen and sit down and rest. I left the kettle on the stove, and I will make you a cup of tea in less than no time. And then you’ll be able to meet him.”

With a grateful look, Lionne followed her old servant’s advice.

And then, refreshed by her rest and her tea, she entered the sitting-room, where she found her father engaged in strapping trunks, etc.

She entered, as usual, so softly, that he continued his employment unconscious of her presence, until she had seated herself in the shadiest corner of the room, and had spoken to him, saying:

“Cannot Vulcan do that for you, my father?”

“Ah, are you there, Lionne?” said the recluse, looking up at the same time that he was tightening a strap, with his knee upon the trunk. “It seems to me that I seldom see you, Lionne.”

“I have been very much engaged, my father.”

“Ah, preparing for your new life in the old world. You have been to Winchester, making more purchases to-day, I suppose. But, Lionne, in the country to which we are going, when a young lady leaves home for a day, she apprizes her parents or guardians. However, I will not blame you, my child. I know that you have not been brought up as other girls. But now, are you quite ready? This is Thursday—we start on Monday.”

“So soon!” exclaimed Lionne, involuntarily.

“‘So soon!’ you say that as if you hated to leave your forest home. When you have seen your English one, you will not regret this.”

It was no thought of her forest home—which she knew she was not about to leave—it was the thought of the dreadful deception she was about to practise upon her confiding father.

“I shall not regret my home in the wilderness,” she said.

“If you are not quite prepared to go, you have no time to lose.”

“No, I have no time to lose,” responded Lionne, in a tone that all her self-command could not steady.

But in his busy occupation her father failed to notice this.

Pleading fatigue, Lionne bade her father good-night, and retired to her chamber, where she laid down to repose for a few hours. This rest was absolutely needed to enable her to reach the grotto.

At ten o’clock she heard her father ascend the stairs and enter his room. She waited half an hour longer, and then, feeling sure that he had gone to bed and probably to sleep, she softly and silently arose, and stole down the stairs, and out of the house, to the river’s shore, where Vulcan awaited her with the boat.

The starlight was bright upon the water as they rowed up the stream. They reached the grotto, at the mouth of which they found the old Indian woman sitting, crooning a wild song. She arose, and stood aside to let them pass; but Lionne called her in, and said:

“When you come to me to-morrow, _bring the drug_.”

With a nod of assent the old woman retired.

Vulcan also left the grotto, and Lionne was left, as usual, to pass the night alone with her infant.

Early the next morning, the Indian woman presented herself to her employer.

“You have brought the medicine?”

“My pale daughter may look with her eyes,” said the squaw, displaying a bunch of noxious-smelling dried herbs.

“And my mother is sure that this will produce the effect she says?”

“My daughter shall steep this in the fire-water of the pale-faces, and drink of it, and lie down. And for two days her people shall wail the Midnight Star set in death! Nevertheless, on the third morning shall the Star of the Wilderness rise again!”

“Kalougoora, look at this handful of gold! Take it now for your herbs, and for your care of me. Take care of my child; and when I awake from that death-like sleep, bring her to me in good condition, and you shall have twice as much more.”

“The little New Moon shall be safe.”

The entrance of Vulcan put a stop to the conversation.

“I have the boat below the rapids. Will you not come home, so that the master may find you at the breakfast-table when he comes down? Kalougoora will stay here until you return,” said Vulcan.

Lionne arose, and leaving her infant sleeping, went down to the rapids, entered the boat, and was rowed to the house, where she arrived in time to meet her father at their morning-meal.

As soon as she could escape from his observation she returned to the grotto, and passed the day with her babe and with the old Indian woman, whom she urged, by every argument and persuasion of self-interest and of compassion, to guard her child well for a few days, until she should be able to reclaim it.

Then at length she left the grotto, and for the last time returned to her home.

She met her father at tea, and afterwards accompanied him to his sitting-room, where she remained, assisting him, until he himself, worn out with work, proposed their retiring.

Lionne was even more exhausted than her father; yet on this night she was very loth to leave him, for this she knew to be the last hour they could ever spend together. And when at length the moment came when they were to separate, as he believed, for the night—but as she knew for all time—she could scarcely command herself, or resist the impulse to fall at his feet and confess every thing! Only fears for him prevented her.

“Good-night, my father,” she said; and oh! how she longed, but dared not, to throw herself into his arms in a parting embrace.

