 | CHAPTER V. Koningsmarke, the long Finne |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
Whom I no more shall see;
I die, but I am not afraid,
Because I die for thee.
“Then came Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego.”
Christina passed the interval between the
departure and return of the Indian maid, in that
state of vague and indefinite horror, in which the
human mind, as it were, takes refuge from its
miseries. The events of the two preceding
days had so harassed her mind, and worn down
her strength, as to produce that state of moral
and physical weakness, which diminishes the
acuteness of suffering, by its very incapacity of
resistance. The past, the present, and the future,
offered themselves to her mind, rather
as horrible visions than as cruel realities; and
when she saw the return of Koningsmarke, she
hardly comprehended the fact, that he had at
least received a temporary reprieve. By degrees,
to an irresistible drowsiness, and, supported
in the arms of Aonetti, she sunk into a long and
quiet sleep, from which she awoke perfectly restored
to a distinct comprehension of her present
situation.
In the mean time, the old men of the tribes
had called their principal priest or conjurer, to
take the usual measures for ascertaining the will
of the Great Spirit, in relation to the fate of
the two white-men. A fire was kindled on the
greensward, around which Mackate Ockola, or
the Black Gown, danced, and howled, and indulged
in every possible contortion of visage,
until he had exhausted his strength, and worked
up his mind into a species of real, or imaginary,
or pretended inspiration. From this he gradually
fell into a trance, which lasted about half
an hour, during which time the assembled old
men sat in a profound and awful silence. At
length Mackate Ockola seemed to awake, and
to remain for a while, staring around, as if unconscious
of his situation. Recovering by degrees,
he started upon his feet, and cried out in
a hollow voice—“I have seen the Great Spirit.
He came to me in a dream, in the form of a
great eagle, and said, Listen to me, Mackate
shall not appear and pass away, ere the white-men
will grow into numbers like the leaves on
the trees. As they grow in numbers, my people
will decay and disappear. They will go
out like the embers of an almost extinguished
fire, until they have no habitations but their
graves; and even in these they will not be suffered
to rest, for the white-men, not content
with what grows on the surface of the earth, will
tear up her bosom, and lay your bones bleaching
in the sun and the wind, in search of riches
and food. The deer will disappear from your
forests; the fishes will be shut out from your
streams, by these people, who build dams like
the beavers; and you will starve on your hunting
grounds. You cannot avoid your destiny,
but you may delay it, by destroying those,
whose children, if they live, will destroy yours.
Go and tell my people, that for every drop of the
white-man's blood they shall spare, their children
and their children's children will pay a
thousand-fold.
This cruel message, the fabrication of the
priest, decided the fate of Koningsmarke and the
luckless high constable of Elsingburgh. It is
impossible for us to tell what were the motives
the two captives. But it may be observed here,
that the early systems of religion, in all nations
and countries with which we have any acquaintance,
are more or less tinged with blood.
Everywhere the priests have demanded victims
to propitiate their bloody deities, and everywhere
the altars have been funeral pyres. The
Mexican priests demanded human sacrifices;
in other places, the blood of animals sufficed;
and even among the Bramins, whose religion
forbids the shedding of the blood of animals,
human victims are encourged by the priests,
to expose themselves to every species of torture
at the feast of the Juggernaut, and to offer up
their lives on the funeral pile. Superstition
and fanaticism, in truth, delight in blood; and
in all ages and nations their steps may be
traced by that infallible mark. It was reserved
for the mild and merciful system of religion
under which we live, to banish all atonements of
blood, all sacrifices of animals; to make the
offerings of the heart a substitute for the torture
of victims; and, had not the love of wealth, the
lust of power, and the pride of opinion, marred
the beautiful system, so as to wrest its precepts
to the ourposes of avarice and ambition, it had
snow-white surplice being sprinkled with the
blood of a single victim. But here, alas!
as in all preceding systems of faith, the avarice,
the ambition, the bigotry, and the pride
of opinion, which seem the besetting sins
of man, have exercised their pernicious influence,
and, first and last, caused the shedding
of more blood than has ever smoked upon all the
Pagan altars of the world. Thus has the purest,
the most mild, and the most perfect system of
humanity ever propounded to mankind, been
impiously made the pretext for every species of
cruelty and bloodshed; and, what is perhaps
still more to be lamented, its divine precept of
love to all our fellow creatures, converted into
a warrant, not to say a duty, to hate all those
who do not think and believe exactly like ourselves.
But to return from this digression, which we
hope the reader will pardon. Koningsmarke and
his companions in affliction remained ignorant
of the decision we have just recorded. We will
not say happily ignorant, since, perhaps, actual
certainty would have been preferable to the
doubts which harassed their minds. When
Christina awoke from her long sleep, with mind
before she came to a full consciousness of
her situation. “Where am I?” exclaimed she.
