Chapter 2

Methought, within a desert cave, Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave, I suddenly awoke. It seemed of sable night the cell, Where, save when from the ceiling fell An oozing drop, her silent spell No sound had ever broke.--ALLSTON.

Among the great rivers of Maine the Penobscot and Kennebec stand preeminent, on account of their maritime importance, their depth and adaptability to the purposes of internal navigation; but there are others less known, yet no less essential to the wealth of the country, which, encumbered with falls and rapids, spurn alike ship and steamer, but are invaluable for the great purposes of manufacture. The Androscoggin is one of these, a river, winding, capricious and most beautiful; just the one to touch the fancy of the poet, and tempt the cupidity of a millwright. It abounds with scenery of the most lovely and romantic interest, and falls already in bondage to loom and shuttle. Lewiston Falls, or Pe-jip-scot, as the aboriginals called this beautiful place, are, perhaps, among the finest water plunges in the country. It is not merely the beauty of the river itself, a broad and lengthened sheet of liquid in the heart of a fine country, but the whole region is wild and romantic. The sudden bends of the river present headlands of rare boldness, beneath which the river spreads itself into a placid bay, till ready to gather up its skirts again, and thread itself daintily amid the hills. The banks present slopes and savannas warm and sheltered, in which nestle away finely cultivated farms, and from whence arise those rural sounds of flock and herd so grateful to the spirit, and that primitive blast of horn, winding itself into a thousand echoes, the signal of the in-gathering of a household. Cliffs, crowned with fir, overhang the waters; hills, rising hundreds of feet, cast their dense shadows quite across the stream; and even now the "slim canoe" of the Indian may be seen poised below, while some stern relic of the woods looks upward to the ancient hunting sites of his people, and recalls the day when, at the verge of this very fall, a populous village sent up its council smoke day and night, telling of peace and the uncontested power of his tribe.

But in the times of our story the region stood in its untamed majesty; the whirling mass of waters tumbling and plunging in the midst of an unbroken forest, and the great roar of the cataract booming through the solitude like the unceasing voice of the eternal deep. Men now stand with awe and gaze upon those mysterious falls, vital with traditions terribly beautiful, and again and again ask, "Can they be true? Can it be that beneath these waters, behind that sheet of foam is a room, spacious and vast, and well known, and frequented by the Indian?"

An old man will tell you that one morning as he stood watching the rainbows of the fall, he was surprised at the sudden appearance of an Indian from the very midst of the foam. He accosted him, asked whence he came, and how he escaped the terrible plunge of the descending waves. The Indian, old and white-headed, with the eye of an eagle, and the frame of a Hercules, raised the old man from the ground, shook him fiercely, and then cast him like a reptile to one side. A moment more and the measured stroke of a paddle betrayed the passage of the stout Red Man adown the stream.

Our story must establish the fact in regard to this cave--a fact well known in the earlier records of the country, more than one white man having found himself sufficiently athletic to plunge behind the sheet of water and gain the room.

It was mid-day, and the sun, penetrating the sheet of the falls, cast a not uncheerful light into the cave, the size and gloom of which were still further relieved by a fire burning in the centre, and one or more torches stuck in the fissures of the rocks. Before this fire stood a woman of forty or fifty years of age, gazing intently upon the white, liquid, and tumultuous covering to the door of her home, and yet the expression of her eye showed that her thoughts were far beyond the place in which she stood.

She was taller than the wont of Indian women, more slender than is customary with them at her period of life, and altogether, presented a keenness and springiness of fibre that reminded one of Arab more than aboriginal blood. Her brow was high, retreating, and narrow, with arched and contracted brows, beneath which fairly burned a pair of intense, restless eyes.

At one side, stretched upon skins, appeared what might have been mistaken for a white veil, except that a draft of air caused a portion of it to rise and fall, showing it to be a mass of human hair. Yet so motionless was the figure, so still a tiny moccasoned foot, just perceptible, and so ghastly the hue and abundance of the covering, that all suggested an image of death.

At length the tall woman turned sharply round and addressed the object upon the mats.

"How much longer will you sleep, Skoke? Get up, I tell thee."

