University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
COMBAHEE; OR, THE LAST VOYAGE OF LUCAS DE AYLLON.

But the losses of De Ayllon were not to end with the death of
his noble captive, the unfortunate Chiquola. We are told by the
historian, that “one of his vessels foundered before he reached
his port, and captors and captives were swallowed up in the
sea together. His own vessel survived, but many of his captives
sickened and died; and he himself was reserved for the time,
only to suffer a more terrible form of punishment. Though he
had lost more than half of the ill-gotten fruits of his expedition,
the profits which remained were still such as to encourage him
to a renewal of his enterprise. To this he devoted his whole fortune,
and, with three large vessels and many hundred men, he
once more descended upon the coast of Carolina.”[3]

Meanwhile, the dreary destiny of Combahee was to live alone.
We have heard so much of the inflexibility of the Indian character,
that we are apt to forget that these people are human; having,
though perhaps in a small degree, and in less activity, the same
vital passions, the same susceptibilities—the hopes, the fears, the
loves and the hates, which establish the humanity of the whites.
They are colder and more sterile,—more characterized by individuality
and self-esteem than any more social people; and these
characteristics are the natural and inevitable results of their habits
of wandering. But to suppose that the Indian is “a man
without a tear,” is to indulge in a notion equally removed from

poetry and truth. At all events, such an opinion is, to say the
least of it, a gross exaggeration of the fact.

Combahee, the Queen of Chiquola, had many tears. She was
a young wife;—the crime of De Ayllon had made her a young
widow. Of the particular fate of her husband she knew nothing;
and, in the absence of any certain knowledge, she naturally
feared the worst. The imagination, once excited by fear, is the
darkest painter of the terrible that nature has ever known. Still,
the desolate woman did not feel herself utterly hopeless. Daily
she manned her little bark, and was paddled along the shores of
the sea, in a vain search after that which could never more be
found. At other times she sat upon, or wandered along, the head-lands,
in a lonely and silent watch over those vast, dark, dashing
waters of the Atlantic, little dreaming that they had already long
since swallowed up her chief. Wan and wretched, the sustenance
which she took was simply adequate to the purposes of life.
Never did city maiden more stubbornly deplore the lost object of
her affections than did this single-hearted woman. But her prayers
and watch were equally unavailing. Vainly did she skirt the
shores in her canoe by day;—vainly did she build her fires, as a
beacon, to guide him on his home return by night. His people
had already given him up for ever; but love is more hopeful of
the object which it loves. She did not yet despair. Still she
wept, but still she watched; and when she ceased to weep, it was
only at moments when the diligence of her watch made her forgetful
of her tears.

The season was becoming late. The fresh and invigorating
breezes of September began to warn the tribes of the necessity of
seeking the shelter of the woods. The maize was already gathered
and bruised for the stocks of winter. The fruits of summer
had been dried, and the roots were packed away. The chiefs
regarded the condition of mind under which their Queen laboured
with increasing anxiety. She sat apart upon the highest hill that
loomed out from the shore, along the deep. She sat beneath the
loftiest palmetto. A streamer of fringed cotton was hung from its
top as a signal to the wanderer, should he once more be permitted
to behold the land, apprizing him where the disconsolate widow
kept her watch. The tribes looked on from a distance unwilling

to disturb those sorrows, which, under ordinary circumstances,
they consider sacred. The veneration which they felt
for their Queen increased this feeling. Yet so unremitting had
been her self-abandonment—so devoted and unchangeable her
daily employments, that some partial fears began to be entertained
lest her reason might suffer. She had few words now for
her best counsellors. These few words, it is true, were always
to the purpose, yet they were spoken with impatience, amounting
to severity. The once gentle and benignant woman had grown
stern. There was a stony inflexibility about her glance which
distressed the observer, and her cheeks had become lean and thin,
and her frame feeble and languid, in singular contrast with that
intense spiritual light which flashed, whenever she was addressed,
from her large black eyes.

