Have you that book at hand, woman; it may happen to advise in such a
dreary business."

Esther fumbled in her pocket, and was not long in producing the fragment
of a Bible, which had been thumbed and smoke-dried till the print was
nearly illegible. It was the only article, in the nature of a book,
that was to be found among the chattels of the squatter, and it had been
preserved by his wife, as a melancholy relic of more prosperous, and
possibly of more innocent, days. She had long been in the habit of
resorting to it, under the pressure of such circumstances as were
palpably beyond human redress, though her spirit and resolution rarely
needed support under those that admitted of reparation through any of
the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made a sort
of convenient ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for counsel,
however, except when her own incompetency to avert an evil was too
apparent to be disputed. We shall leave casuists to determine how
far she resembled any other believers in this particular, and proceed
directly with the matter before us.

"There are many awful passages in these pages, Ishmael," she said, when
the volume was opened, and the leaves were slowly turning under her
finger, "and some there ar' that teach the rules of punishment."

Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of those brief rules of
conduct, which have been received among all Christian nations as the
direct mandates of the Creator, and which have been found so just, that
even they, who deny their high authority, admit their wisdom. Ishmael
listened with grave attention, as his companion read all those verses,
which her memory suggested, and which were thought applicable to the
situation in which they found themselves. He made her show him the
words, which he regarded with a sort of strange reverence. A resolution
once taken was usually irrevocable, in one who was moved with so much
difficulty. He put his hand upon the book, and closed the pages himself,
as much as to apprise his wife that he was satisfied. Esther, who so
well knew his character, trembled at the action, and casting a glance at
his steady eye, she said--

"And yet, Ishmael, my blood, and the blood of my children, is in his
veins, cannot mercy be shown?"

"Woman," he answered sternly, "when we believed that miserable old
trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of mercy!"

Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her bre