But Night, that had given her the Christian soul, true and wise,
self-reliant and aspiring, brought also the surprise and the peril that
should put it to the proof; for once, when the hunter was belated on his
path, and sudden midnight had caught him beyond the mountain, far
from the rest of his hearth and the song of his darling, came the red
Pawnees, a treacherous crew,--doubly godless because ungrateful, who had
broken the hunter's bread and slept on the hunter's blanket,--and laid
waste his hearth, and stole away his very heart. For they dragged her
many a fearful mile of darkness and distraction, through the black
woods, and grim recesses of the rocks; and there they stripped her
naked, and bound her to a stake, as the day was breaking. But the
Christian heart was within her, and the Christian soul upheld her, and
the Christian's God was by her side; and so she stood, and waited, and
was brave.
And here still she stands, as the sculptor's soul sat down before her,
in a vision of faith and tenderness, to receive her image,--stands and
waits for the pity and the help of you and me, her brothers and her
lovers.
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