Something must be done! such was the unanimous opinion of
the chiefs. Nay, two things were to be done. She was to be cured
of this affection; and it was necessary that she should choose
one, from among her “beloved men,”—one, who should take the
place of Chiquola. They came to her, at length, with this object.
Combahee was even then sitting upon the headland of St. Helena.
She looked out with straining eyes upon the sea. She had seen
a speck. They spoke to her, but she motioned them to be silent,
while she pointed to the object. It disappeared, like a thousand
others. It was some porpoise, or possibly some wandering grampus,
sending up his jets d'eau in an unfamiliar ocean. Long
she looked, but profitlessly. The object of her sudden hope had
already disappeared. She turned to the chiefs. They prostrated
themselves before her. Then, the venerable father, Kiawah,—
an old man who had witnessed the departure of an hundred and
twenty summers,—rose, and seating himself before her, addressed
her after the following fashion:

“Does the daughter of the great Ocketee, look into the grave
of the warrior that he may come forth because she looks?”

“He sleeps, father, for Combahee. He has gone forth to hunt
the deer in the blue land of Maneyto.”

“Good! he has gone. Is the sea a hunting land for the
brave Chiquola? Is he not also gone to the blue land of
spirits?”

“Know'st thou? Who has told Kiawah, the old father? Has
it come to him in a dream?”

“Chiquola has come to him.”

“Ah!”

“He is a hunter for Maneyto. He stands first among the hunters
in the blue forests of Maneyto. The smile of the Great Spirit
beckons him to the chase. He eats of honey in the golden tents
of the Great Spirit.”

“He has said? Thou hast seen?”

“Even so! Shall Kiawah say to Combahee the thing which
is not? Chiquola is dead!”

The woman put her hand upon her heart with an expression
of sudden pain. But she recovered herself with a little effort.

“It is true what Kiawah has said. I feel it here. But Chiquola
will come to Combahee?”

“Yea! He will come. Let my daughter go to the fountain
and bathe thrice before night in its waters. She will bid them
prepare the feast of flesh. A young deer shall be slain by the
hunters. Its meat shall be dressed, of that shall she eat, while
the maidens sing the song of victory, and dance the dance of rejoicing
around her. For there shall be victory and rejoicing.
Three days shall my daughter do this; and the night of the third
day shall Chiquola come to her when she sleeps. She shall hear
his voice, she shall do his bidding, and there shall be blessings.
Once more shall Combahee smile among her people.”

He was obeyed religiously. Indeed, his was a religious authority.
Kiawah was a famous priest and prophet among the
tribes of the sea coast of Carolina—in their language an Iawa,—
a man renowned for his supernatural powers. A human policy
may be seen in the counsels of the old man; but by the Indians
it was regarded as coming from a superior source. For three
days did Combahee perform her lustrations, as required, and
partake plentifully of the feast which had been prepared. The
third night, a canopy of green bushes was reared for her by the
sea side around the palmetto where she had been accustomed to
watch, and from which her cotton streamer was still flying. Thither
she repaired as the yellow moon was rising above the sea. It
rose, bright and round, and hung above her tent, looking down

with eyes of sad, sweet brilliance, like some hueless diamond,
about to weep, through the green leaves, and into the yet unclosed
eyes of the disconsolate widow. The great ocean all the while
kept up a mournful chiding and lament along the shores. It was
long before Combahee could sleep. She vainly strove to shut her
eyes. She could not well do so, because of her expectation, and
because of that chiding sea, and those sad eyes of the moon, big,
wide, down staring upon her. At length she ceased to behold the
moon and to hear the ocean; but, in place of these, towards the
rising of the morning star, she heard the voice of Chiquola, and
beheld the young warrior to whom her virgin heart had been
given. He was habited in loose flowing robes of blue, a bunch
of feathers, most like a golden sunbeam, was on his brow, bound
there by a circle of little stars. He carried a bow of bended silver,
and his arrows looked like darts of summer lightning. Truly,
in the eyes of the young widow, Chiquola looked like a very
god himself. He spoke to her in a language that was most like
a song. It was a music such as the heart hears when it first
loves and when hope is the companion of its affections. Never
was music in the ears of Combahee so sweet.

“Why sits the woman that I love beside the cold ocean? Why
does she watch the black waters for Chiquola? Chiquola is not
there.”

The breathing of the woman was suspended with delight. She
could not speak. She could only hear.

