 should do
credit to his colour and his manhood; one equally removed from recreant alarm,
and savage boasting.
    When Rivenoak re-appeared in the circle, he occupied his old place at the
head of the area. Several of the elder warriors stood near him, but, now that
the brother of Sumach had fallen, there was no longer any recognised chief
present, whose influence and authority offered a dangerous rivalry to his own.
Nevertheless, it is well known that little which could be called monarchical, or
despotic entered into the politics of the North American tribes, although the
first colonists, bringing with them to this hemisphere, the notions and opinions
of their own countries, often dignified the chief men of those primitive
nations, with the titles of kings and princes. Hereditary influence did
certainly exist, but there is much reason to believe it existed rather as a
consequence of hereditary merit and acquired qualifications, than as a
birth-right. Rivenoak, however, had not even this claim, having risen to
consideration purely by the force of talents, sagacity, and, as Bacon expresses
it, in relation to all distinguished statesmen, by a union of great and mean
qualities; a truth of which the career of the profound Englishman himself
furnishes so apt an illustration. Next to arms, eloquence offers the great
avenue to popular favor, whether it be in civilized or savage life, and Rivenoak
had succeeded, as so many have succeeded, before him, quite as much by rendering
fallacies acceptable to his listeners, as by any profound or learned expositions
of truth, or the accuracy of his logic. Nevertheless, he had influence; and was
far from being altogether without just claims to its possession. Like most men
who reason more than they feel, the Huron was not addicted to the indulgence of
the more ferocious passions of his people: he had been commonly found on the
side of mercy, in all the scenes of vindictive torture and revenge that had
occurred in his tribe, since his own attainment to power. On the present
occasion, he was reluctant to proceed to extremities, although the provocation
was so great. Still it exceeded his ingenuity to see how that alternative could
well be avoided. Sumach resented her rejection more than she did the deaths of
her husband and brother, and there was little probability that the woman would
pardon a man who had so unequivocally preferred death to her embraces. Without
her forgiveness, there was scarce a hope that the tribe could be induced to
overlook its loss, and even to Rivenoak, himself, much as he was disposed to
pardon, the fate of our
