 | The wigwam and the cabin |  |
THE ARM-CHAIR OF TUSTENUGGEE.
A TRADITION OF THE CATAWBA.
1. CHAPTER I.
The windy month had set in, the leaves were falling, and the light-footed
hunters of Catawba, set forth upon the chase. Little groups
went off in every direction, and before two weeks had elapsed
from the beginning of the campaign, the whole nation was broken
up into parties, each under the guidance of an individual warrior.
The course of the several hunting bands was taken according to
the tastes or habits of these leaders. Some of the Indians were
famous for their skill in hunting the otter, could swim as long
with head under water as himself, and be not far from his
haunches, when he emerged to breathe. These followed the
course of shallow waters and swamps, and thick, dense bays, in
which it was known that he found his favourite haunts. The bear
hunter pushed for the cane brakes and the bee trees; and woe
to the black bear whom he encountered with his paws full of
honeycomb, which he was unwilling to leave behind him. The
active warrior took his way towards the hills, seeking for the
brown wolf and the deer; and, if the truth were known, smiled
with wholesale contempt at the more timorous who desired less
adventurous triumphs. Many set forth in couples only, avoiding
with care all the clamorous of the tribe; and some few, the more
surly or successful—the inveterate bachelors of the nation—were
content to make their forward progress alone. The old men prepared
their traps and nets, the boys their blow guns, and followed
with the squaws slowly, according to the division made by the
hunters among themselves. They carried the blankets and bread
previous arrangement, the hunters might repair at evening and
bring their game. In this way, some of the tribes followed the
course of the Catawba, even to its source. Others darted off
towards the Pacolet and Broad rivers, and there were some, the
most daring and swift of foot, who made nothing of a journey to
the Tiger river, and the rolling mountains of Spartanburg.
There were two warriors who pursued this course. One of
them was named Conattee, and a braver man and more fortunate
hunter never lived. But he had a wife who was a greater scold
than Xantippe. She was the wonder and the terror of the tribe,
and quite as ugly as the one-eyed squaw of Tustenuggee, the
grey demon of Enoree. Her tongue was the signal for "slinking,"
among the bold hunters of Turkey-town; and when they
heard it, "now," said the young women, who sympathised, as all
proper young women will do, with the handsome husband of an
ugly wife, "now," said they, "we know that poor Conattee has
come home." The return of the husband, particularly if he
brought no game, was sure to be followed by a storm of that
"dry thunder," so well known, which never failed to be heard at
the farthest end of the village.
The companion of Conattee on the present expedition was named
Selonee—one of the handsomest lads in the whole nation. He
was tall and straight like a pine tree; had proved his skill and
courage in several expeditions against the Chowannee red sticks,
and had found no young warriors of the Cherokee, though he had
been on the war path against them and had stricken all their posts,
who could circumvent him in stratagem or conquer him in actual
blows. His renown as a hunter was not less great. He had put
to shame the best wolf-takers of the tribe, and the lodge of his
venerable father, Chifonti, was never without meat. There was
no good reason why Conattee, the married man, should be so intimate
with Selonee, the single—there was no particular sympathy
between the two; but, thrown together in sundry expeditions,
they had formed an intimacy, which, strange to say, was neither
denounced nor discouraged by the virago wife of the former. She
who approved of but few of her husband's movements, and still
fewer of his friends and fellowships, forbore all her reproaches
sweetest tempered of all wives whenever the young hunter came
home with her husband; and he, poor man, was consequently,
never so well satisfied as when he brought Selonee with him. It
was on such occasions, only, that the poor Conattee could persuade
himself to regard Macourah as a tolerable personage. How he
came to marry such a creature—such a termagant, and so monstrous
ugly—was a mystery which none of the damsels of Catawba
could elucidate, though the subject was one on which, when
mending the young hunter's mocasins, they expended no small
quantity of conjecture. Conattee, we may be permitted to say,
was still quite popular among them, in spite of his bad taste, and
manifest unavailableness; possibly, for the very reason that his
wife was universally detested; and it will, perhaps, speak something
for their charity, if we pry no deeper into their motives, to
say that the wish was universal among them that the Opitchi Manneyto,
or Black Devil of their belief, would take the virago to
himself, and leave to the poor Conattee some reasonable hope of
being made happy by a more indulgent spouse.
2. CHAPTER II.
Well, Conattee and Selonee were out of sight of the smoke of
“Turkey-town,” and, conscious of his freedom as he no longer
heard the accents of domestic authority, the henpecked husband
gave a loose to his spirits, and made ample amends to himself, by
the indulgence of joke and humour, for the sober constraints which
fettered him at home. Selonee joined with him in his merriment,
and the resolve was mutual that they should give the squaws the
slip and not linger in their progress till they had thrown the Tiger
river behind them. To trace their course till they came to the
famous hunting ground which bordered upon the Pacolet, will
scarcely be necessary, since, as they did not stop to hunt by the
way, there were necessarily but few incidents to give interest to
their movements. When they had reached the river, however,
they made for a cove, well known to them on previous seasons,
which lay between the parallel waters of the Pacolet, and a little
stream called the Thicketty—a feeder of the Eswawpuddenah, in
which they had confident hopes of finding the game which they desired.