“God bless you, my child!” was his calm reply. And so they separated.

Lionne, utterly prostrated by the fatigues and anxieties of the day, crept slowly up-stairs to her room. Waiting on the outside of the door, she found Vulcan, with a glass containing her sleeping-potion.

He put it in her hands with the words—

“Courage, dear mistress.”

“When I have drank this, come in some time before morning, and take away the glass, that no clue may remain to the cause of my state.”

“I will, dear mistress; I will do all things right,” answered the old servant.

“And be sure to look after old Kalougoora and her poor little charge, and——”

Before Lionne could add another word, she heard her father’s step upon the stairs and hurried into her room.

Vulcan slipped up into his own cockloft.

The next moment the master of the house reached the top of the stairs, and unsuspicious of wrong passed into his own chamber.

Early the next morning Mr. Delaforêt was astir. A the usual breakfast-hour Vulcan appeared at the sitting-room door and announced the morning meal ready.

Mr. Delaforêt, as we prefer still to call him, went out into the kitchen and took his seat at the table. Looking around and missing Lionne, he said—

“I hope my daughter has not gone out to-day! I particularly desired her to remain at home as this is the last day we have to complete our arrangements. Do you know, Vulcan, if your young lady has left the house?”

“No, sir; I haven’t seen any thing of my young lady this morning, and the hall door is still locked on the inside; so I am certain she has not gone out.”

“Then she must be in her room, and as she is an early riser, if she is well she must be up. Go, Vulcan, and tell her that I am waiting for her.”

Vulcan left the kitchen apparently to obey orders.

He was gone a few minutes, and when he returned his countenance wore an aspect of unassumed terror that alarmed his master, who started up, exclaiming:

“Why, Vulcan, what is the matter?”

“N-nothing much I hope, sir!”

“Speak more plainly! What do you mean?”

“Why, sir, as this is an hour when the young lady is usually up, and as her door was partly open, I looked in when I rapped, and—and—

“And _what?_ speak, in the name of heaven, man!”

“And she was lying on the bed like one in a dead faint!”

Almost before the last word was uttered Mr. Delaforêt had left the kitchen.

He hurried up the stairs and into the chamber of his daughter, whom he found extended on the bed with her chin fallen upon her bosom and her arms thrown up over the pillow.

“My child! my child! Lionne! Oh, what is this!” exclaimed the alarmed father as he rushed to the bedside and tried to raise her head and shoulders in his arms.

Her body was cold, stiff and senseless. Her condition seemed that of a corpse an hour dead!

He laid her head back upon the pillow and hurried to the head of the stairs, calling—

“Vulcan! Vulcan! mount the strongest and fastest horse and ride for life to Winchester and bring out a physician!”

Then he hastened into his own chamber and snatched from his medicine-chest the most potent restoratives, which he brought and applied for his daughter’s relief.

In vain! The rigid lips might be forced open, but the clenched teeth would not be unclasped to admit the passing of one drop of cordial. And the strongest stimulants applied with force and briskness to the surface of her neck and brow failed to bring the faintest shade of life-color thither.

With the utmost solicitude he continued to work over her or to watch by her. Fruitless all his hopes! He might as well have sought to restore consciousness to a corpse twelve hours abandoned by the soul!

Early in the afternoon the doctor from Winchester arrived, and was received by Mr. Delaforêt and shown immediately to the bedside of Lionne.

Then followed a close questioning of her father, who could only speak of his daughter’s fatigued and haggard looks, which she always, he said, ascribed to sleeplessness.

All the time the doctor was questioning the father, he was gazing upon the face or feeling the wrist, the jugular vein and the carotid artery of the patient, to ascertain if any pulsation remained. And at the end of the examination he said—

“Mr. Delaforêt, you are probably prepared for what I have to tell you! Your daughter has ceased to exist. Her malady was very obscure and one that usually gives but little evidence of its fatal presence until its work, as now, is done!”

“What was it then, sir?”

“Organic disease of the heart,” answered the doctor, making not the first nor the last mistake ever made, or to be made, by physicians.

The bereaved father drew up the sheet over the face of his young and beautiful dead, and turned to accompany the physician from the chamber.

As the doctor was about to take his leave, the master of the house said—

“We are alone here, myself and my man servant. Send me out some women from Winchester to prepare my girl for her last resting-place.”

“If you will give me authority I will have every thing that is proper done in the best manner, as if for my own brother and niece.”