At this ungracious speech--for Skoke[13]means snake--the figure started slightly, but did not obey. After some silence she spoke again, "Wa-ain (white soul) get up and eat, our people will soon be here." Still no motion nor reply. At length the woman, in a sharper accent, resumed,

"Bridget Vines, I bid thee arise!" and she laughed in an under tone.

The figure slowly lifted itself up and looked upon the speaker. "Ascashe,[14] I will answer only to my own name."

"As you like," retorted the other. "Skoke is as good a name as Ascashe." A truism which the other did not seem disposed to question--the one meaning a snake, the other a spider, or "net-weaver."

Contrary to what might have been expected from the color of the hair, the figure from the mat seemed a mere child in aspect, and yet the eye, the mouth, and the grasp of the hand, indicated not only maturity of years, but the presence of deep and intense passions. Her size was that of a girl of thirteen years in our northern climate, yet the fine bust, the distinct and slender waist, and the firm pressure of the arched foot, revealed maturity as well as individualism of character.

[Footnote 13: I do not know how general is the use of this word amongst the Indians. The writer found it in use amongst the Penobscot tribe.]

[Footnote 14: As-nob-a-ca-she, contracted to Ascashe, is literally a net-weaver, the name for spider. This term is from Schoolcraft.]

Rising from her recumbent posture, she approached the water at the entrance of the cave till the spray mingled with her long, white locks, and the light falling upon her brow, revealed a sharp beautiful outline of face scarcely touched by years, white, even teeth, and eyes of blue, yet so deeply and sadly kindling into intensity, that they grew momentarily darker and darker as you gazed upon them.

"Water, still water, forever water," she murmured. Suddenly turning round, she darted away into the recesses of the cave, leaping and flying, as it were, with her long hair tossed to and fro about her person. Presently she emerged, followed by a pet panther, which leaped and bounded in concert with his mistress. Seizing a bow, she sent the arrow away into the black roof of the cavern, waited for its return, and then discharged it again and again, watching its progress with eager and impatient delight. This done, she cast herself again upon the skins, spread her long hair over her form, and lay motionless as marble.

Ascashe again called, "Why do you not come and eat, Skoke?"

Having no answer, she called out, "Wa-ain, come and eat;" and then tired of this useless teasing, she arose, and shaking the white girl by the arm, cried, "Bridget Vines, I bid you eat."

"I will, Ascashe," answered the other, taking corn and dried fish, which the other presented.

"The spider caught a bad snake when she wove a net for Bridget Vines," muttered the tall woman. The other covered her face with her hands, and the veins of her forehead swelled above her fingers; yet when she uncovered her eyes they were red, not with tears, but the effort to suppress their flow.

"It is a long, long time, that I have been here, Ascashe," answered Bridget, sorrowfully.

"Have you never been out since Samoret left you here?" asked the net-weaver; and she fixed her eyes searchingly upon the face of the girl, who never quailed nor changed color beneath her gaze, but replied in the same tone, "How should little Hope escape--where should she go?" Hope being the name by which Mistress Vines had called her child in moments of tenderness, as suggesting a mother's yearning hope that she would at some time be less capricious, for Bridget had always been a wayward, incoherent, and diminutive creature, and treated with great gentleness by the family.

"Do you remember what I once told you?" continued the other. "You had a friend--you have an enemy."

This time Bridget Vines started, and gave utterance to a long, low, plaintive cry, as if her soul wailed, as it flitted from its frail tenement, for she fell back as if dead upon the skins.

The woman muttered, "The white boy and girl shouldn't have scorned the red woman," and she took her to the verge of the water and awaited her recovery; when she opened her eyes, she continued, "Ascashe is content--she has been very, very wretched, but so has been her enemy. Look, my hair is black; Wa-ain's is like the white frost."

"I knew it would be so," answered the other, gently, "but it is nothing. Tell me where you have been, Ascashe, and how came you here? O-ya-ah died the other day." She alluded to an old squaw, who had been her keeper in the cave.

At this moment a shadow darkened the room, another, and another, and three stalwart savages stood before the two women. Each, as he passed, patted the head of Bridget, who shook them off with moody impatience.

They gathered about the coals in the centre, talking in under tones, while the women prepared some venison which was to furnish forth the repast.