In former years the spot had been famous as a sheltering place
for herds of wolves; and, with something like the impatience of a
warrior waiting for his foe, the hunters prepared their strongest
shafts and sharpest flints, and set their keen eyes upon the closest
places of the thicket, into which they plunged fearlessly. They
had not proceeded far, before a single boar-wolf, of amazing size,
started up in their path; and, being slightly wounded by the arrow
of Selonee, which glanced first upon some twigs beneath
which he-lay, he darted off with a fearful howl in the direction of
Conattee, whose unobstructed shaft, penetrating the side beneath
the fore shoulders, inflicted a fearful, if not a fatal wound, upon
the now thoroughly enraged beast. He rushed upon Conattee in his
desperation, but the savage was too quick for him; leaping behind
a tree, he avoided the rashing stroke with which the white tusks
threatened him, and by this time was enabled to fit a second arrow
went quivering into the shaggy monster's heart; who, under the
pang of the last convulsion, bounded into the muddy waters of the
Thicketty Creek, to the edge of which the chase had now brought
all the parties. Conattee beheld him plunge furiously forward
—twice—thrice—then rest with his nostrils in the water, as the
current bore him from sight around a little elbow of the creek.
But it was not often that the Indian hunter of those days lost the
game which he had stricken. Conattee stripped to it, threw his
fringed hunting shirt of buckskin on the bank, with his bow and
arrows, his mocasins and leggins beside it, and reserving only his
knife, he called to Selonee, who was approaching him, to keep
them in sight, and plunged into the water in pursuit of his victim.
Selonee gave little heed to the movements of his companion, after
the first two or three vigorous strokes which he beheld him make.
Such a pursuit, as it promised no peril, called for little consideration
from this hardy and fearless race, and Selonee amused himself
by striking into a thick copse which they had not yet traversed,
in search of other sport. There he started the she-wolf,
and found sufficient employment on his own hands to call for all
his attention to himself. When Selonee first came in sight of her,
she was lying on a bed of rushes and leaves, which she had prepared
under the roots of a gigantic Spanish oak. Her cubs, to the
number of five, lay around her, keeping a perfect silence, which
she had no doubt enforced upon them after her own fashion, and
which was rigidly maintained until they saw him. It was then
that the instincts of the fierce beasts could no longer be suppressed,
and they joined at once in a short chopping bark, or cry, at
the stranger, while their little eyes flashed fire, and their red jaws,
thinly sprinkled with the first teeth, were gnashed together with a
show of that ferocious hatred of man, which marks their nature,
but which, fortunately for Selonee, was too feeble at that time to
make his approach to them dangerous. But the dam demanded
greater consideration. With one sweep of her fore-paw she drew
all the young ones behind her, and showing every preparedness
for flight, she began to move backward slowly beneath the over-hanging
limbs of the tree, still keeping her keen, fiery eye fixed
upon the hunter. But Selonee was not disposed to suffer her to
sufficient provocation to make him silently resolve that the she-wolf—who
is always more to be dreaded than the male, as, with
nearly all his strength, she has twice his swiftness, and, with her
young about her, more than twice his ferocity—should testify
more completely to his prowess than the victory just obtained by
his companion could possibly speak for his. His eye was fixed upon
hers, and hers, never for a moment, taken from him. It was
his object to divert it, since he well knew, that with his first movement,
she would most probably spring upon him. Without lifting
his bow, which he nevertheless had in readiness, he whistled
shrilly as if to his dog; and answered himself by a correct imitation
of the bark of the Indian cur, the known enemy of the wolf,
and commonly his victim. The keen eye of the angry beast
looked suddenly around as if fearing an assault upon her young
ones from behind. In that moment, the arrow of Selonee was
driven through her neck, and when she leaped forward to the
place where he stood, he was no longer to be seen.
From a tree which he had thrown between them, he watched
her movements and prepared a second shaft. Meanwhile she
made her way back slowly to her young, and before she could
again turn towards him a second arrow had given her another
and severer wound. Still, as Selonee well knew the singular
tenacity of life possessed by these fierce animals, he prudently
changed his position with every shaft, and took especial care to
place himself in the rear of some moderately sized tree, sufficiently
large to shelter him from her claws, yet small enough to
enable him to take free aim around it. Still he did not, at any
time, withdraw more than twenty steps from his enemy. Divided
in her energies by the necessity of keeping near her young, he
was conscious of her inability to pursue him far. Carrying on
the war in this manner he had buried no less than five arrows in
her body, and it was not until his sixth had penetrated her eye,
that he deemed himself safe in the nearer approach which he now
meditated. She had left her cubs, on receiving his last shot, and
was writhing and leaping, blinded, no less than maddened, by the
wound, in a vain endeavour to approach her assailant. It was
now that Selonee determined on a closer conflict. It was the
while he yet struggled, to tear the quick quivering heart from his
bosom. He placed his bow and arrows behind the tree, and
taking in his left hand a chunk or fragment of a bough, while he
grasped his unsheathed knife in his right, he leapt in among the
cubs, and struck one of them a severe blow upon the head with
the chunk. Its scream, and the confusion among the rest, brought
back the angry dam, and though she could see only imperfectly,
yet, guided by their clamour, she rushed with open jaws upon the
hunter. With keen, quick eyes, and steady resolute nerves, he
waited for her approach, and when she turned her head aside, to
strike him with her sharp teeth, he thrust the pine fragment which
he carried in his left hand, into her extended jaws, and pressing
fast upon her, bore back her haunches to the earth. All this while
the young ones were impotently gnawing at the heels of the warrior,
which had been fearlessly planted in the very midst of them.
But these he did not heed. The larger and fiercer combatant
called for all his attention, and her exertions, quickened by the
spasms of her wounds, rendered necessary all his address and
strength to preserve the advantage he had gained. The fierce
beast had sunk her teeth by this into the wood, and, leaving
it in her jaws, he seized her with the hand, now freed, by the
throat, and, bearing her upward, so as to yield him a plain and
easy stroke at her belly, he drove the deep knife into it, and drew
the blade upwards, until resisted by the bone of the breast. It
was then, while she lay writhing and rolling upon the ground in
the agonies of death, that he tore the heart from the opening he
had made, and hurled it down to the cubs, who seized on it with
avidity. This done, he patted and caressed them, and while they
struggled about him for the meat, he cut a fork in the ears of
each, and putting the slips in his pouch, left the young ones
without further hurt, for the future sport of the hunter. The
dam he scalped, and with this trophy in possession, he pushed
back to the place where he had left the accoutrements of Conattee,
which he found undisturbed in the place where he had
laid them.