In silent assent, Mr. Delaforêt pressed the hand of the kind physician, who immediately afterwards departed on his melancholy errand.

The afflicted father then turned to enter his desolate house, and seek the solitude of his chamber, to give full sway to that bitter grief which he had only been able to suppress in the presence of others.

As his hand was on the lock of his door, he heard a step at his side, and suddenly turning saw the dwarf Vulcan standing there.

“Pardon me master, for coming to you now; but—it will be very late at night before the women can come from Winchester, and—my young lady ought to be attended to immediately.”

“Well,” said Mr. Delaforêt, “what do you propose?”

“Dear master, as there is no Christian women at hand, will you not permit me to fetch the old Indian squaw, Kalougoora? She is skillful enough for the business, and she is very faithful.”

Mr. Delaforêt hesitated for a moment, and then, with his brow contracted with almost agonizing thought, he said:

“There is no other course—Yes! bring the Indian woman!”

And so saying, he passed into the solitude of his room and his sorrow.

An hour later Kalougoora arrived, and entered the chamber of Lionne, whom she prepared as a corpse for burial. Then, as silently as she had come, she departed to her other charge at the grotto.

Early on Sunday morning, Mr. Delaforêt entered the chamber of his daughter, whom he found dressed and laid out upon her bed. She had on the only white muslin gown she possessed—its folds neatly drawn down and arranged around her perfect form; the white and gloveless hands were folded upon the rounded bosom, and her shining dark hair was plaited in a thick braid and wound around her head, a natural crown upon her queenly brow.

“The poor pagan has done her work well!” was the thought of the bereaved father, even in the midst of the grief with which he looked upon this beautiful ruin.

He was interrupted by the voice of Vulcan at the door announcing to him the arrival of the undertaker and his wife, sent by the physician from Winchester. He went out to receive the new-comers.

Upon account of the heat of the weather, it was deemed expedient to hasten the interment. By using great diligence, the undertaker went back to Winchester and returned with the coffin early in the afternoon. And the body of Lionne, the living dead, was placed in this last receptacle, and brought down and laid upon a table in the middle of the front parlor.

When the room was closed and darkened and left in solitude, Vulcan and the old Indian woman stole into it, and stood each side the body.

“They have opened a grave, under the shadow of the mountain, where they intend to bury her at sunset, when the clergyman is expected to arrive. It is a dreadful danger! I am afraid she may suffocate before we can deliver her!” said Vulcan.

“The Great Rock (for thus the Indian woman called the dwarf giant) need not be shaken! Lungs that do not breathe, need no air.”

“But if she should awake in that coffin!”

“The Great Rock must be still. The Midnight Star will not shine again until the hour. If the Great Rock remains firm and unshaken, all will be well!”

The slow and heavy step of the master of the house, approaching the connecting door between his sitting-room and the parlor, warned them to flee. Opening the side door into the hall, as Mr. Delaforêt entered, they passed out of the apartment.

At sunset the clergyman, the family physician and another friend from Winchester, arrived and together with the bereaved father and his old servant, the Indian woman, the undertaker and his assistants, stood around the coffin while the solemn burial services of the Episcopal Church were performed.

At their close, the undertaker approached and reverently raised the lid of the coffin, that all might take a last look at the face of the supposed dead, before it was closed down forever.

With mute agony written upon his corrugated brow, the desolate father drew near and gazed upon his daughter’s still face, pressed his lips to her cold forehead, and turned away.

Other friends approached and gave their farewell glance, and gravely withdrew.

And then the undertaker came up and began to screw down the lid.

Vulcan shuddered, and convulsively grasped the arm of the Indian woman, who whispered under her breath—

“The Great Rock is shaken as by a storm! He must be still. The Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs knows what she does. The Midnight Star will shine again!”

They bore the coffin out, placed it on the bier, and carried it reverently to the green and shaded spot under the shelter of the everlasting rocks, where the earth was opened to receive it. As the concluding services were finished, they lowered it into the grave, which they immediately begun to fill up.

As the clods rattled heavily upon the coffin-lid, again Vulcan trembled as an oak-tree tossed by the whirlwind. And again the Indian doctress muttered in his ear—

“The Great Rock need not shake to his base! The Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs is sure of her power. The Midnight Star will rise when other stars wane.”

All then turned away. The clergyman drew the arm of the stricken father within his own, and led him back to the house. The others followed. The clergyman and physician had determined to remain with their afflicted friend through the night.

