The novel's mood is suspenseful and intense: stakes are high, and the reader's emotions are carried to extremes. For example, Volume 2, Chapter 6 opens with Hope despairing in Oneco's canoe because her meeting with Faith has resulted in her, Faith, and Magawisca each being kidnapped by rival parties:
Hope Leslie, on being forced into the canoe, sunk down, overpowered with terror and despair. She was roused from this state by Oneco’s loud and vehement appeals to his father, who only replied by a low inarticulate murmur, which seemed rather an involuntary emission of his own feelings, than a response to Oneco. She understood nothing but the name of Magawisca, which he often repeated, and always with a burst of vindictive feeling, as if every other emotion were lost in wrath at the treachery that had wrested her from him.
Hope, Oneco, and Mononotto are all highly agitated because of what is going on. Hope is "overpowered with terror and despair." Oneco has raised his voice to his father to make "vehement appeals" (presumably appeals that they go after Faith). Meanwhile, Mononotto is mostly speechless in "wrath at the treachery that had wrested [Magawisca] from him." The intensity of all these feelings (terror and despair, desperation, and wrath) is part of what makes this novel recognizable as a 19th century romance. In this genre, dramatic situations give rise to heightened feelings, both good and bad. The reader is along for the ride, empathizing with each character in turn and feeling their emotions travel all over the map.
Because the novel is a historical romance in particular, the intense mood is intimately tied in with a historical situation. Hope, Oneco, and Mononotto are fictional characters, but each one represents a different individual experience of wartime kidnapping. Hope has been kidnapped herself, and her sister has been kidnapped twice now. She has also been instrumental in Magawisca's kidnapping. Oneco's wife has been kidnapped by the people from whom she was first taken, and who once kidnapped him. Meanwhile, Mononotto's daughter has been taken from him a second time in a cruel tug-of-war match. Whereas each of these characters is stuck in their own extreme emotions, the reader has the benefit of hindsight and distance from the historical situation. The novel asks the reader to hold all the feelings at once in order to understand the "character of the times." At the same time, suspense in the novel about how this fictional situation will work out contributes to the reader's ability to imagine just how distraught each person is. The interplay between fiction and history thus helps the reader press into the emotions of each character and then back out again to think about the whole picture.