3. CHAPTER III.
But where was Conattee himself during all this period? Some
hours had elapsed since he had taken the river after the tiger that
he had slain, and it was something surprising to Selonee that he
should have remained absent and without his clothes so long.
The weather was cold and unpleasant, and it could scarce be a
matter of choice with the hunter, however hardy, to suffer all its
biting bleaknesses when his garments were within his reach.
This reflection made Selonee apprehensive that some harm had
happened to his companion. He shouted to him, but received no
answer. Could he have been seized with the cramp while in the
stream, and drowned before he could extricate himself. This
was a danger to which the very best of swimmers is liable at
certain seasons of the year, and in certain conditions of the body.
Selonee reproached himself that he had not waited beside the
stream until the result of Conattee's experiment was known.
The mind of the young hunter was troubled with many fears and
doubts. He went down the bank of the river, and called aloud
with all his lungs, until the woods and waters re-echoed, again
and again, the name of Conattee. He received no other response.
With a mind filled with increasing fears, each more unpleasant
than the last, Selonee plunged into the creek, and struck off for
the opposite shore, at the very point at which the tiger had been
about to turn, under the influence of the current, when Conattee
went in after him. He was soon across, and soon found the
tracks of the hunter in the gray sands upon its margin. He
found, too, to his great delight, the traces made by the carcass of
the tiger—the track was distinct enough from the blood which
dropped from the reeking skin of the beast, and Selonee rejoiced
in the certainty that the traces which he followed would soon lead
him to his friend. But not so. He had scarcely gone fifty yards
into the wood when his tracks failed him at the foot of a crooked,
fallen tree, one of the most gnarled and complicated of all the
was not only not there, but had left no sort of clue by which to
follow him further. This was the strangest thing of all. The
footprints were distinct enough till he came to the spot where lay
the crooked tree, but there he lost them. He searched the forest
around him, in every direction. Not a copse escaped his search
—not a bay—not a thicket—not an island—and he came back to
the spot where the tiger had been skinned, faint and weary, and
more sorrowful than can well be spoken. At one time he fancied
his friend was drowned, at another, that he was taken prisoner
by the Cherokees. But there were his tracks from the river, and
there were no other tracks than his own. Besides, so far as the
latter supposition was concerned, it was scarcely possible that so
brave and cunning a warrior would suffer himself to be so completely
entrapped and carried off by an enemy, without so much
as being able to give the alarm; and, even had that been the case,
would it be likely that the enemy would have suffered him to pass
without notice. “But,” here the suggestion naturally arose in
the mind of Selonee, “may they not even now be on the track!”
With the suggestion the gallant youth bounded to his feet. “It
is not fat turkey that they seek!” he exclaimed, drawing out an
arrow from the leash that hung upon his shoulders, and fitting it
to his bow, while his busy, glancing eye watched every shadow
in the wood, and his keen, quick ear noted every sound. But
there were no signs of an enemy, and a singular and mournful
stillness hung over the woods. Never was creature more
miserable than Selonee. He called aloud, until his voice grew
hoarse, and his throat sore, upon the name of Conattee. There
was no answer, but the gibing echoes of his own hoarse accents.
Once more he went back to the river, once more he plunged into
its bosom, and with lusty sinews struck out for a thick green island
that lay some quarter of a mile below, to which he thought it not
improbable that the hunter might have wandered in pursuit of
other game. It was a thickly wooded but small island, which he
traversed in an hour. Finding nothing, he made his weary way
back to the spot from which his friend had started on leaving him.
Here he found his clothes where he had hidden them. The
neighbourhood of this region he traversed in like manner with
scarcely in the verge of physical possibility that his friend's person
could have gone.
The day waned and night came on, and still the persevering
hunter gave not up his search. The midnight found him at the
foot of the tree, where they had parted, exhausted but sleepless,
and suffering bitterly in mind from those apprehensions which
every moment of hopeless search had necessarily helped to
accumulate and strengthen. Day dawned, and his labour was
renewed. The unhappy warrior went resolutely over all the
ground which he had traversed the night before. Once more he
crossed the river, and followed, step by step, the still legible foot
tracks of Conattee. These, he again noted, were all in the opposite
direction to the stream, to which it was evident he had not
returned. But, after reaching the place where lay the fallen
tree, all signs failed. Selonee looked round the crooked tree,
crawled under its sprawling and twisted limbs, broke into the
hollow which was left by its uptorn roots, and again shouted, until
all the echoes gave back his voice, the name of Conattee, imploring
him for an answer if he could hear him and reply. But the
echoes died away, leaving him in a silence that spoke more loudly
to his heart than before, that his quest was hopeless. Yet he
gave it not up until the day had again failed him. That night,
as before, he slept upon the ground. With the dawn, he again
went over it, and with equally bad success. This done, he determined
to return to the camp. He no longer had any spirit to
pursue the sports for which alone he had set forth. His heart
was full of sorrow, his limbs were weary, and he felt none of that
vigorous elasticity which had given him such great renown as a
brave and a hunter, among his own and the neighbouring nations.
He tied the clothes of Conattee upon his shoulders, took his bow
and arrows, now sacred in his sight, along with him, and turned
his eyes homeward. The next day, at noon, he reached the
encampment.