“Arise, my beloved, and look up at Chiquola.”

“Chiquola is with the Great Spirit. Chiquola is happy in the
blue forests of Maneyto;” at length she found strength for utterance.

“No! Chiquola is cold. There must be fire to warm Chiquola,
for he perished beneath the sea. His limbs are full of water.
He would dry himself. Maneyto smiles, around him are the blue
forests, he chases the brown deer, till the setting of the sun;
but his limbs are cold. Combahee will build him a fire of the
bones of his enemies, that the limbs of Chiquola may be made
warm against the winter.”

The voice ceased, the bright image was gone. In vain was it
that the woman, gathering courage in his absence, implored him

to return. She saw him no more, and in his place the red eye
of the warrior star of morning was looking steadfastly upon her.

But where were the enemies of Chiquola? The tribes were
all at peace. The war-paths upon which Chiquola had gone had
been very few, and the calumet had been smoked in token of
peace and amity among them all. Of whose bones then should
the fire be made which was to warm the limbs of the departed
warrior? This was a question to afflict the wisest heads of the
nation, and upon this difficulty they met, in daily council, from
the moment that the revelation of Chiquola was made known by
his widow. She, meanwhile, turned not once from her watch
along the waters where he had disappeared! For what did she
now gaze? Chiquola was no longer there! Ah! the fierce spirit
of the Indian woman had another thought. It was from that
quarter that the pale warriors came by when he was borne into
captivity. Perhaps, she had no fancy that they would again return.
It was an instinct rather than a thought, which made her
look out upon the waters and dream at moments that she had
glimpses of their large white-winged canoes.

Meanwhile, the Iawas and chief men sat in council, and the
difficulty about the bones of which the fire was to be made, continued
as great as ever. As a respite from this difficulty they debated
at intervals another and scarcely less serious question:

“Is it good for Combahee to be alone?”

This question was decided in the negative by an unanimous
vote. It was observed, though no argument seemed necessary,
that all the younger and more handsome chiefs made long speeches
in advocacy of the marriage of their Queen. It was also observed
that, immediately after the breaking up of the council, each
darted off to his separate wigwam, and put on his newest mocasins,
brightest leggins, his yellowest hunting shirt, and his most
gorgeous belt of shells. Each disposed his plumes after the fashion
of his own taste, and adjusted, with newer care, the quiver at
his back; and each strove, when the opportunity offered, to leap,
dance, run, climb, and shoot, in the presence of the lovely and
potent woman.

Once more the venerable Iawa presented himself before the
Queen.

“The cabin of my daughter has but one voice. There must
be another. What signs the Coonee Latee? (mocking-bird.)
He says, `though the nest be withered and broken, are there not
sticks and leaves; shall I not build another? Though the mate-wing
be gone to other woods, shall no other voice take up the strain
which I am singing, and barter with me in the music which is
love?' Daughter, the beloved men have been in council; and
they say, the nest must be repaired with newer leaves; and
the sad bird must sing lonely no longer. Are there not other
birds? Lo! behold them, my daughter, where they run and
bound, and sing and dance. Choose from these, my daughter,—
choose the noblest, that the noble blood of Ocketee may not perish
for ever.”

“Ah!”—she said impatiently—“but have the beloved men
found the enemies of Chiquola? Do they say, here are the
bones?”

“The Great Spirit has sent no light to the cabin of council.”

“Enough! when the beloved men shall find the bones which
were the enemies of Chiquola, then will the Coonee Latee take
a mate-wing to her cabin. It is not meet that Combahee should
build the fire for another hunter before she has dried the water
from the limbs of Chiquola!”

“The Great Spirit will smile on their search. Meanwhile, let
Combahee choose one from among our youth, that he may be
honoured by the tribe.”

“Does my father say this to the poor heart of Combahee?”

“It is good.”

“Take this,” she said, “to Edelano, the tall brother of Chiquola.
He is most like the chief. Bid him wear it on his
breast. Make him a chief among our people. He is the choice
of Combahee.”

She took from her neck as she spoke, a small plate of rudely
beaten native gold, upon which the hands of some native artist,
had, with a pointed flint or shell, scratched uncouth presentments
of the native deer, the eagle, and other objects of their frequent
observation.

