University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

The conflict, though sharp and hot, considering
the insignificant number of combatants on either
side, was of no very long duration, the whole time,
from the appearance of the Kentuckians until the
flight, scarce exceeding half an hour. But the
pursuit, which the victors immediately commenced,
lasted a much longer space; and it was
more than an hour,—an age of suspense and suffering
to the soldier,—before the sound of whooping
on the hill apprized him of their return. They
brought with them, as trophies of success, two
horses, on each of which sat three or four different
Indians, as many indeed as could get upon the
animal's back, where they clung together, shouting,
laughing, and otherwise diverting themselves,
more like joyous school-boys than stern warriors
who had just fought and won a bloody battle.

But this semblance of mirth and good humour
lasted no longer than while the savages were riding
from the hill-top to the battle-ground; which having
reached, they sprang upon the ground, and
running wildly about, uttered several cries of the
most mournful character, laments, as Roland supposed,
over the bodies of their fallen companions.

But if such was their sorrow, while looking
upon their own dead, the sight of their lifeless
foemen, of whom two, besides the negro Emperor,
who had been tomahawked the moment after
he fell, had been unhappily left lying on the field,

soon changed it into a fiercer passion. The
wail became a yell of fury, loud and frightful;
and Roland could see them gathering round each
corse, striking the senseless clay repeatedly with
their knives and hatchets, each seeking to surpass
his fellow in the savage work of mutilation. Such
is the red-man of America, whom courage,—an
attribute of all lovers of blood, whether man or
animal; misfortune,—the destiny, in every quarter
of the globe, of every barbarous race, which contact
with a civilized one cannot civilize; and the
dreams of poets and sentimentalists have invested
with a character wholly incompatible with his
condition. Individual virtues may be, and indeed
frequently are, found among men in a natural
state; but honour, justice, and generosity, as characteristics
of the mass, are refinements belonging
only to an advanced stage of civilization.

In the midst of this barbarous display of unsatisfied
rage, several of the savages approached the
unfortunate Roland, and among them the old Piankeshaw;
who, flourishing his hatchet, already
clotted with blood, and looking more like a demon
than a human being, made an effort to dash out
the soldier's brains; in which, however, he was
restrained by two younger savages, who caught
him in their arms, and muttered somewhat in their
own tongue, which mollified his wrath in a moment,
causing him to burst into a roar of obstreperous
laughter. “Ees,—good!” he cried, grinning
with apparent benevolence and friendship
over the helpless youth;—“no hurt Long-knife;
take him Piankeshaw nation; make good friend
squaw, papoose—all brudders Long-knife.” With
these expressions, of the purport of which Roland
could understand but little, he left him, retiring
with the rest, as Roland soon saw, to conceal or

bury the bodies of his slain comrades, which were
borne in the arms of the survivors to the bottom
of the hill, and there carefully and in silence, deposited
among thickets, or in crannies of the
rock.

This ceremony completed, Roland was again
visited by his Piankeshaw friend and the two
young warriors who had saved his life before, and
were perhaps still fearful of trusting it entirely to
the tender mercies of the senior. It was fortunate
for Roland that he was thus attended; for the old
warrior had no sooner approached him than he began
to weep and groan, uttering a harangue, which,
although addressed, as it seemed, entirely to the
prostrate captive, was in the Indian tongue, and
therefore wholly wasted upon his ears. Nevertheless,
he could perceive that the Indian was relating
something that weighed very heavily upon his
mind, that he was warming with his subject, and
even working himself up into a passion; and, indeed,
he had not spoken very long before his
visage changed from grief to wrath, and from
wrath to the extreme of fury, in which he began
to handle his hatchet as on the previous occasion,
making every demonstration of the best disposition
in the world to bury it in the prisoner's brain.
He was again arrested by the young savages, who
muttered something in his ear as before; and
again the effect was to convert his anger into merriment,
the change being effected with a facility
that might well have amazed the prisoner, had his
despair permitted him to feel any lighter emotion.
“Good!” cried the old warrior, as if in reply to
what the others had said; “Long-knife go Piankeshaw
nation,—make great sight for Piankeshaw!”
And so saying, he began to dance about,
with many grimaces of visage and contortions of

body, that seemed to have a meaning for his comrades,
who fetched a whoop of admiration, though
entirely inexplicable to the soldier. Then seizing
the latter by the arm, and setting him on his feet,
the warrior led, or dragged, him a little way down
the hill, to a place on the road-side, where the victors
were assembled, deliberating, doubtless, upon
the fate of their prisoners.