4. CHAPTER IV.
The hunters were all in the woods, and none but the squaws
and the papooses left in the encampment. Selonee came within
sight of their back settlements, and seated himself upon a log at
the edge of the forest with his back carefully turned towards the
smoke of the camp. Nobody ventured to approach him while in
this situation; but, at night, when the hunters came dropping in,
one by one, Selonee drew nigh to them. He called them apart
from the women, and then told them his story.
“This is a strange tale which the wolf-chief tells us,” said
one of the old men, with a smile of incredulity.
“It is a true tale, father,” was the reply.
“Conattee was a brave chief!”
“Very brave, father,” said Selonee.
“Had he not eyes to see?”
“The great bird, that rises to the sun, had not better,” was the
reply.
“What painted jay was it that said Conattee was a fool?”
“The painted bird lied, that said so, my father,” was the
response of Selonee.
“And comes Selonee, the wolf-chief, to us, with a tale that
Conattee was blind, and could not see; a coward that could not
strike the she-wolf; a fool that knew not where to set down his
foot; and shall we not say Selonee lies upon his brother, even as
the painted bird that makes a noise in my ears. Selonee has
slain Conattee with his knife. See, it is the blood of Conattee
upon the war-shirt of Selonee.”
“It is the blood of the she-wolf,” cried the young warrior,
with a natural indignation.
“Let Selonee go to the woods behind the lodges, till the chiefs
say what shall be done to Selonee, because of Conattee, whom he
slew.”
“Selonee will go, as Emathla, the wise chief, has commanded,”
the chiefs have said what is good to be done to him, and if they
say that he must die because of Conattee, it is well. Selonee
laughs at death. But the blood of Conattee is not upon the war-shirt
of Selonee. He has said it is the blood of the wolf's mother.”
With these words the young chief drew forth the skin of the wolf
which he had slain, together with the tips of the ears taken from
the cubs, and leaving them in the place where he had sat, withdrew,
without further speech, from the assembly which was about
to sit in judgment upon his life.
5. CHAPTER V.
The consultation that followed was close and earnest. There
was scarcely any doubt in the minds of the chiefs that Conattee
was slain by his companion. He had brought back with him the
arms and all the clothes of the hunter. He was covered with his
blood, as they thought; and the grief which filled his heart and
depressed his countenance, looked, in their eyes, rather like the
expression of guilt than suffering. For a long while did they
consult together. Selonee had friends who were disposed to save
him; but he had enemies also, as merit must have always, and
these were glad of the chance afforded them to put out of their
reach, a rival of whom they were jealous, and a warrior whom
they feared. Unfortunately for Selonee, the laws of the nation
but too well helped the malice of his foes. These laws, as peremptory
as those of the Medes and Persians, held him liable in his
own life for that of the missing hunter; and the only indulgence
that could be accorded to Selonee, and which was obtained for
him, was, that he might be allowed a single moon in which to find
Conattee, and bring him home to his people.
“Will Selonee go seek Conattee—the windy moon is for Selonee—let
him bring Conattee home to his people.” Thus said the
chiefs, when the young warrior was again brought before them.
“Selonee would die to find Conattee,” was the reply.
“He will die if he finds him not!” answered the chief
Emathla.
“It is well!” calmly spoke the young warrior. “Is Selonee
free to go?”
“The windy moon is for Selonee. Will he return to the lodges
if he finds not Conattee?” was the inquiry of Emathla.
“Is Selonee a dog, to fly!” indignantly demanded the warrior.
“Let Emathla send a young warrior on the right and on the left
of Selonee, if he trusts not what is spoken by Selonee.”
“Selonee will go alone, and bring back Conattee.”
6. CHAPTER VI.
The confidence thus reposed in one generally esteemed a murderer,
and actually under sentence as such, is customary among
the Indians; nor is it often abused. The loss of caste which
would follow their flight from justice, is much more terrible
among them than any fear of death—which an Indian may avoid,
but not through fear. Their loss of caste among themselves,
apart from the outlawry which follows it, is, in fact, a loss of the
soul. The heaven of the great Manneyto is denied to one under
outlawry of the nation, and such a person is then the known and
chosen slave of the demon, Opitchi-Manneyto. It was held an unnecessary
insult on the part of Emathla, to ask Selonee if he
would return to meet his fate. But Emathla was supposed to favour
the enemies of Selonee.
With such a gloomy alternative before him in the event of his
proving unsuccessful, the young hunter retraced his steps to the
fatal waters where Conattee had disappeared. With a spirit no
less warmly devoted to his friend, than anxious to avoid the disgraceful
doom to which he was destined, the youth spared no pains,
withheld no exertion, overlooked no single spot, and omitted no
art known to the hunter, to trace out the mystery which covered
the fate of Conattee. But days passed of fruitless labour, and the
last faint slender outlines of the moon which had been allotted
him for the search, gleamed forth a sorrowful light upon his path,
as he wearily traced it onward to the temporary lodges of the
tribe.
Once more he resumed his seat before the council and listened
to the doom which was in reserve for him. When the sentence
was pronounced, he untied his arrows, loosened the belt at his
waist, put a fillet around his head, made of the green bark of a
little sapling which he cut in the neighbouring woods, then rising
to his feet, he spoke thus, in language, and with a spirit, becoming
so great a warrior.
“It is well. The chiefs have spoken, and the wolf-chief does
not tremble. He loves the chase, but he does not weep like a
woman, because it is forbidden that he go after the deer—he loves
to fright the young hares of the Cherokee, but he laments not that
ye say ye can conquer the Cherokee without his help. Fathers,
I have slain the deer and the wolf—my lodge is full of their ears.