“Give it him—to Edelano!”—she added; “but let him not
come to Combahee till the beloved men shall have said—these

are the bones of the enemies of Chiquola. Make of these the
fires which shall warm him.”

There was something so reasonable in what was said by the
mourning Queen, that the patriarch was silenced. To a certain
extent he had failed of his object. That was to direct her mind
from the contemplation of her loss by the substitution of another
in his place—the philosophy of those days and people, not unlike
that of our own, leading people to imagine that the most judicious
and successful method for consoling a widow is by making her a
wife again as soon as possible. Combahee had yielded as far as
could be required of her; yet still they were scarcely nearer to
the object of their desire: for where were the bones of Chiquola's
enemies to be found?—He who had no enemies! He, with
whom all the tribes were at peace? And those whom he had
slain,—where were their bodies to be found? They had long
been hidden by their friends in the forests where no enemy might
trace out their places of repose. As for the Spaniards—the white
men—of these the Indian sages did not think. They had come
from the clouds, perhaps,—but certainly, they were not supposed
to have belonged to any portion of the solid world to which they
were accustomed. As they knew not where to seek for the “pale
faces,” these were not the subjects of their expectation.

The only person to whom the proceedings, so far, had produced
any results, was the young warrior, Edelano. He became a
chief in compliance with the wish of Combahee, and, regarded as
her betrothed, was at once admitted into the hall of council, and
took his place as one of the heads and fathers of the tribe. His
pleasant duty was to minister to the wants and wishes of his
spouse, to provide the deer, to protect her cabin, to watch her
steps—subject to the single and annoying qualification, that he
was not to present himself conspicuously to her eyes. But how
could youthful lover—one so brave and ardent as Edelano—submit
to such interdict? It would have been a hard task to one far
less brave, and young, and ardent, than Edelano. With him it
was next to impossible. For a time he bore his exclusion manfully.
Set apart by betrothal, he no longer found converse or
association with the young women of the tribe; and his soul was
accordingly taken up with the one image of his Queen and future

spouse. He hung about her steps like a shadow, but she beheld
him not. He darted along the beach when she was gazing forth
upon the big, black ocean, but he failed to win her glance. He
sang, while hidden in the forest, as she wandered through its
glooms, the wildest and sweetest songs of Indian love and fancy;
but her ear did not seem to note any interruption of that sacred
silence which she sought. Never was sweeter or tenderer venison
placed by the young maidens before her, than that which
Edelano furnished; the Queen ate little and did not seem to note
its obvious superiority. The devoted young chief was in despair.
He knew not what to do. Unnoticed, if not utterly unseen by
day, he hung around her tent by night. Here, gliding by like a
midnight spectre, or crouching beneath some neighbouring oak or
myrtle, he mused for hours, catching with delighted spirit every
sound, however slight, which might come to his ears from within;
and occasionally renewing his fond song of devoted attachment,
in the hope that, amidst the silence of every other voice, his own
might be better heard. But the soughing of the sad winds and
the chafing of the waters against the sandy shores, as they reminded
the mourner of her loss, were enough to satisfy her vacant
senses, and still no token reached the unwearied lover that his
devotion had awakened the attention of the object to whom it was
paid.

Every day added to his sadness and his toils; until the effect
began to be as clearly visible on his person as on hers; and the
gravity of the sages became increased, and they renewed the inquiry,
more and more frequently together, “Where can the bones
of Chiquola's enemies be found?”

The answer to this question was about to be received from an
unexpected quarter. The sun was revolving slowly and certainly
while the affairs of the tribe seemed at a stand. The period
when he should cross the line was approaching, and the usual
storms of the equinox were soon to be apprehended. Of these
annual periods of storm and terror, the aborigines, through long
experience, were quite as well aware as a more book-wise people.
To fly to the shelter of the forests was the policy of the Indians
at such periods. We have already seen that they had been
for some time ready for departure. But Combahee gave no heed