“In the arms of thy sister,” whispered the Indian
maid.
Christina looked around the hut. By the
dim light of an almost extinguished fire, she
observed two figures in a sitting posture, leaning
against the wall. “Who is that?” whispered
she to Aonetti.
“It is he,” replied the Indian maid.
“Oh God! they have spared him then,”
shrieked poor Christina; “my sister has prevailed,
and he is safe!”
“Safe till to-morrow,” replied the other.
“No longer?”
“No longer. To-morrow I know not what
may become of them. Our priest is to decide,
and he never leans to mercy.”
Koningsmarke, observing that Christina was
awake, called out to her—
“Christina! wilt thou not come near me?”
“Come thou to me,” replied she, preserving,
even in this trying moment, that sentiment of
delicate propriety which never forsakes a virtuous
female.
“I cannot—I am fastened to this spot.”
Christina approached, and, by the light of
the fire, perceived he was bound to one of the
posts that supported the simple edifice.
“He asks not for me,” thought Aonetti, and
wept in secret.
In this, which each seemed to have a presentiment
was the last hour they should spend together,
for the signs of day now began to appear,
Koningsmarke and Christina preserved towards
each other a deep solemnity of deportment,
from which all the little outward endearments
of love were banished.
“I have a presentiment,” said Koningsmarke,
“that thou wilt yet live to be received
to the arms of thy father.”
“To the arms of my Heavenly Father,” returned
Christina, “for none other shall I ever behold.
If the sun sees thee die this morn at its rising,
it will set at night on my breathless corse.”
“Nay,” returned Koningsmarke, “say not
so, my best love. Thou hast motives to live,
and duties to perform, when I am gone. Thou
hast known me but a little while; thy father
thou hast known from the first breath of that
life which he gave thee. Return the blessing,
and live for him.”
“I shall never see him more,” cried Christina.
“When I am gone,” continued the other,
“and when you see your father, tell him that I
remembered his kindness, even when the flaming
brand was pointed at my naked throat, and the
coals of fire were about being poured on my
uncovered head. Tell him that I protected
you while I could—that I exposed my life to
preserve yours—and that I perished in a last
effort to restore you to his arms. Should he
ever know what thou knowest, he will forgive
me, as thou hast done, for the sake of what I
have done and tried to do for thee. Wilt thou
bear him this message from me, Christina?”
Christina could not answer, for her emotions
almost stopped her breath. Her eyes were dry,
but her heart wept tears of blood. For a while
she remained insensible in his arms. At that
moment the door of the hut was opened, it being
now broad daylight, and Koningsmarke, with
his unfortunate companion, whose stupor became
every hour more profound, were untied
from the post, and conducted out of the hut.
The youth motioned to Aonetti, and, pressing
the inanimate form of Christina to his heart, as
for the last time, imprinted a kiss upon her cold
the Indian maid.
“Be good to thy sister,” whispered he.
“I will—but say good-by to poor Aonetti.”
“Good-by—and may thy God and mine
bless thee,” replied Koningsmarke, and hastily
left the place without looking back.
The same preparations we described on the
preceding day were renewed, and the two captives
fastened to the stake. The brands were
again lighted, the knife and the tomahawk
lifted to begin their work, and the revengeful
barbarians standing on tiptoe to enter on the
bloody business. But again Providence interposed.
All at once the hands of the brand-bearers
were arrested, and the eyes of every one
turned in a direction towards the river, along
whose banks appeared a train of white-men,
bearing a white flag, the universal emblem of
peace and good-will. As they came nearer, the
stiff and stately form of Shadrach Moneypenny,
followed by eight or ten others, dressed in
broad-brimmed hats, with their arms folded upon
their bosoms, were distinguished, walking with
slow and steady pace towards the spot occupied
by the old men of the tribes. They were accompanied
by others, bearing a variety of
and they were received in peace by the sons of
the shade. The policy of William Penn with
regard to the Indians, can never be sufficiently
praised or admired. From his first arrival at
Coaquanock, to the period of his final departure,
he preserved peace with the ancient
proprietors of the soil and the game, by the
simple expedient of dealing with them as if
they were his equals. He bought their lands
at a price equivalent to the advantages they
yielded to the original occupants; restrained
his people from all encroachments upon those
the Indians thought proper to retain; and so
inviolably kept sacred the stipulations of his
first purchase, that it has been said, with equal
truth and bitterness, that “it was the only
treaty not ratified by oaths, and the only one
that was never violated.”
By these means, and by the peaceful deportment
of his people on all occasions, William
Penn acquired and retained the confidence and
good-will of the Indians, in a degree of which
there are few examples. Indeed we may safely
say, that none, without resorting to the agency
of superstition or fear, ever attained so great an
influence over the violent, capricious, and intractable
America; a singular race, with whom all attempts
at civilization only seem to destroy their
good qualities, and convert them from barbarians
into beasts.
