ful
Atahensic gave evidence that she should in due time become a mother.
The quick-eyed father soon discovered what had happened, and heard the
whole from the lips of his weeping daughter. Nothing could equal the
rage of the mighty king of the skies, when he learned the disgrace
inflicted upon his family. In the frenzy of the moment, he seized both
the daughter and her lover, and hurled them from the highest part of
the skies to the region where the land of the Nanticokes lay. But the
kind mother protected both from the consequences of the fall, and the
earth, by her command, received them unhurt upon her lap. Brothers, I
am that Nanticoke, and the beautiful Atahensic is the woman by my
side, and the child at her feet is the child of our love. I have no
more to say.

* * * * *

When the first Nanticoke had finished his story, the second, whose
name was Conestogo, rose, and thus addressed his brothers:

Listen, said he, and you shall hear of what befel Conestogo, who left
you to travel into the bowels of the earth.

When he parted from his five brothers, he went to the deep cavern
which lies among the mountains west of the river of the Nanticokes,
and into this cavern he entered at the time of nightfall. After having
groped his way for many days through deep darkness, over rocks and
many other obstructions, living on the dried meat he had taken with
him, all at once, upon passing through a small door or opening, he
came to a great chamber, vaulted like the rooms which are unfolded to
our eyes, when we enter those great houses in the City of the Rock,
where men dressed in glittering robes, and little boys clothed in
white, call upon the Great Spirit, and sing loud songs to his praise.
Around the sides of this great room were tall pillars, which looked
liked icicles, and glittered like them when they are visited by the
beams of the sun. Over-head was a vast field of ice, of many different
colours, green, red, white, yellow; the reflection of which on the
floor of the mighty building occasioned a strange blending of rays.
Beautiful, wonderful, was the appearance of this room, and of all
within it.

But the most beautiful, wonderful things of the cavern remain to be
spoken of. In the further corner of this spacious apartment was a
company of beautiful maidens, clothed in robes of the same colours as
those which glittered on the roof and walls of the building; the
dazzling beauty of their