University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
Natanis and Sabatis.

The two brother-chiefs stood a few moments in silence, watching the
receding canoe as it went on its swift course leaving behind it a silvery wake
of dancing waters; and when they saw the white Hunter disappear in the
shadowy curve of the river, beneath overhanging trees, in pursuit of the
stag which the current was bearing away upon its bosom, they turned and
gazed upon each other. The forests of the new world have never given
birth to two nobler sons than these two warrior brothers. Noble in their
persons, commanding in their carriage and height, native majesty seemed
enthroned upon their kingly brows. Erect, bold and fearless, with an eye
like the eagle's, and his head set upon his arched neck like a stag's, his
dignified port tempered by youthful grace, Natanis stood before his brother
a model for an Indian Hercules, or, better, the model for a statue which
should combine the strength of the Nemean hero with the elegance of Apollo.
His high forehead surmounted by his coronet of Eagle's feathers and
his towering scarlet plume; his arched brows spanning an eye clear as light
and full of courage; his Roman nose, chiselled without a fault, even to the
thin, delicate nostril; his expressive, well-shaped mouth which ever betrayed
most eloquently by the slightest workings of the bright vermillion lips
the least emotion of his soul, with the spirit of intelligence and feeling that
shone through all, presented a countenance such as seldom meets the eye,
save among the proud, independant, chieftains of the Indian races. His
panther's skin, depending from his shoulders, leaving the right arm and breast
exposed and hanging like a mantle down to the knee, with the firm manner
in which he stood, like a pillar that may not be moved his arm extended
and grasping his bow, were in perfect harmony with the whole man, and
completed a striking picture of that native independence, and physical dignity
characteristic of the Indian warrior.

The Sagamore was of a more powerful make, without the grace which
relieved the muscular strength of his brother. He had none of the Apollo
in the the strong outlines of his massive frame. He was a savage Hercules,
gigantic, yet symmetrical; and looked as if he could slay lions by
pressing his knee upon their chests, and rending their jaws apart with his
hands. His countenance expressed none of that quiet dignity and nobleness
of nature which characterized the loftier features of Scar et Feather.
His brow was heavy and very massive, with large, quick, fiery, gleaming
black eyes, ever restlessly moving beneath their deep coverts. His complexion
was darker and coarser than that of Natanis, and his features stronger
and more heavily moulded. His nose indicated great strength of passions
and his mouth, full and large, betrayed the existence of a character
daring and ferocious. In a word, there was in the face of this chief, with
all its dignity of outline, an expression which repelled confidence at first
sight, and inspired the opposite sentiments of mistrust and dislike. His
cheeks were striped with blue and red paint, drawn in such lines as would
increase the natural ferociousness of his aspect. His height, bearing and
person were, nevertheless commanding; exhibiting the native majesty of
form and stature peculiar to the family of the Abanaquis, from which he,
as well as Natanis, had sprung.

`Brother,' said the Sagamore in a deep, guttural tone, `you are a great
brave, and your warriors are as the trees of the forest. Yet you hold dominion
over but a third of the hunting-grounds our father swayed.'

`Egos-mah! Natanis hears his brother's words. They are true. What
does the Sagamore mean to say more?'

`That Natanis is not a warrior unconcerned to let the pale-face dwell
where his fathers' lodges stood! he is not the chief to let the pale-faces'
white-winged ships sail upon the rivers that once flowed through his fathers'
hunting-grounds, when he can regain them! does Natanis behold the silvery
peak of yonder mountain piercing the skies? the boy of fifteen years can
remember when, within the eye's wide range from its summit, not the
smoke of a white man's cabin curled upward to the clouds; now the huts
of the white woodman are fast approaching its base; and ere the boy be
gray, from yonder peak the eye of the solitary and homeless Indian shall
behold, from horizon to horizon no where ascending the smoke of a lodge
belonging to his tribe. The axe of the pale-face will have levelled his forests,
and the cities of the pale-face will stand in the vallies and by the rivers!
Does my brother hear?' asked Sabatis with a dark frown.

