they could decide no other way. One, two, three of
the sachems gave no answer, but sat in silence. They
were men whose hearts had been touched before by
Cecil, and who were already desiring the better life.
They could not condemn their teacher.
At length it came to Tohomish. He arose. His face, always repulsive, was pallid now in the extreme. The swathed corpses on mimaluse island looked not more sunken and ghastly.
He essayed to speak; thrice the words faltered on his lips; and when at last he spoke, it was in a weary, lifeless way. His tones startled the audience like an electric shock. The marvellous power and sweetness were gone from his voice; its accents were discordant, uncertain. Could the death s head before them be that of Tohomish? Could those harsh and broken tones be those of the Pine Voice? He seemed like a man whose animal life still survived, but whose soul was dead.
What he said at first had no relation to the matter before the council. Every Indian had his tomano- wos appointed him by the Great Spirit from his birth, and that tomanowos was the strength of his life. Its influence grew with his growth; the roots of his being were fed in it; it imparted its characteristics to him. But the name and nature of his tomanowos was the one secret that must go with him to the grave. If it was told, the charm was lost and the tomanowos de serted him.
Tohomish s tomanowos was the Bridge and the fore knowledge of its fall : a black secret that had darkened his whole life, and imparted the strange and mournful mystery to his eloquence. Now that the Bridge was