I have slain the Cherokee, till the scalps are about my knees
when I walk in the cabin. I go not to the dark valley without
glory—I have had the victories of grey hairs, but there is no grey
hair in my own. I have no more to say—there is a deed for
every arrow that is here. Bid the young men get their bows
ready, let them put a broad stone upon their arrows that may go
soon into the life—I will show my people how to die.”
They led him forth as he commanded, to the place of execution
—a little space behind the encampment, where a hole had been
already dug for his burial. While he went, he recited his victories
to the youths who attended him. To each he gave an arrow
which he was required to keep, and with this arrow, he related
some incident in which he had proved his valour, either in
conflict with some other warrior, or with the wild beasts of the
woods. These deeds, each of them was required to remember and
relate, and show the arrow which was given with the narrative on
occasion of this great state solemnity. In this way, their traditions
are preserved. When he reached the grave, he took his station
before it, the executioners, with their arrows, being already
placed in readiness. The whole tribe had assembled to witness
the execution, the warriors and boys in the foreground, the
squaws behind them. A solemn silence prevailed over the scene,
and a few moments only remained to the victim; when the wife
of Conattee darted forward from the crowd bearing in her hands
a peeled wand, with which, with every appearance of anger, she
struck Selonee over the shoulders, exclaiming as she did so:
“Come, thou dog, thou shalt not die—thou shalt lie in the door-way
of Conattee, and bring venison for his wife. Shall there be
no one to bring meat to my lodge? Thou shalt do this, Selonee
—thou shalt not die.”
A murmur arose from the crowd at these words.
“She hath claimed Selonee for her husband, in place of Conattee—well,
she hath the right.”
The enemies of Selonee could not object. The widow had, in
fact, exercised a privilege which is recognized by the Indian laws
almost universally; and the policy by which she was governed
in the present instance, was sufficiently apparent to all the village.
It was evident, now that Conattee was gone, that nobody
could provide for the woman who had no sons, and no male relations,
and who was too execrably ugly, and too notorious as a scold,
to leave it possible that she could ever procure another husband
so inexperienced or so flexible as the one she had lost. Smartly
striking Selonee on his shoulders, she repeated her command
that he should rise and follow her.
“Thou wilt take this dog to thy lodge, that he may hunt thee
venison?” demanded the old chief, Emathla.
“Have I not said?” shouted the scold—“hear you not? The
dog is mine—I bid him follow me.”
“Is there no friendly arrow to seek my heart?” murmured the
young warrior, as, rising slowly from the grave into which he
had previously descended, he prepared to obey the laws of his nation,
in the commands of the woman who claimed him to replace
the husband who was supposed to have died by his hands. Even
the foes of Selonee looked on him with lessened hostility, and the
pity of his friends was greater now than when he stood on the
precipice of death. The young women of the tribe wept bitterly
as they beheld so monstrous a sacrifice. Meanwhile, the exulting
hag, as if conscious of her complete control over the victim,
goaded him forward with repeated strokes of her wand.
She knew that she was hated by all the young women, and she
was delighted to show them a conquest which would have been
a subject of pride to any among them. With this view she led
the captive through their ranks. As they parted mournfully, on
either hand, to suffer the two to pass, Selonee stopped short and
motioned one of the young women who stood at the greatest distance
behind the rest, looking on with eyes which, if they had
no tears, yet gave forth an expression of desolateness more woful
than any tears could have done. With clasped hands, and trembling
as she came, the gentle maiden drew nigh.
“Was it a dream,” said Selonee sorrowfully, “that told me of
the love of a singing bird, and a green cabin by the trickling
waters? Did I hear a voice that said to me sweetly, wait but a
little, till the green corn breaks the hill, and Medoree will come
to thy cabin and lie by thy side? Tell me, is this thing true,
Medoree?”
“Thou sayest, Selonee—the thing is true,” was the reply of
the maiden, uttered in broken accents that denoted a breaking
heart.
“But they will make Selonee go to the lodge of another woman
—they will put Macourah into the arms of Selonee.”
“Alas! Alas!”
“Wilt thou see this thing, Medoree? Can'st thou look upon
it, then turn away, and going back to thy own lodge, can'st thou
sing a gay song of forgetfulness as thou goest?”
“Forgetfulness!—Ah, Selonee.”
“Thou art the beloved of Selonee, Medoree—thou shalt not
lose him. It would vex thy heart that another should take him
to her lodge!”—
The tears of the damsel flowed freely down her cheeks, and
she sobbed bitterly, but said nothing.
“Take the knife from my belt, Medoree, and put its sharp
tooth into my heart, ere thou sufferest this thing! Wilt thou
not?”
The girl shrunk back with an expression of undisguised horror
in her face.
“I will bless thee, Medoree,” was the continued speech of
the warrior. She turned from him, covering her face with her
hands.
“I cannot do this thing, Selonee—I cannot strike thy heart
with the knife. Go—let the woman have thee. Medoree cannot
kill thee—she will herself die.”
“It is well,” cried the youth, in a voice of mournful self-abandonment,
as he resumed his progress towards the lodge of Macourah.
6. CHAPTER VI.
It is now time to return to Conattee, and trace his progress
from the moment when, plunging into the waters, he left the side
of Selonee in pursuit of the wolf, whose dying struggles in the
stream he had beheld. We are already acquainted with his success
in extricating the animal from the water, and possessing himself
of its hide. He had not well done this when he heard a rushing
noise in the woods above him, and fancying that there was a
prospect of other game at hand, and inflated with the hope of adding
to his trophies, though without any weapon but his knife, Conattee
hastened to the spot. When he reached it, however, he
beheld nothing. A gigantic and singularly deformed pine tree,
crooked and most irregular in shape, lay prostrate along the
ground, and formed such an intricate covering above it, that Conattee
deemed it possible that some beast of prey might have
made its den among the recesses of its roots. With this thought,
he crawled under the spreading limbs, and searched all their intricacies.