Vulcan and the Indian woman concealed themselves in the thicket at the foot of the mountain, whence they watched the grave-diggers until they had completed their work, taken up their tools and departed, leaving the grave of the living in solitude.

It was now quite dark, but for the light of the stars that just served to show the dim outline of the new-made grave.

Bringing the pick with which he had provided himself, Vulcan, with the Indian woman, emerged from his concealment.

And not the renowned Dousterswivel, digging for hidden treasure in the grave of Misticott, in the hope of boundless wealth, worked with more zeal and energy than did this poor servant, in mortal terror, lest he should be interrupted before his task should be complete, or that his young mistress should awake in that horrible pit!

The earth flew from the grave in a reversed shower of clods. Before it seemed possible, he had laid bare the outside of the coffin.

Gathering the cords by which it had been lowered, he climbed up to the surface of the ground, handed half of them to Kalougoora, and with her assistance drew the coffin from the grave. Snatching up the chisel that he had brought, he began to force the lid. That, with his immense strength, was the work of a minute, and the buried form of Lionne lay revealed!

Throwing aside the coffin-lid, he stooped and placed his hand upon the face of his mistress.

“Good heaven!” he cried, starting in horror—“we had not a moment to lose! Feel! there is a moisture upon her brow! She would have awakened in that appalling pit, had we left her there another hour!”

“Nay—she will not awake until the time I have said! Now, lift the young woman out and hide her in the thicket here, while you put back the coffin and fill up the grave, lest some one should come to discover us.”

This counsel Vulcan felt to be so wise that he immediately followed it. Raising the body of Lionne, he bore her to a nook in the thicket and laid her down upon a buffalo-skin, spread by the squaw to receive her. Then he returned, replaced the coffin, filled up the grave, and carefully obliterated every mark of his late work.

It was well that he had toiled so diligently! for just as he turned from the grave and entered the thicket, he heard the sound of a slow and heavy footstep that he knew too well, and the next moment the dim outline of Mr. Delaforêt emerged into view.

Believing himself to be unobserved the poor father fell upon the grave and gave way to the bitterness of his grief in groans and sobs, that rent not his own heart only, but even the rugged bosom of Vulcan, who, from his lurking-place, silently gave groan for groan and sob for sob.

“Better so,” said Vulcan to himself, “for if he suffers so severely for her supposed death, how terrible would be his agony in knowing how much worse than death is her real fate! He will be consoled for her loss. He never, never could survive the knowledge of her true condition!”

He watched from his concealment, until Mr. Delaforêt had risen from the ground, turned sorrowing away from the grave and disappeared down the thickly shaded path leading to his desolate home.

Then Vulcan and the Indian woman carefully lifted Lionne and tenderly bore her to the boat waiting at the edge of the creek, made a bed of the buffalo skin, laid her down and rowed swiftly for the grotto.

In fifteen minutes they reached the mouth of the cavern, bore their charge in and laid her upon her rude pallet.

Then Vulcan struck a light and looked around with a solicitude that rose rapidly to amazement and anxiety.

“Where is the child?” he inquired, suddenly turning to the squaw.

“Where?—the New Moon beams on the bearskin there, in the corner, where I left her two hours ago!” replied Kalougoora.

“She is not there!” cried the dwarf.

The squaw sprang upon her feet and looked around.

The babe was gone!

“_Where is the child?_” repeated Vulcan, in gathering suspicion and wrath.

Kalougoora slowly shook her head.

“WHERE IS THE CHILD?” vociferated the dwarf, approaching the squaw with a threatening gesture.

“Some one has carried her off,” said the latter.

“Hag of Tartarus, _you_ are the ‘some one who has carried her off!’ You have spirited her away to your thrice accursed tribe!”

“And what should the Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs do with a pale-faced baby? The Great Rock talks foolishly! Let him rather watch over the sleeping mother, while the Great Medicine goes forth to seek the child!”

Vulcan looked fixedly at the old woman while she spoke. Something of calm dignity in her manner, and of sincerity and truth in her expression and tone, put his worst suspicions to flight, and made him feel ashamed of his violence. Believing, too, that the best chance of recovering the child lay in trusting or in bribing the squaw, he complied with her proposition, saying—

“You were paid a large sum for the care of the child; you were promised a still larger sum upon restoring it to its mother. Bring back the child of Lionne in safety, and the promised sum shall be doubled! I speak in her name who will make good my words!”