to their suggestions. A superstitious instinct made them willing
to believe that the Great Spirit would interfere in his own good
time; and, at the proper juncture, bestow the necessary light for
their guidance. Though anxious, therefore, they did not press
their meditations upon those of their princess. They deferred,
with religious veneration, to her griefs. But their anxiety was
not lessened as the month of September advanced—as the days
became capricious,—as the winds murmured more and more
mournfully along the sandy shores, and as the waters of the sea
grew more blue, and put on their whiter crests of foam. The
clouds grew banked in solid columns, like the gathering wings of
an invading army, on the edges of the southern and southeastern
horizon. Sharp, shrill, whistling gusts, raised a warning anthem
through the forests, which sounded like the wild hymn of the advancing
storm. The green leaves had suddenly become yellow as in
the progress of the night, and the earth was already strewn with
their fallen honours. The sun himself was growing dim as with
sudden age. All around, in sky, sea and land, the presentments
were obvious of a natural but starling change. If the anxieties
of the people were increased, what were those of Edelano? Heedless
of the threatening aspects around her, the sad-hearted Combahee,
whose heaviest storm was in her own bosom, still wilfully
maintained her precarious lodge beneath the palmetto, on the
bleak head-land which looked out most loftily upon the sea. The
wind strewed the leaves of her forest tent upon her as she slept,
but she was conscious of no disturbance; and its melancholy
voice, along with that of the ocean, seemed to her to increase in
interest and sweetness as they increased in vigour. She heeded
not that the moon was absent from the night. She saw not that
black clouds had risen in her place, and looked down with visage
full of terror and of frowning. It did not move her fears that the
palmetto under which she lay, groaned within its tough coat of
bark, as it bent to and fro beneath the increasing pressure of the
winds. She was still thinking of the wet, cold form of the brave
Chiquola.

The gloom thickened. It was the eve of the 23d of September.
All day the winds had been rising. The ocean poured in upon
the shores. There was little light that day. All was fog, dense

fog, and a driving vapour, that only was not rain. The watchful
Edelano added to the boughs around the lodge of the Queen.
The chief men approached her with counsel to persuade her to
withdraw to the cover of the stunted thickets, so that she might be
secure. But her resolution seemed to have grown more firm, and
duly to increase in proportion to their entreaties. She had an
answer, which, as it appealed to their superstitions, was conclusive
to silence them.

“I have seen him. But last night he came to me. His brow
was bound about with a cloud, such as goes round the moon.
From his eye shot arrows of burning fire, like those of the storm.
He smiled upon me, and bade me smile. `Soon shalt thou warm
me, Combahee, with the blazing bones of mine enemies. Be of
good cheer—watch well that ye behold them where they lie. Thou
shalt see them soon.' Thus spoke the chief. He whispers to my
heart even now. Dost thou not hear him, Kiawah? He says
soon—it will be soon!”

Such an assurance was reason good why she should continue
her desolate and dangerous watch. The generous determination
of the tribe induced them to share it with her. But this they did
not suffer her to see. Each reared his temporary lodge in the
most sheltered contiguous places, under his favourite clump of
trees. Where the growth was stunted, and the thicket dense, little
groups of women and children were made to harbour in situations
of comparative security. But the warriors and brave men
of the tribe advanced along the shores to positions of such shelter
as they could find, but sufficiently nigh to their Queen to give her
the necessary assistance in moments of sudden peril. The more
devoted Edelano, presuming upon the prospective tie which was
to give him future privileges, quietly laid himself down behind the
isolated lodge of the princess, with a delight at being so near to
her, that made him almost forgetful of the dangers of her exposed
situation.

He was not allowed to forget them, however! The storm increased
with the progress of the night. Never had such an
equinoctial gale been witnessed, since the memory of Kiawah.
The billows roared as if with the agony of so many wild monsters
under the scourge of some imperious demon. The big trees of