Emerging from the search, which had been fruitless,
he took a seat upon the trunk of the tree, and spreading out the
wolf's hide before him, proceeded to pare away the particles of
flesh which, in the haste with which he had performed the task
of flaying him, had been suffered to adhere to the skin. But he
had scarcely commenced the operation, when two gigantic limbs
of the fallen tree upon which he sat, curled over his thighs and
bound him to the spot. Other limbs, to his great horror, while he
strove to move, clasped his arms and covered his shoulders. He
strove to cry aloud, but his jaws were grasped before he could
well open them, by other branches; and, with his eyes, which
were suffered to peer through little openings in the bark, he could
see his legs encrusted by like coverings with his other members.
Still seeing, his own person yet escaped his sight. Not a part of
it now remained visible to himself. A bed of green velvet-like
moss rested on his lap. His knees shot out a thorny excrescence;
a casing of bark as covered the remainder of the tree around
him. Even his knife and wolf skin, to his great surprise, suffered
in like manner, the bark having contracted them into one of those
huge bulging knobs that so numerously deformed the tree. With
all his thoughts and consciousness remaining, Conattee had yet
lost every faculty of action. When he tried to scream aloud,
his jaws felt the contraction of a pressure upon them, which resisted
all their efforts, while an oppressive thorn growing upon a
wild vine that hung before his face, was brought by every movement
of himself or of the tree into his very mouth. The poor
hunter immediately conceived his situation—he was in the power
of Tustenuggee, the Grey Demon of Enoree. The tree upon
which he sat was one of those magic trees which the tradition of
his people entitled the “Arm-chair of Tustenuggee.” In these
traps for the unwary the wicked demon caught his victim, and
exulted in his miseries. Here he sometimes remained until death
released him; for it was not often that the power into whose
clutches he had fallen, suffered his prey to escape through a sudden
feeling of lenity and good humour. The only hope of Conattee
was that Selonee might suspect his condition; in which
event his rescue was simple and easy enough. It was only to
hew off the limbs, or pare away the bark, and the victim was uncovered
in his primitive integrity. But how improbable that this
discovery should be made. He had no voice to declare his bondage.
He had no capacity for movement by which he might reveal
the truth to his comrade's eyes; and unless some divine instinct
should counsel his friend to an experiment which he would
scarcely think upon, of himself, the poor prisoner felt that he must
die in the miserable bondage into which he had fallen. While
these painful convictions were passing through his mind, he heard
the distant shoutings of Selonee. In a little while he beheld the
youth anxiously seeking him in every quarter, following his trail
at length to the very tree in which he was bound, crawling like
himself beneath its branches, but not sitting like himself to be
caught upon its trunk. Vainly did the poor fellow strive to utter
but a few words, however faintly, apprising the youth of his condition.
The effort died away in the most imperfect breathing,
flower. With equal ill success did he aim to struggle with his
limbs. He was too tightly grasped, in every part, to stir in the
slightest degree a single member. He saw the fond search, meanwhile,
which his comrade maintained, and his heart yearned the
more in fondness for the youth. But it was with consummate
horror that he saw him depart as night came on. Miserable, indeed,
were his feelings that night. The voice of the Grey Demon
alone kept him company, and he and his one-eyed wife made
merry with his condition, goading him the livelong night with
speeches of cruel gibe and mischievous reflection, such as the
following:
“There is no hope for you, Conattee, till some one takes your
place. Some one must sit in your lap, whom you are willing to
leave behind you, before you can get out of mine,” was the speech
of the Grey Demon, who, perched upon Conattee's shoulders, bent
his huge knotty head over him, while his red eyes looked into the
half-hidden ones of the environed hunter, and glared upon him
with the exultation of the tyrant at last secure of his prey. Night
passed away at length, and, with the dawn, how was the hopeless
heart of Conattee refreshed as he again saw Selonee appear. He
then remembered the words of Tustenuggee, which told him that
he could not escape until some one sat in his lap whom he was
willing to leave behind him. The fancy rose in his mind that
Selonee would do this; but could it be that he would consent to
leave his friend behind him. Life was sweet, and great was the
temptation. At one moment he almost wished that Selonee would
draw nigh and seat himself after his fatigue. As if the young
hunter knew his wish, he drew nigh at that instant; but the better
feelings in Conattee's heart grew strong as he approached, and,
striving to twist and writhe in his bondage, and labouring at the
same time to call out in warning to his friend, he manifested the
noble resolution not to avail himself of his friend's position to relieve
his own; and, as if the warning of Conattee had really
reached the understanding of Selonee, the youth retraced his
steps, and once more hurried away from the place of danger.
With his final departure the fond hopes of the prisoner sunk within
him; and when hour after hour had gone by without the appearance
condition, he gave himself up utterly for lost. The mocks and
jeers of the Grey Demon and his one-eyed squaw filled his ears
all night, and the morning brought him nothing but flat despair.
He resigned himself to his fate with the resolution of one who,
however unwilling he might be to perish in such a manner, had
yet faced death too frequently not to yield him a ready defiance
now.
7. CHAPTER VII.
But hope had not utterly departed from the bosom of Selonee.
Perhaps the destiny which had befallen himself had made him
resolve the more earnestly to seek farther into the mystery of that
which hung above the fate of his friend. The day which saw him
enter the cabin of Macourah saw him the most miserable man
alive. The hateful hag, hateful enough as the wife of his friend,
whose ill treatment was notorious, was now doubly hateful to him
as his own wife; and now, when, alone together, she threw aside
the harsh and termagant features which had before distinguished
her deportment, and, assuming others of a more amorous complexion,
threw her arms about the neck of the youth and solicited
his endearments, a loathing sensation of disgust was coupled with
the hate which had previously possessed his mind. Flinging
away from her embrace, he rushed out of the lodge with feelings
of the most unspeakable bitterness and grief, and bending his way
towards the forest, soon lost sight of the encampment of his people.