“The Great Medicine will do what she can,” replied the old woman, who, then turning, left the grotto.

Vulcan kneeled down by the side of his insensible mistress, and gazed with the deepest commiseration upon her pallid but beautiful countenance, as it lay there, looking still whiter between the long black hair that, escaped from its fastenings, hung down on each side of her face and floated on the pillow.

“Oh, Lionne, my child! is this sorrow also in reserve for you? Having lost husband, father, home, and all else must you now lose this babe—the innocent offspring of treachery that has cost you so dearly, and that yet you love! When you awake who shall have courage to tell you of this awful bereavement? Who shall say to you that this babe—this all that was left you on earth—has been carried off by some cruel beast of prey, or some scarcely less cruel savage? Who shall dare to slay you with such tidings? For oh, wonderful heart of a mother! the child whose birth has wrecked your peace is dearer to you than life! since, but for the sake of that child, you would have escaped all your mortal troubles by a voluntary death. Oh, Lionne, unless that child is recovered, may you never wake!”

So moaning over the miseries he could in no wise relieve, watching for the least change in the aspect of his mistress, and looking anxiously for the coming of the old squaw, Vulcan passed the first half of the night.

It was near midnight when the squaw returned. She entered the grotto alone.

“Have you found the babe?” exclaimed Vulcan, starting up.

Kalougoora shook her head.

“You are an Indian woman. You can trace the recent passage of man or beast where no white person could possibly discover signs of either! You must have found some clue, with your dog-like instinct, of the manner in which the child was taken off!”

“The Great Medicine knows all things!” exclaimed the squaw.

“That means you _have_ found the clue! What is it? The babe has not—no! she has not been devoured by a beast of prey?” cried the dwarf, in an agony of excitement.

“No wild beast has approached the grotto.”

“Thank God for that! She has been carried off, then, by some of your tribe. Oh, Kalougoora, we will ransom her with all the gold we can collect! Go after her, and the sooner she is restored the higher we will pay! Hasten, Kalougoora, and bring her back!”

“No red man has been near the grotto.”

“Speak plainly then! Where is she? Who has car-her off?”

“A party of hunters of your own race have passed this way. They have stolen the babe!”

“How do you know that?”

“The Great Medicine of the Shenandoahs knows the presence of the white man by a hundred signs. She followed their trail three hours’ journey down the borders of the Singing Stream, and then lost it on the water’s edge. The Singing Stream tells no tales! The Great Medicine has returned and spoken to her brown brother, the Great Rock!”

And so saying the old Indian woman squatted down beside the unconscious sleeper, and commenced crooning a wild and mournful melody.

Vulcan was in despair. Now, indeed, his best hope for Lionne was that her death-like sleep might end indeed in death. He did not believe the whole of the squaw’s story. He credited indeed the statement that a party of hunters had passed that way; but that they had stolen the child was an inference so improbable that he could not give it a moment’s serious attention. He believed that the babe had been devoured by a wild beast, and he prayed that the mother might never awake to the knowledge of her awful bereavement.

But this was not to be granted!

At the turn of the night Lionne began to exhibit signs of returning consciousness. Her bosom heaved with sighs, at first feeble and fluttering, and then deeper and stronger. Warmth came to the surface of her body; a faint color dawned upon her cheeks and lips; finally her long eyelashes quivered, and her beautiful dark eyes opened with a quiet, unconscious gaze.

With a half-suppressed groan, Vulcan placed at her lips the wine with which he had provided himself for that purpose. Unconsciously she sipped it, and afterwards mechanically she swallowed the offered morsel of bread. And then, under the stimulus of these refreshments, she lifted herself up into a sitting posture and looked around with a vague, perplexed gaze. Evidently her faculties were not as yet restored. Vulcan and Kalougoora watched her with deep anxiety.

After a few more wandering looks she placed her hand to her forehead and seemed to reflect intently, or strive for self-recollection. Then, with a sudden start, she dropped her hand and gazed wildly from one to the other of her companions. Then memory rushed back in a torrent.

“_Is it—is it all over?_” she inquired, in a tone so hollow that it would never have been recognized as her own.

“Dear mistress, yes! it is over!” answered her faithful servant.

“And my father—how did he bear it?”

“He grieved, of course.”

“_Oh, my father! Oh, my father!_” exclaimed the wretched girl, in a paroxysm of bitter remorse and grief.