They seemed to have suffered a considerable
loss in the battle, twelve being the whole number
now to be seen; and most of these, judging from the
fillets of rags and bundles of green leaves tied
about their limbs, had been wounded, two of them,
to all appearance, very severely, if not mortally,
for they lay upon the earth a little apart from the
rest, in whose motions they seemed to take no interest.

As Roland approached, he looked in vain amid
the throng for his kinswoman. Neither she nor
Telie Doe was to be seen. But casting his eye
wildly around, it fell upon a little grove of trees
not many yards off, in which he could perceive
the figures of horses, as well as of a tall barbarian,
who stood on its edge, as if keeping guard, wrapped,
notwithstanding the sultriness of the weather,
in a blanket, from chin to foot, while his head was
as warmly invested in the ample folds of a huge
searlet handkerchief. He stood like a statue, his
arms folded on his breast, and lost under the
heavy festoons of the blanket; while his eyes were
fastened upon the group of Indians on the road-side,
from which they wandered only to glare a
moment upon the haggard and despairing visage
of the soldier. In that copse, Roland doubted not,
the savages had concealed, a hopeless and helpless
captive, the being for whom he had struggled
and suffered so long and so vainly, the maid whose

forebodings of evil had been so soon and so dreadfully
realized.

In the meanwhile, the savages on the road-side
began the business for which they had assembled,
that seemed to be, in the first place, the division of
spoils, consisting of the guns, horses, and clothes
of the dead, with sundry other articles, which, but
for his unhappy condition, Roland would have
wondered to behold: for there were among them
rolls of cloth and calico, heaps of hawks'-bells
and other Indian trinkets, knives, pipes, powder
and ball, and other such articles, even to a keg or
two of the fire-water, enough to stock an Indian
trading-house. These, wherever and however
obtained, were distributed equally among the Indians
by a man of lighter skin than themselves,—
a half-breed, as Roland supposed,—who seemed
to exercise some authority among them, though
ever deferring in all things to an old Indian of
exceedingly fierce and malign aspect, though
wasted and withered into the semblance of a consumptive
wolf, who sat upon a stone, buried in
gloomy abstraction, from which, time by time, he
awoke, to direct the dispersion of the valuables,
through the hands of his deputy, with exceeding
great gravity and state.

The distribution being effected, and evidently to
the satisfaction of all present, the savages turned
their looks upon the prisoner, eyeing him with
mingled triumph and exultation; and the old presiding
officer, or chief, as he seemed to be, shaking
off his abstraction, got upon his feet and made
him a harangue, imitating therein the ancient Piankeshaw;
though with this difference, that,
whereas the latter spoke entirely in his own
tongue, the former thought fit, among abundance
of Indian phrases, to introduce some that were

sufficiently English to enable the soldier to guess,
at least, at part of his meaning. His oration, however,
as far as Roland could understand it, consisted
chiefly in informing him, that he was a very
great chief, who had killed abundance of white
people, men, women and children, whose scalps
had for thirty years and more, been hanging in the
smoke of his Shawnee lodge,—that he was very
brave, and loved a white man's blood better than
whiskey, and that he never spared it out of pity,—
adding as the cause, and seeming well pleased
that he could boast a deficiency so well befitting a
warrior, that he `had no heart,'—his interior being
framed of stone as hard as the flinty rock under
his feet. This exordium finished, he proceeded
to bestow sundry abusive epithets upon the prisoner,
charging him with having put his young
men to a great deal of needless trouble, besides
having killed several; for which, he added, the
Long-knife ought to expect nothing better than to
have his face blacked and be burnt alive,—a hint
that produced an universal grunt of assent on the
part of the auditors. Having received this testimony
of approbation, he resumed his discourse,
pursuing it for the space of ten minutes or more
with considerable vigour and eloquence; but as
the whole speech consisted, like most other Indian
speeches, of the same things said over and over
again, those same things being scarce worth the
trouble of utterance, we think it needless to say
any thing further of it; except that, first, as it
seemed to Roland, as far as he could understand
the broken expressions of the chief, he delivered a
very furious tirade against the demon enemy of
his race, the bloody Jibbenainosay, the white
man's War-Manito, whom he declared it was
his purpose to fight and kill, as soon as that destroyer
should have the courage to face him, the
old Shawnee chief, like a human warrior,—and
that it inspired several others to get up and make
speeches likewise. Of all these the burthen seemed
to be the unpardonable crime of killing their comrades,
of which the young soldier had been guilty;
and he judged by the fury of their countenances,
that they were only debating whether they should
put him to death on the spot, or carry him to their
country to be tortured.