the forest groaned, and bent, and bowed, and were snapped off,
or torn up by the roots; while the seas, surcharged with the waters
of the Gulf, rushed in upon the land and threatened to over-whelm
and swallow it. The waves rose to the brow of the head-land,
and small streams came flashing around the lodge of Combahee.
Her roof-tree bent and cracked, but, secure in its lowliness,
it still stood; but the boughs were separated and whirled
away, and, at the perilous moment, the gallant Edelano, who had
forborne, through a natural timidity, to come forward until the
last instant, now darted in, and with a big but fast beating heart,
clasped the woman of his worship to his arms and bore her, as if
she had been a child, to the stunted thickets which gave a shelter
to the rest. But, even while they fled—amidst all the storm—a
sudden sound reached the ears of the Queen, which seemed to
awaken in her a new soul of energy. A dull, booming noise,
sullen, slow rolling, sluggish,—something like that of thunder,
rolled to their ears, as if it came from off the seas. No thunder
had fallen from the skies in the whole of the previous tempest.
No lightning had illuminated to increase the gloom. “What is
that sound,” said the heart of Combahee, filled with its superstitious
instincts, “but the thunder of the pale-faces—the sudden
thunder which bellows from the sides of their big-winged canoes?”

With this conviction in her mind, it was no longer possible for
Edelano to detain her. Again and again did that thunder reach
their ears, slowly booming along the black precipices of the ocean.
The warriors and chiefs peered along the shores, with straining
eyes, seeking to discover the hidden objects; and among these,
with dishevelled hair, quivering lips, eyes which dilated with the
wildest fires of an excited, an inspired soul, the form of Combahee
was conspicuous. Now they saw the sudden flash—now they
heard the mournful roar of the minute gun—and then all was
silent.

“Look closely, Kiawah—look closely, Edelano; for what said
the ghost of Chiquola?—`watch well! Soon shall ye see where
the bones of my enemies lie.'—And who were the enemies of
Chiquola? Who but the pale-faces? It is their thunder that
we hear—the thunder of their big canoes. Hark, ye hear it now,
—and hear ye no cries as of men that drown and struggle?

Hark! Hark! There shall be bones for the fire ere the day
opens upon us.”

And thus they watched for two hours, which seemed ages, running
along the shores, waving their torches, straining the impatient
sight, and calling to one another through the gloom. The
spirit of the bravest warrior quailed when he beheld the fearless
movements of Combahee, down to the very edges of the ocean
gulf, defying the mounting waves, that dashed their feathery jets
of foam, twenty feet above them in the air. The daylight came
at last, but with it no relaxation of the storm. With its light
what a picture of terror presented itself to the eyes of the warriors—what
a picture of terror—what a prospect of retribution!
There came, head on shore, a noble vessel, still struggling, still
striving, but predestined to destruction. Her sails were flying in
shreds, her principal masts were gone, her movement was like
that of a drunken man—reeling to and fro—the very mockery of
those winds and waters, which, at other periods, seem only to have
toiled to bear her and to do her biddling. Two hundred screaming
wretches clung to her sides, and clamoured for mercy to the
waves and shores. Heaven flung back the accents, and their
screams now were those of defiance and desperation. Combahee
heard their cries, detected their despair, distinguished their pale
faces. Her eyes gleamed with the intelligence of the furies.
Still beautiful, her wan, thin face,—wan and thin through long
and weary watching, exposure and want of food—looked like the
loveliness of some fallen angel. A spirit of beauty in the highest
degree—a morning star in brightness and brilliance,—but marked
by the passions of demoniac desolation, and the livid light of
some avenging hate. Her meagre arms were extended, and waved,
as if in doom to the onward rushing vessel.

“Said I not,” she cried to her people,—“Said I not that there
should be bones for the fire, which should warm the limbs of
Chiquola?—See! these are they. They come. The warrior
shall be no longer cold in the blue forests of the good Maneyto.”

While one ship rushed headlong among the breakers, another
was seen, bearing away, at a distance, under bare poles. These
were the only surviving vessels of the armament of Lucas de
Ayllon. All but these had gone down in the storm, and that which