The Big Hats, as the Indians called them,
were not unknown to some of the old men of the
tribes, who had treated and traded with them, at
Coaquanock, and who now received Shadrach
and his suite as old acquaintances. By means of
an interpreter, they entered on business forthwith.
“Thou comest as a friend,” said Ollentangi.
“Yea, verily,” quoth Shadrach; “I come
from William Penn, who is the friend of all
mankind, of all countries and colours. He hath
heard thou hast two white-men, and a maiden
with them, taken at the burning of Elsingburgh.
Verily, that was a bad act, sachems. What had
they done unto thee, that thou shouldst set fire
to their houses, and carry their women and
children into captivity? had they not buried
the hatchet and smoked the calumet with
thy tribe?”
“True,” replied Ollentangi, “but they had
killed our game, and shut out the fish from our
rivers, therefore we made war upon them.”
“Yea, verily,” quoth Shadrach, who, by the
way, loved a controversy in a peaceable way,
almost as well as William Penn himself—“Yea,
verily, but the wild beasts of the forest belong
to any body; they are given to all that
can catch them. Neither are the fish thine,
since they swim through all parts of the great
seas, and wherever they will. Until thou shalt
catch them they are not thine.”
“True,” replied Ollentangi, with infinite gravity,
“but if the white-man prevents the fish
from coming to us, how can we catch them?
We shall starve in the mean while.”
“Verily,” quoth Shadrach, “I am fain to
confess the truth of thy words. There is no argument
so strong as necessity. But still thou
shouldst not have made war against them for
this. Thou shouldst have gone to law, and,
peradventure, obliged them in a peaceable manner
to break down the obstructions that did prevent
the fish from passing upwards.”
“True, brother,” rejoined Ollentangi—“we
have heard something of that same law. It is
a contest of talking, and he that talks the longest
wins the cause. Now you white-men can
out-talk us, and we can beat you in fighting.
mode of deciding our differences?”
“Yea, I must needs confess of a truth there is
some little shadow, as it were, a small modicum
of a glimmer of carnal reason in what thou
sayest. But verily I must not pretermit the
business of my mission, for the two captives are
kept all this while in a parlous condition. Art
thou ready to hear me in the spirit of peace?”
“Say on—in the spirit of peace,” replied
Ollentangi.
“In the spirit of peace, then,” quoth Shadrach,
raising himself on tiptoe, and cocking his
beaver, “in the spirit of peace I come from the
good William Penn, who is thy friend in the
gospel, (and, verily, considering thy Pagan
state, out of the gospel likewise,) to say unto
thee thus wise: Listen—I speak his words, and
not mine own.
“William Penn hath learned, by means of
the (I may say) providential agency of a certain
profane tie-wig, (which, judging from the bald
pate of yon captive, must have appertained unto
him,) that the people, (meaning thee,) calling
themselves (as I may say, idly and profanely,)
the Muskrats and Mud-Turtles, are in possession
of certain two white-men (who, I am inclined
by,) together, with a young maiden, daughter
to him who calleth himself the Heer Piper, (who
I must aver to be somewhat of an uncourteous
little man,) all three carried away captives from
the village of Elsingburgh. Now thus saith
William Penn: inasmuch as thou lovest good
watch-coats, he hath sent thee a score of these;
and inasmuch as thou lovest glass beads, and
other pernicious vanities of the flesh, (to say
nothing of the devil,) he hath sent thee ten
strings of these, wherewith to pamper the pride
of thy ears and noses; and inasmuch as thou
lovest tobacco, he hath sent thee threescore and
ten tin tobacco boxes, filled with that egregious
puffardo, called tobacco, (which, by the way,
I should hold in singular abomination, were it
not that it was hated by James, called the First,
that enemy to the saints.) For all which good
things, William Penn, as aforesaid, asketh nothing
but the freedom of the three aforesaid
captives, that they may be delivered to their
friends.”
“Brother,” quoth an old Indian, “brother,
thou hast forgotten one part of William Penn's
message.”
“Yea, verily!” replied Shadrach, “what is
that?”
“It runneth thus,” replied the Indian: “And
inasmuch as thou lovest strong liquors, William
Penn hath sent thee two kegs of brandy,
wherewith to get right merry, and drink his
health.”
“Of a certainty, Muskrat,” said Shadrach,
“the truth is not in thee, for my message
hath nothing of such import appertaining to its
contents. William Penn dealeth not in rum,
brandy, or any other liquid abominations; neiher
is he moved by any kind of spirit but that of
righteousness. But do ye straightway consult
ogether what answer I am to bear with me to
Coaquanock.”
