Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/147

 XXXII.

The place they sought;—'twas down a rocky dell, Where scarce the palfreys found a footing sure, Where deeper darkness from the forest fell, And thicker boscage did the pass immure; At last, before them, like a citadel, Rose a tall rock, whose frowning frontals lower Over a narrow lea, with brambles dense On either side like an impervious fence.

XXXIII.

"Here," said the red man, (as he raised a mass Of vines that clustered down the rock's descent,) "Here's Waban's cavern, here is ample space For thee and thine; in this rude tenement Ten hunters oft have found their biding place,  Nor in it felt themselves too closely pent; Waban will now below the opening raise, In yon dry fagots' heap, the mounting blaze."

XXXIV.

"Stay! stay!" said Williams, "wouldst thou lure the foe? Wouldst start the flame to tell him where we sleep?" The hunter smiled: "My Sachem does not know How true the foe will to our footsteps keep; He hears, perchance, e'en now our accents low,  Or marks us from some tree on yonder steep; Waban will wake the fire; 'twill serve to show His posture, numbers, and will aid our blow."

XXXV.

Williams assented; and while Waban fired The arid fagots, he the burdens took From off the palfreys, that, o'erwrought and tired, Now stretched their toil-worn limbs and stoutly shook