Selonee was resolved on making another effort for the recovery
of his friend. His resolve went even farther than this. He was
bent never to return to the doom which had been fastened upon
him, and to pursue his way into more distant and unknown forests
—a self-doomed exile—unless he could restore Conattee to the
nation. Steeled against all those ties of love or of country, which
at one time had prevailed in his bosom over all, he now surrendered
himself to friendship or despair. In Catawba, unless he
restored Conattee, he could have no hope; and without Catawba
he had neither hope nor love. On either hand he saw nothing
but misery; but the worst form of misery lay behind him in the
lodge of Macourah. But Macourah was not the person to submit
to such a determination. She was too well satisfied with the exchange
with which fortune had provided her, to suffer its gift to
be lost so easily; and when Selonee darted from the cabin in
such fearful haste, she readily conjectured his determination.
those thunders—could she overtake him—with which she had so
frequently overawed the pliant Conattee, would possess an effect
not less influential upon his more youthful successor. Macourah
was gaunt as a greyhound, and scarcely less fleet of foot. Besides,
she was as tough as a grey-squirrel in his thirteenth year.
She did not despair of overtaking Selonee, provided she suffered
him not to know that she was upon his trail. Her first movements
therefore were marked with caution. Having watched his
first direction, she divined his aim to return to the hunting grounds
where he had lost or slain his companion; and these hunting
grounds were almost as well known to herself as to him. With
a rapidity of movement, and a tenacity of purpose, which could
only be accounted for by a reference to that wild passion which
Selonee had unconsciously inspired in her bosom for himself, she
followed his departing footsteps; and when, the next day, he
heard her shouts behind him, he was absolutely confounded. But
it was with a feeling of surprise and not of dissatisfaction that he
heard her voice. He—good youth—regarding Conattee as one
of the very worthiest of the Catawba warriors, seemed to have
been impressed with an idea that such also was the opinion of his
wife. He little dreamed that she had any real design upon himself;
and believed that, to show her the evidences which were to
be seen, which led to the fate of her husband, might serve to convince
her that not only he was not the murderer, but that Conattee
might not, indeed, be murdered at all. He coolly waited her
approach, therefore, and proceeded to renew his statements, accompanying
his narrative with the expression of the hope which
he entertained of again restoring her husband to herself and the
nation. But she answered his speech only with upbraidings and
entreaties; and when she failed, she proceeded to thump him
lustily with the wand by which she had compelled him to follow
her to the lodge the day before. But Selonee was in no humour
to obey the laws of the nation now. The feeling of degradation
which had followed in his mind, from the moment when he left
the spot where he had stood up for death, having neither fear nor
shame, was too fresh in his consciousness to suffer him to yield a
like acknowledgment to it now; and though sorely tempted to
had already inflicted upon his shoulders, he forbore, in consideration
of his friend, and contented himself with simply setting forward
on his progress, determined to elude her pursuit by an exercise
of all his vigour and elasticity. Selonee was hardy as the
grisly bear, and fleeter than the wild turkey; and Macourah,
virago as she was, soon discovered the difference in the chase
when Selonee put forth his strength and spirit. She followed
with all her pertinacity, quickened as it was by an increase of
fury at that presumption which had ventured to disobey her commands;
but Selonee fled faster than she pursued, and every additional
moment served to increase the space botween them. The
hunter lost her from his heels at length, and deemed himself fortunate
that she was no longer in sight and hearing, when he again
approached the spot where his friend had so mysteriously disappeared.
Here he renewed his search with a painful care and
minuteness, which the imprisoned Conattee all the while beheld.
Once more Selonee crawled beneath those sprawling limbs and
spreading arms that wrapped up in their solid and coarse rinds the
person of the warrior. Once more he emerged from the spot
disappointed and hopeless. This he had hardly done when, to
the great horror of the captive, and the annoyance of Selonee, the
shrill shrieks and screams of the too well-known voice of Macourah
rang through the forests. Selonee dashed forward as he
heard the sounds, and when Macourah reached the spot, which
she did unerringly in following his trail, the youth was already
out of sight.
“I can go no further,” cried the woman—“a curse on him and
a curse on Conattee, since in losing one I have lost both. I am
too faint to follow. As for Selonee, may the one-eyed witch of
Tustenuggee take him for her dog.”
With this delicate imprecation, the virago seated herself in a
state of exhaustion upon the inviting bed of moss which formed
the lap of Conattee. This she had no sooner done, than the
branches relaxed their hold upon the limbs of her husband. The
moment was too precious for delay, and sliding from under her
with an adroitness and strength which were beyond her powers
of prevention, and, indeed, quite too sudden for any effort at resistance,
up in full life before her, and, with the instinct of his former condition,
preparing to take to flight. She cried to him, but he fled
the faster—she strove to follow him, but the branches which had
relaxed their hold upon her husband had resumed their contracted
grasp upon her limbs. The brown bark was already forming
above her on every hand, and her tongue, allotted a brief term of
liberty, was alone free to assail him. But she had spoken but
few words when the bark encased her jaws, and the ugly thorn
of the vine which had so distressed Conattee, had taken its place
at their portals.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
The husband looked back but once, when the voice ceased—
then, with a shivering sort of joy that his own doom had undergone
a termination, which he now felt to be doubly fortunate—
he made a wide circuit that he might avoid the fatal neighbourhood,
and pushed on in pursuit of his friend, whom his eyes, even
when he was surrounded in the tree, had followed in his flight.