`I hear,' answered Natanis; `I know that the white man covets our lands,
and that he has many leagues of our hunting-grounds! these were not sold
him by Natanis, but by our father. Of Natanis, no pale-face shall ever have
a bow's span of land, save for his grave. What he received from his father,
he will keep.'

`Aio! well spoken, Natanis. Now, we are one. I find in your breast an
echo to my own thoughts. But let Natanis open his ears, while his brother
speaks. The power of the white warriors increases. The winged ships at
every wind bring pale-faces from the rising sun. They must have more
lands! Their Sagamore at Boston came to me two moons ago, and asked to
buy lands for gold? I refused him!'

`You did well, brother,' said Natanis with pride. `So came to me a
messenger from the same white Chief. I filled a horn with earth, from the
grave of our father beneath my lodge, and bade him say to his chief that
Natanis never sold the ashes of his ancestors!'

A slight emotion of noble feeling, such as a sentiment like this should
awaken, seemed to elevate the expression of the Sagamore's countenance,
as he gazed approvingly upon his brother.

`Then, brother, we are one,' he said with emphasis. `We are not friends
to the Pale-faces?' This was spoken with a searching look of inquiry.

`I am neither their friend nor their foe, brother. Our father smoked the
calumet of peace with their great Sagmore at Boston, and they are not our
enemies.'

`They are mine,' answered the Sagamore sternly and vindictively. `Our
father buried the hatchet, but I will unearth it and sharpen it! Sabatis can
never sleep while the axe of the white woodman rings from afar in his ears,
and he knows the forests which sheltered his fore-fathers are falling to the
earth, emblems of our our own fall and ruin! No, Natanis, I am the foe of
the white-man, the haughty invader of our hunting-grounds! the desecrator
of our forest homes!'

`Yet you say, you are the friend of the English?'

`Dubel dock! The English are beyond the St. Lawrence, brother. Their
lodges, and their Sagamore are upon the rock of Quebec! The English
have not taken our lands from us. On the contrary, they are at war with
the Pale-faces—the Bostonees,[1] who have robbed us of our inheritance and
are daily making invasions upon what remains. I am not hostile to the
English! They are a great and powerful nation whose lodges are far off.—

We have nothing to fear from them. The Bostonees are our foes, and the
English are their foes, therefore should we be the friends of the English.'

`You speak of war between them, brother! with this we have nothing to
do. Whichever conquers, will be equally our foe, and equally strive to possess
our lands. If the English are conquerors, and take the lands of the
Bostonees, they will next want ours, like these. Let us not mingle in the
quarrel, brother.'

`Saw-got!' I have already done it. I have pledged myself to be the friend
of the English Sagamore. He has sent me great presents, and has promised
to give me back all my hunting grounds if he conquers the Pale-faces
who hold them. Now, brother, the same offers he will make you! Behold
here are some of the presents I have received!' and the chief unfolded the
otter-skin to display his gifts. `These I bring to thee as a pledge of what
thou shalt hereafter receive. Behold! here are sharp spear heads of shining
steel, barbed arrow-heads, glittering medals, a coronet of silver, medals
of gold, and bracelets of precious stone.'

`For such trinkets as these is Sabatis bought?' cried Scarlet Feather contemptuously,
glancing at them, and then turning his eyes scornfully
away.

`Ou-wa! These are but trifles to what I have, brother,' answered Sabatis
frowning darkly, and looking disappointed at the indifference of his brother
to what had dazzled his more savage eye; though, as we have before said,
these trinkets were not brought as a present for Scarlet Feather, but only
offered to him as an after-thought to help conceal the true nature of his
mission.

`You spoke to me of advantage, brother,' said Natanis. `These gew-gaws
tempt me not!' They will please a woman!'

`See! These are spear-heads and arrow-head of steel!'