was now rushing to its doom bore the ill-fated De Ayllon himself.
The historian remarks—(see History of South Carolina, p. 11,)
—“As if the retributive Providence had been watchful of the
place, no less than of the hour of justice, it so happened that, at the
mouth of the very river where his crime had been committed, he
was destined to meet his doom.” The Indian traditions go farther.
They say, that the form of Chiquola was beheld by Combahee,
standing upon the prow of the vessel, guiding it to the
place set apart by the fates for the final consummation of that destiny
which they had allotted to the perfidious Spaniards. We
will not contend for the tradition; but the coincidence between
the place of crime and that of retribution, was surely singular
enough to impress, not merely upon the savage, but also upon the
civilized mind, the idea of an overruling and watchful justice.
The breakers seized upon the doomed ship, as the blood-hounds
seize upon and rend the expiring carcass of the stricken deer.
The voice of Combahee was heard above the cries of the drowning
men. She bade her people hasten with their arrows, their
clubs, their weapons of whatever kind, and follow her to the
beach. She herself bore a bow in her hand, with a well filled
quiver at her back; and as the vessel stranded, as the winds and
waves rent its planks and timbers asunder, and billows bore the
struggling and drowning wretches to the shore, the arrows of
Combahee were despatched in rapid execution. Victim after
victim sunk, stricken, among the waters, with a death of which
he had had no fear. The warriors strode, waist deep, into the
sea, and dealt with their stone hatchets upon the victims. These,
when despatched, were drawn ashore, and the less daring were
employed to heap them up, in a vast and bloody mound, for the
sacrifice of fire.

The keen eyes of Combahee distinguished the face of the perfidious
De Ayllon among the struggling Spaniards. His richer
dress had already drawn upon him the eyes of an hundred warriors,
who only waited with their arrows until the inevitable billows
should bear him within their reach.

“Spare him!” cried the widow of Chiquola. They understood
her meaning at a glance, and a simultaneous shout attested
their approbation of her resolve.

“The arrows of fire!” was the cry. The arrows of reed
and flint were expended upon the humble wretches from the
wreck. The miserable De Ayllon little fancied the secret of this
forbearance. He grasped a spar which assisted his progress, and
encouraged in the hope of life, as he found himself spared by the
shafts which were slaying all around him, he was whirled onward
by the breakers to the shore. The knife touched him not
—the arrow forbore his bosom, but all beside perished. Two
hundred spirits were dismissed to eternal judgment, in that bloody
hour of storm and retribution, by the hand of violence. Senseless
amidst the dash of the breakers,—unconscious of present or
future danger, Lucas De Ayllon came within the grasp of the
fierce warriors, who rushed impatient for their prisoner neck deep
into the sea. They bore him to the land. They used all the
most obvious means for his restoration, and had the satisfaction to
perceive that he at length opened his eyes. When sufficiently
recovered to become aware of what had been done for him, and
rushing to the natural conclusion that it had all been done in
kindness, he smiled upon his captors, and, addressing them in his
own language, endeavoured still further, by signs and sounds, to
conciliate their favour.

“Enough!” said the inflexible Combahee, turning away from
the criminal with an expression of strong disgust—

“Enough! wherefore should we linger? Are not the limbs
of Chiquola still cold and wet? The bones of his enemies are
here—let the young men build the sacrifice. The hand of Combahee
will light the fire arrow!”

A dozen warriors now seized upon the form of De Ayllon.
Even had he not been enfeebled by exhaustion, his struggles
would have been unavailing. Equally unavailing were his
prayers and promises. The Indians turned with loathing from
his base supplications, and requited his entreaties and tears with
taunts, and buffetings, and scorn! They bore him, under the instructions
of Combahee, to that palmetto, looking out upon the
sea, beneath which, for so many weary months, she had maintained
her lonely watch. The storm had torn her lodge to atoms,
but the tree was unhurt. They bound him to the shaft with
withes of grape vines, of which the neighbouring woods had their

abundance. Parcels of light-wood were heaped about him,
while, interspersed with other bundles of the resinous pine, were
piled the bodies of his slain companions. The only living man,
he was the centre of a pile composed of two hundred, whose fate
he was now prepared to envy. A dreadful mound, it rose conspicuous,
like a beacon, upon the head-land of St. Helena; he,
the centre, with his head alone free, and his eyes compelled to survey
all the terrible preparations which were making for his doom.
Layers of human carcasses, followed by layers of the most inflammable
wood and brush, environed him with a wall from which,
even had he not been bound to the tree, he could never have effected
his own extrication. He saw them pile the successive layers,
sparing the while no moment which he could give to expostulation,
entreaty, tears, prayers, and promises. But the workmen
with steady industry pursued their task. The pile rose,—
the human pyramid was at last complete!