It was no easy task, however, to overtake Selonee, flying, as he
did, from the supposed pursuit of the termagant. Great however
was the joy of the young warriors when they did encounter, and
long and fervent was their mutual embrace. Conattee described
his misfortunes, and related the manner in which he was taken;
showed how the bark had encased his limbs, and how the intricate
magic had even engrossed his knife and the wolf skin which had
been the trophy of his victory. But Conattee said not a word of
his wife and her entrapment, and Selonee was left in the conviction
that his companion owed his escape from the toils to some
hidden change in the tyrannical mood of Tustenuggee, or the
one-eyed woman, his wife.
“But the skin and the knife, Conattee, let us not leave them,”
said Selonee, “let us go back and extricate them from the tree.”
Conattee showed some reluctance. He soon said, in the words
of Macbeth, which he did not use however as a quotation, “I'll
go no more.” But Selonee, who ascribed this reluctance to very
natural apprehensions of the demon from whose clutches he had
just made his escape, declared his readiness to undertake the adventure
if Conattee would only point out to his eyes the particular
excrescence in which the articles were enclosed. When the
husband perceived that his friend was resolute, he made a merit
of necessity.
“If the thing is to be done,” said he, “why should you have
the risk, I myself will do it. It would be a woman-fear were I
to shrink from the danger. Let us go.”
The process of reasoning by which Conattee came to this determination
was a very sudden one, and one, too, that will not be
hard to comprehend by every husband in his situation. It was
his fear that if Selonee undertook the business, an unlucky or
misdirected stroke of his knife might sever a limb, or remove some
portions of the bark which did not merit or need removal. Conattee
trembled at the very idea of the revelations which might
follow such an unhappy result. Strengthening himself, therefore,
with all his energies, he went forward with Selonee to the
spot, and while the latter looked on and witnessed the operation,
he proceeded with a nicety and care which amused and surprised
Selonee, to the excision of the swollen scab upon the tree
in which he had seen his wolf skin encompassed. While he performed
the operation, which he did as cautiously as if it had been
the extraction of a mote from the eye of a virgin; the beldam in
the tree, conscious of all his movements, and at first flattered with
the hope that he was working for her extrication, maintained the
most ceaseless efforts of her tongue and limbs, but without avail.
Her slight breathing, which Conattee knew where to look for,
more like the sighs of an infant zephyr than the efforts of a human
bosom, denoted to his ears an overpowering but fortunately
suppressed volcano within; and his heart leaped with a new joy,
which had been unknown to it for many years before, when he
thought that he was now safe, and, he trusted, for ever, from any
of the tortures which he had been fain to endure patiently so long.
When he had finished the operation by which he had re-obtained
his treasures, he ventured upon an impertinence which spoke
surprisingly for his sudden acquisition of confidence; and looking
up through the little aperture in the bark, from whence he had
seen every thing while in the same situation, and from whence
he concluded she was also suffered to see, he took a peep—a
quick, quizzical and taunting peep, at those eyes which he had
not so dared to offend before. He drew back suddenly from the
contact—so suddenly, indeed, that Selonee, who saw the proceeding,
but had no idea of the truth, thought he had been stung by
some insect, and questioned him accordingly.
“Let us be off, Selonee,” was the hurried answer, “we have
nothing to wait for now.”
“Yes,” replied Selonee, “and I had forgotten to say to you
that your wife, Macourah, is on her way in search of you. I left
her but a little ways behind, and thought to find her here. I suppose
she is tired, however, and is resting by the way.”
“Let her rest,” said Conattee, “which is an indulgence much
greater than any she ever accorded me. She will find me out
soon enough, without making it needful that I should go in search
of her. Come.”
Selonee kindly suppressed the history of the transactions which
had taken place in the village during the time when the hunter
was supposed to be dead; but Conattee heard the facts from other
quarters, and loved Selonee the better for the sympathy he had
shown, not only in coming again to seek for him, but in not loving
his wife better than he did himself. They returned to the
village, and every body was rejoiced to behold the return of the
hunters. As for the termagant Macourah, nobody but Conattee
knew her fate; and he, like a wise man, kept his secret until
there was no danger of its being made use of to rescue her from
her predicament. Years had passed, and Conattee had found
among the young squaws one that pleased him much better than
the old. He had several children by her, and years and honours
had alike fallen numerously upon his head, when, one day, one of
his own sons, while hunting in the same woods, knocked off one
of the limbs of the Chair of Tustenuggee, and to his great horror
discovered the human arm which they enveloped. This led him
to search farther, and limb after limb became detached under the
unscrupulous action of his hatchet, until the entire but unconnected
members of the old squaw became visible. The lad
knocked about the fragments with little scruple, never dreaming
how near was his relation to the form which he treated with so
little veneration. When he came home to the lodge and told his
story, Selonee looked at Conattee, but said nothing. The whole
truth was at once apparent to his mind. Conattee, though he still
kept his secret, was seized with a sudden fit of piety, and taking
his sons with him, he proceeded to the spot which he well remembered,
and, gathering up the bleached remains, had them carefully
buried in the trenches of the tribe.
It may properly end this story, to say that Selonee wedded the
marrying Macourah, yet positively refused to take his life to defeat
the same event. It may be well to state, in addition, that
the only reason Conattee ever had for believing that Selonee had
not kept his secret from every body, was that Medoree, the young
wife of the latter, looked on him with a very decided coolness.
“But, we will see,” muttered Conattee as he felt this conviction.
“Selonee will repent of this confidence, since now it will never be
possible for him to persuade her to take a seat in the Arm-chair
of Tustenuggee. Had he been a wise man he would have kept
his secret, and then there would have been no difficulty in getting
rid of a wicked wife.”
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