Chapter 24

"Were such things here, as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten of the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?"

Macbeth.

An hour later presented a different scene. Bands of the enemy, that in
civilized warfare would be called parties of observation, lingered in the
skirts of the forest nearest to the village; and the settlers still stood
to their arms, posted among the buildings, or maintaining their array at
the foot of the palisadoes. Though the toil of securing the valuables
continued, it was evident that, as the first terrors of alarm had
disappeared, the owners of the hamlet began to regain some assurance in
their ability to make it good against their enemies. Even the women were
now seen moving through its grassy street with greater seeming confidence,
and there was a regularity in the air of the armed men, which denoted a
determination that was calculated to impose on their wild and
undisciplined assailants.

But the dwelling, the out-buildings, and all the implements of domestic
comfort, which had so lately contributed to the ease of the Heathcotes,
were completely in the possession of the Indians. The open shutters and
doors, the scattered and half-destroyed furniture, the air of devastation
and waste, and the general abandonment of all interest in the protection
of the property, proclaimed the licentious disorder of a successful
assault. Still the work of destruction and plunder did not go on.
Although here and there might be seen some warrior, decorated, according
to the humors of his savage taste, with the personal effects of the
former inmates of the building, every hand had been checked, and the
furious tempers of the conquerors had been quieted, seemingly by the
agency of some unseen and extraordinary authority. The men, who so lately
had been moved by the fiercest passions of our nature, were suddenly
restrained if not appeased; and, instead of that exulting indulgence of
vengeance which commonly accompanies an Indian triumph, the warriors
stalked about the buildings and through the adjacent grounds, in a
silence which, though gloomy and sullen, was marked by their
characteristic submission to events.

The principal leaders of the inroad, and all the surviving sufferers by
the defeat, were assembled in the piazza of the dwelling. Ruth, pale,
sorrowing, and mourning for others rather than for herself, stood a little
apart, attended by Martha and the young assistant, whose luckless fortune
it was to be found at her post, on this eventful day. Content, the
stranger, and Mark, were near, subdued and bound, the sole survivors of
all that band they had so recently led into the conflict. The gray hairs
and bodily infirmities of the Puritan spared him the same