Combahee drew nigh with a blazing torch in her hand. She
looked the image of some avenging angel. She gave but a single
glance upon the face of the criminal. That face was one of
an agony which no art could hope to picture. Hers was inflexible
as stone, though it bore the aspect of hate, and loathing, and
revenge! She applied the torch amid the increased cries of the
victim, and as the flame shot up, with a dense black smoke to
heaven, she turned away to the sea, and prostrated herself beside
its billows. The shouts of the warriors who surrounded the
blazing pile attested their delight; but, though an hundred throats
sent up their united clamours, the one piercing shriek of the burning
man was superior, and rose above all other sounds. At length
it ceased! all ceased! The sacrifice was ended. The perfidy
of the Spaniard was avenged.

The sudden hush declared the truth to the Queen. She started
to her feet. She exclaimed:—

“Thou art now blessed, Chiquola! Thou art no longer cold
in the blue forests of Maneyto. The bones of thy enemies have
warmed thee. I see thee spring gladly upon the chase;—thine
eye is bright above the hills;—thy voice rings cheerfully along
the woods of heaven. The heart of Combahee is very glad that
thou art warm and happy.”

A voice at her side addressed her. The venerable Kiawah,
and the young Edelano were there.

“Now, thou hast done well, my daughter!” said the patriarch.
“Chiquola is warm and happy in heaven. Let the lodge of Combahee
be also warm in the coming winter.”

“Ah! but there is nothing to make it warm here!” she replied,
putting her hand upon her heart.

“The bird will have its mate, and build its nest, and sing a
new song over its young.”

“Combahee has no more song.”

“The young chief will bring song into her lodge. Edelano will
build a bright fire upon the hearth of Combahee. Daughter!
the chiefs ask, `Is the race of Ocketee to perish?' ”

“Combahee is ready,” answered the Queen, patiently, giving
her hand to Edelano. But, even as she spoke, the muscles of
her mouth began to quiver. A sudden groan escaped her, and,
staggering forward, she would have fallen but for the supporting
arms of the young chief. They bore her to the shade beneath
a tree. They poured some of their primitive specifics into her
mouth, and she revived sufficiently to bid the Patriarch unite her
with Edelano in compliance with the will of the nation. But the
ceremony was scarcely over, before a second and third attack
shook her frame with death-like spasms. They were, indeed,
the spasms of death—of a complete paralysis of mind and body.
Both had been too severely tried, and the day of bridal was also
that of death. Edelano was now the beloved chief of the nation,
but the nation was without its Queen. The last exciting scene,
following hard upon that long and lonely widow-watch which she
had kept, had suddenly stopped the currents of life within her
heart, as its currents of hope and happiness had been cut off before.
True to Chiquola while he lived, to the last moment of her
life she was true. The voice of Edelano had called her his wife,
but her ears had not heard his speech, and her voice had not replied.
Her hand had been put within his, but no other lips had
left a kiss where those of Chiquola had been. They buried her
in a lovely but lonely grove beside the Ashepoo. There, the
Coonee-Latee first repairs to sing in the opening of spring, and
the small blue violet peeps out from her grave as if in homage to

her courage and devotion. There the dove flies for safety when
the fowler pursues, and the dee finds a quiet shelter when the beagles
pant on the opposite side of the stream. The partridge hides
her young under the long grass which waves luxuriantly above
the spot, and the eagle and hawk look down, watching from the
tree-tops in vain. The spirit of the beautiful Princess presides
over the place as some protecting Divinity, and even the white
man, though confident in a loftier and nobler faith, still finds
something in the spot which renders it mysterious, and makes
him an involuntary worshipper! Ah! there are deities which
are common to all human kind, whatever be the faith which they
maintain. Love is of this sort, and truth, and devotion; and of
these the desolate Combahee had a Christian share, though the
last deed of her life be not justified by the doctrine of Christian
retribution. Yet, look not, traveller, as in thy bark thou sailest
beside the lovely headlands of Saint Helena, at the pile of human
sacrifice which thou seest consuming there. Look at the
frail lodge beneath the Palmetto, or wander off to the dark
groves beside the,Ashepoo and think of the fidelity of that widowed
heart.