“Remember, dear mistress, that the sacrifice was necessary to save him from a worse sorrow,” said Vulcan, gently essaying to comfort the mourner. In vain!

“_Oh, my father! Oh, my father!_ Shall I never see your kind face again! Your face bowed down in bitter grief for your dead daughter—worse than dead! Oh, my father! how easily I might go to you now, and how the sight of my poor form would raise your stricken head and rejoice your sorrowful heart, but I must not! I must not! I must not! I must continue this cruel deception! I, your cherished, only daughter, must deceive you so! I must let you depart, mourning and alone, on your desolate way! Oh, heaven, that I who must not _live_ for you, might _die_ for you, my father!” So, bitterly lamenting, Lionne dropped her head upon her knees, and gave herself up to a perfect storm of grief. It passed at length, as all storms, moral as well as material, must; and when her convulsive sobbing had somewhat subsided, she raised her head and said, softly:

“Bring me my child.”

This was what they most dreaded to hear. In order to gain a little more time, they affected not to have heard it.

The ruse failed.

“Did you hear me?—Bring me my little daughter—(Ah! who will restore to _him_ _his_ daughter!)—Vulcan, are you deaf?—Bring me my child!” she said, in a more peremptory tone.

“Dear mistress, compose yourself! You are not yet calm enough to take your babe,” pleaded the dwarf.

“Bring me my child! I need her! I need her!”

“Mistress! dear, dear mistress, be patient!”

“Bring me my child, or my heart will break!” prayed Lionne, in a voice that sounded like a wail.

“Mistress! my lady—”

“_My child!_” wailed Lionne, pressing both hands upon her heart.

“Lady—Lady Lionne—I am your poor old servant! I pray you to be quiet a little while. Your babe is—is asleep!”

“Bring her to me, then! I will not wake her.”

“Mistress—listen to me——”

“Oh, something is wrong here!” exclaimed Lionne, starting up and gazing wildly around. “I do not see her on her pallet! Where is she? Something has happened to my babe! Speak, why don’t you tell me?”

It was utterly impossible any longer to conceal her calamity from her, or in any measure to soften its intolerable harshness.

Vulcan approached and dropped at her feet, and in sobbing, broken, almost inarticulate language, informed her of the awful fate of her child.

And Lionne!—no, I cannot!—I cannot! accustomed as I have been to see and describe suffering, my mind now shrinks from detailing the particulars of that wild wild woe! that unutterable anguish which formed the climax of her sorrows, and which drove her mad that night!

Yes; the sun that had set upon Lionne in her living grave arose upon Lionne—a MANIAC!

Vulcan took care of her through the night, nor left her until from the violence of her frenzy she had sunk at last into a stupor. Then believing her safe in the helplessness of her prostration, he returned home to prepare breakfast for his master.

He found Mr. Delaforêt and his friends who were to accompany him to Winchester, impatient to be gone.

He quickly prepared their morning-meal, and brought up their horses.

“Where is your own mule, Vulcan?” inquired the master.

“Your honor will forgive me, but I am too old to travel I cannot leave the wilderness.”

“Why, Vulcan? Why this change? I thought you were to accompany me abroad?”

“My master will pardon his poor old servant.”

“Oh, if you really wish to remain, I will not urge you to go. This house is left in charge of our doctor to sell. You can stay here until a purchaser is found, and then, from the purchase money, you shall be provided for.”

Deeply Vulcan bowed his thanks; he had no strength to speak.

Mr. Delaforêt and his friends departed.

One incident of his journey should be noticed. At the hotel at Winchester he picked up the morning paper and listlessly looked over it until his eye fell upon this obituary:

“Died suddenly of organic disease of the heart, at the country-house of her father in Alleghany County, Lenora, only daughter of Arthur Delaforêt, Esq.”

Mr. Delaforêt gazed in trouble upon this paragraph.

“This should not have been. The assumed name should not have survived her; but it was well meant and ignorantly written by the doctor; so I will say nothing about it.”

In another fortnight Mr. Delaforêt sailed for Liverpool, where, on landing, he dropped his assumed name and appeared upon the books of the hotel as—the Earl of Glen Lennark.

Vulcan, left behind in the old house, hastened to the grotto for the purpose of bringing Lionne to her old home, where he thought she could live for a time in concealment.

He reached the grotto; but—

LIONNE THE LUNATIC HAD FLED!