While the old men were consulting, Shadrach,
like a redoubtable plenipotentiary, caused the
watch coats, the glass beads, and the tobacco
boxes, to be ostentatiously displayed before the
longing eyes of the savages. The more they
looked, the more they waxed willing to surrender
the captives, until at length Ollentangi announced
to Shadrach, that they had no objection
to make the exchange, provided the widow,
who, as affianced to Koningsmarke, ought to
have a voice in his disposal, gave her consent.
flatly refused to sanction the treaty, and loudly
demanded the sacrifice of her ungrateful slave,
who had scorned her love, and forsaken her for
a whey-faced girl. Hereupon, Shadrach Moneypenny
drew from his pouch a beautiful
string of sky-blue glass beads, which he courteously
and gallantly tied about the neck of the
inexorable widow. He then produced a small
looking glass, which he held up before her,
that she might see herself thus apparelled, making
her understand, at the same time, that these
things should be hers, provided she would consent
to the reprieve of Koningsmarke. The
widow's heart was melted; she acquiesced in
the freedom of her affianced husband, and departed,
with a delighted heart, to contemplate
herself and her beads in her looking-glass.
No obstacle now remained to the release of
the two captives, who had listened to this negotiation
with a breathless solicitude. They were
accordingly untied, washed, dressed, and conducted
to the hut where we left Christina and
the Indian maid. The meeting between the
former and Koningsmarke, after such a parting
as we have described, was accompanied by
feelings that, though repressed by the presence
preparations were made for their departure,
lest the savages might repent their bargain,
after the novelty of possessing the coats,
beads, and tin boxes had passed away. Poor Aonetti
was quite broken hearted at the parting with
her sister. She would have accompanied her,
but was prevented by her mother and friends.
Christina, too, could not, in the midst of the
new visions of joyous hope that danced before
her fancy, forget the gentle kindnesses, the sisterly
affection of the little Deer Eyes. But a
secret feeling which she could not repress, prevented
her encouraging the idea of Aonetti accompanying
her to Elsingburgh. She therefore
embraced her with tears, kissed her cheek,
and bade her sometimes remember her sister
Mimi. “Ah!” replied the artless maid, “I
know I should, I ought to be happy, for you and
he will be happy; but I shall be so miserable
when you are gone, that I shall soon die.—I
could have borne his death, for we would have
mourned together; but I cannot survive his departure
with you.” Shadrach now summoned
his troop, and the procession departed from the
village, to return no more.
Before we conclude this book, it may be proper
of our three captives. The circumstance
may serve to show on what trifling chances the
fate of individuals sometimes turns. The Indian
belonging to the village on the Ohio, destroyed,
as we have related, by the Muskrats
and Mud-Turtles, who had obtained possession
of Lob Dotterel's wig, some time afterwards
visited Coaquanock, and carried that great medicine
with him. As may naturally be supposed,
such an appendage excited no little curiosity on
the part of the Big Hats; and a correspondent
of the Royal Society of England, just then established,
set about preparing a memoir upon
the subject, wherein he intended to prove, that
some of the Indian tribes wore wigs. Subsequent
inquiry, however, fully elucidated the
phenomenon, and the learned person threw his
memoir into the fire. The wig made no little
noise in the new world, insomuch that some of
the villagers occasionally neglected their own
affairs, to talk on the subject. But the good
William Penn, putting all the circumstances together,
had little doubt that the wig was connected
with the fate of the captives of Elsingburgh.
With that humanity which characterized
all his actions, he lost no time in preparing the
resulted in the redemption of our three
captives, as we have just related.
We must not omit mentioning, that the likely
fellow, Cupid, of whom we have of late said
nothing, because we had nothing to say, also
accompanied Shadrach, somewhat against his
will. He had lived a life of perfect freedom
and idleness, two things equally dear to his condition
and colour, the savages permitting him to
lounge about, and sun himself as much as he
pleased. Cupid, in the elevation of his heart,
at thus seeing himself turned gentleman, and
his old enemy, Lob Dotterel, obliged to labour
for his behoof, one day incautiously let out a
secret, which he might better have kept, as it
led to consequences that finally involved not
only himself in destruction, but caused also the
death of his grandmother, the sybil of the
Frizzled Head.
Omitting, at least for the present, the principal
incidents which befel Shadrach and his
party on their return to Coaquanock, we shall
merely remark, that honest Lob Dotterel continued,
during the whole journey, stupified
with the vicissitudes he had encountered
within a short time past. Nor did he exhibit
at this renowned settlement, his wrath was
suddenly enkindled, at seeing a knot of little
children making dirt pies in the middle of the
street. Hereupon the soul of the high constable
of Elsingburgh, suddenly awaked
to a perception of passing objects; and he
threatened roundly to commit the juvenile offenders.
| CHAPTER V. Koningsmarke, the long Finne | |