The last speaker of all was the old Piankeshaw,
whose meaning could be only guessed at from his
countenance and gestures, the one being as angry
and wo-begone as the latter were active and expressive.
He pointed, at least a dozen times over,
to two fresh and gory scalps,—the most highly
valued trophies of victory,—that lay at the feet of
the Shawnee chief, as many times to the horses,
and thrice as often at the person of Roland, who
stood now surveying his dark visage with a look of
sullen despair, now casting his eyes, with a gaze of
inexpressible emotion, towards the little copse, in
which he still sought in vain a glimpse of his
Edith. But if the old warrior's finger was often
bent towards these three attractive objects, innumerable
were the times it was pointed at the two
or three little whiskey-kegs, which, not having
been yet distributed, lay untouched upon the grass.
The words with which he accompanied these expressive
gestures seemed to produce a considerable
effect upon all his hearers, even upon the ancient
chief; who, at the close of the oration, giving
a sign to one of his young men, the latter ran to
the copse and in an instant returned, bringing with
him one of the horses, which the chief immediately
handed over, through his deputy, to the orator,
and the orator to one of the two young warriors,

who seemed to be of his own tribe. The chief
then pointed to a keg of the fire-water, and this
was also given to the Piankeshaw, who received
it with a grin of ecstacy, embraced it, snuffed at
its odoriferous contents, and then passed it in like
manner to his second follower. The chief made
yet another signal, and the deputy, taking Roland
by the arm, and giving him a piercing, perhaps
even a pitying, look, delivered him likewise into
the hands of the Piankeshaw; who, as if his happiness
were now complete, received him with a
yell of joy, that was caught up by his two companions,
and finally joined in by all the savages
present.

This shout seemed to be the signal for the breaking
up of the convention. All rose to their feet, iterating
and reiterating the savage cry, while the Piankeshaw,
clutching his prize, and slipping a noose
around the thong that bound his arms, endeavoured
to drag him to the horse, on which the young
men had already secured the keg of liquor, and
which they were holding in readiness for the elder
barbarian to mount.

At that conjuncture, and while Roland was beginning
to suspect that even the wretched consolation
of remaining in captivity by his kinswoman's
side was about to be denied him, and while the
main body of savages were obviously bidding
farewell to the little band of Piankeshaws, some
shaking them by the hands, while others made
game of the prisoner's distress in sundry Indian
ways, and all uttering yells expressive of their different
feelings, there appeared rushing from the
copse, and running among the barbarians, the
damsel Telie Doe, who, not a little to the surprise
even of the ill-fated Roland himself, ran to his
side, caught the rope by which he was held, and

endeavoured frantically to snatch it from the
hands of the Piankeshaw.

The act, for one of her peculiarly timorous spirit,
was surprising enough; but a great transformation
seemed to have suddenly taken place in
her character, and even her appearance, which
was less that of a feeble woman engaged in a
work of humanity, than of a tigress infuriated by
the approach of hunters against the lair of her
sleeping young. She grasped the cord with unexpected
strength, and her eyes flashed fire as
they wandered around, until they met those of the
supposed half-breed, to whom she called with tones
of the most vehement indignation,—“Oh, father,
father! what are you doing? You won't give him
up to the murderers? You promised, you promised,—”

“Peace, fool!” interrupted the man thus addressed,
taking her by the arm, and endeavouring
to jerk her from the prisoner; “away with you to
your place, and be silent.”

“I will not, father;—I will not be silent, I will
not away!” cried the girl, resisting his efforts, and
speaking with a voice that mingled the bitterest
reproach with imploring entreaty: “you are a
white man, father, and not an Indian; yes, father,
you are no Indian; and you promised no harm
should be done,—you did, father, you did promise!”

“Away, gal, I tell you!” thundered the renegade
parent; and he again strove to drag her
from the prisoner. But Telie, as if driven frantic
by the act, flung her arms round Roland's body,
from which she was drawn only by an effort of
strength which her weak powers were unable to
resist. But even then she did not give over her
purpose; but starting from her father's arms, she

ran screaming back to Roland, and would have
again clasped him in her own; when the renegade,
driven to fury by her opposition, arrested
her with one hand, and with the other catching up
a knife that lay in the grass, he made as if, in his
fit of passion, he would have actually plunged it
into her breast. His malevolent visage and brutal
threat awoke the terrors of the woman in her
heart, and she sank on her knees, crying with a
piercing voice, “Oh father, don't kill me! don't
kill your own daughter!”

“Kill you, indeed!” muttered the outlaw, with
a laugh of scorn; “even Injuns don't kill their
own children.” And taking advantage of her terror,
he beckoned to the Piankeshaw, who, as well
as all the other Indians, seemed greatly astounded
and scandalized at the indecorous interference of
a female in the affairs of warriors, to remove the
prisoner; which he did by immediately beginning
to drag him down the hill. The action was not
unobserved by the girl, whose struggles to escape
from her father's arms, to pursue, as it seemed,
after the soldier, Roland could long see, while her
wild and piteous cries were still longer brought to
his ears.

As for Roland himself, the words and actions of
the girl, though they might have awakened suspicions
not before experienced, of her good faith,
and even appeared to show that it was less to unlucky
accident than to foul conspiracy he owed
his misfortunes,—did not, and could not, banish
the despair that absorbed his mind, to the exclusion
of every other feeling. He seemed even to
himself to be in a dream, the sport of an incubus,
that oppressed every faculty and energy of spirit,
while yet presenting the most dreadful phantasms
to his imagination. His tongue had lost its function;

he strove several times to speak, but tongue
and spirit were alike paralyzed. The nightmare
oppressed mind and body together.

It was in this unhappy condition, the result of
overwrought feelings and intolerable bodily suffering,
that he was led by his Piankeshaw masters
down the hill to the river, which they appeared to
be about to pass; whilst the chief body of marauders
were left to seek another road from the
field of battle. Here the old warrior descended
from his horse, and leaving Roland in charge of
the two juniors, stepped a little aside to a place
where was a ledge of rocks, in the face of which
seemed to be the entrance to a cavern, although
carefully blocked up by masses of stone, that had
been but recently removed from its foot. The
Piankeshaw, taking post directly in front of the
hole, began to utter many mournful ejaculations,
which were addressed to the insensate rock, or
perhaps to the equally insensate corse of a comrade
concealed within. He drew also from a little
pouch,—his medicine-bag,—divers bits of bone,
wood, and feathers, the most valued idols of his
fetich, which he scattered about the rock, singing
the while, in a highly lugubrious tone, the praises
of the dead, and shedding tears that might have
been supposed the outpourings of genuine sorrow.
But if sorrow it was that thus affected the spirits
of the warrior, as it seemed to have done on several
previous occasions, it proved to be as easily consolable
as before, as the event showed; for having
finished his lamentations, and left the rock, he advanced
towards Roland, whom he threatened for
the third time with his knife; when one of the
younger Indians muttering a few words of remonstrance,
and pointing at the same time to the keg
of fire-water on the horse's back, his grief and

rage expired together in a haw-haw, ten times
more obstreperous and joyous than any he had
indulged before. Then mounting the horse, seemingly
in the best humour in the world, and taking
the end of the cord by which Roland was bound,
he rode into the water, dragging the unfortunate
prisoner along at his horse's heels; while the
younger Piankeshaws brought up the rear, ready to
prevent resistance on the soldier's part, should he
prove in any degree refractory.

In this ignominious manner the unhappy Forrester
passed the river, to do which had, for
twenty-four hours, been the chief object of his
wishes. The ford was wide, deep, and rocky, and
the current strong, so that he was several times
swept from his feet, and, being unable to rise,
would have perished,—happy could he have thus
escaped his tormentors,—had not the young warriors
been nigh to give him assistance. Assistance,
in such cases, was indeed always rendered; but
his embarrassments and perils only afforded food
for mirth to his savage attendants, who, at every
fall and dip in the tide, made the hills resound with
their vociferous laughter. It is only among children,
(we mean, of course, bad ones,) and savages,
who are but grown children, after all, that we find
malice and mirth go hand in hand,—the will to
create misery and the power to see it invested in
ludicrous colours.

The river was at last crossed, and the bank being
ascended, the three warriors paused a moment
to send their last greeting across to their allies,
who were seen climbing the hill, taking their own
departure from the battle-ground. Even Roland
was stirred from his stupefaction, as he beheld the
train, some on foot, some on the captured horses,
winding up the narrow road to the hill-top. He

looked among them for his Edith, and saw her,—
or fancied he saw her, for the distance was considerable,—supported
on one of the animals, grasped
in the arms of a tall savage, the guard of the
grove, whose scarlet turban glittering in the sunshine,
and his ample white blanket flowing over
the flanks of the horse, made the most conspicuous
objects in the train. But while he looked, barbarian
and captive vanished together behind the hill,
for they were at the head of the train. There remained
a throng of footmen, who paused an instant
on the crest of the ridge to return the farewell
whoop of the three Piankeshaws. This being
done, they likewise vanished; and the Piankeshaws,
turning their faces towards the west, and dragging
the prisoner after them, resumed their journey.