`They tempt me not. What advantage didst thou speak of, a while
ago?'

`Have I not told thee?—the restoration of thy hunting-grounds.'

When I want them, I and my warriors shall recover them. I would not
follow the noblest deer that ever roamed in the forest, one bound upon lands
made mine by the British bayonet!'

`Saw-got! If thou wert not my mother's son, I would quarrel with thee! but,
peace be between us! know then, Natanis, I am to take sides with the
British. Swear to me that you will not take part, thou and thy warriors
with the Bostonees!'

`That I will swear most cheerfully, brother. I am not in want of gold
that I should sell my warlike independence even to these, though I have
towards them more friendly feelings than I have towards the English. Dost
thou not remember that our father in one of his hunting expeditions beyond
the mountains of the north encountered a white Hunter, an Englishman
from the Canadas. He found him torn by a bear and dying for want of succor.
Our father took him to his lodge, bound up his wounds, and hospitably
entertained him until he recovered; and when he was once more strong
he sent two of his people with him, to guide him to the white-man's lodges
on the Chaudiere. When the white man came among his own people, he
invited his guides into the lodge of the Sagamore, on the pretence of refreshing
and rewarding them; and taking advantage of their confidence
they took them captive and sent them to Quebec bound as prisoners,
whence one escaped, (theother having died) to tell the shameful tale of
English treachery.'

I heard the tale. But 'tis nothing. So would the Bostonee have done.
They speak one tongue, and their fathers dwelt in the same lodge under the
same great Sagamore.'

`Haar what the Bostonee did do. Three winter's ago, I was hunting on

the lower Kennebis. The doe I was in pursuit of, leaped from a precipice,
and before I could check my speed, I followed and fell many feet, and lay
there insensible and bruised from the fall, I know not how long. When I
came to myself, I was lying upon a bear-skin in the lodge of a white-hunter—of
a Bostonee. He was watching over me with the gentleness of a
maiden who watches the couch of her sleeping lover. Ten days I was his
guest, and when I left to seek the lodges of my people he accompanied me,
taking me in his own canoe till the smoke of my lodge was in sight. He then
said to me,

`Chief, when next you meet a white man in your hunting-grounds in distress,
remember me and succor him, even though he hath slain they brother!
In me, you behold Kresley the Fish-Spearer!'

`And who was he?' demanded Sabatis impatiently.

`I had the year before, with an arrow in shooting at a deer, by accident
slain his brother!' answered Natanis impressively. `Now judge you, broth
er,' he added after a few moments silence, `between the English of Canada,
and the generous Bostonee Hunter.'

`And for this only, you are hostile to one people, and a friend to the
other?'

`I am willing my tribe should be judged by any one of my people in it,'
answered the young chief proudly.

`At this moment Sharp Knife landed a few yards below them, with the
dead stag in the boat. The Sagamore approached him, and briefly informed
him of the issue of his conversation with his brother.

`Well, Chief,' said the Hunter, `if he can't be prevailed on, and is so
prejudiced, why, the only way we can do, is to let him alone and keep on
our way. The moon will be up soon. He had better suspect, than know
the truth, as he might possibly put some obstacle in our way; and we have
not an hour to lose. I had rather have lost my rifle than fallen in with
him!'

`I am resolved, when the moon rises, to take leave of him and proceed
down the river. After a mile or two, we can take to the forests and double
so as to gain a point above him, and then take to the river again! we shall
have to pass full near the lodges of Neridgewecs to do this!'

`This will be our only course. It is quite likely he is by this time satisfied
that your only object in coming here, was to get him to take part in the
quarrel. I don't think he will suspect us; for it is impossible he can yet
know the truth; not the fastest runner could have got up the river in advance
of us. So let us deceive him by putting back awhile, and then keep
on our course again as fast as we can move forward by water and trail.'

The course here suggested, was decided on. The Sagamore approached
his brother, and soon afterwards took leave of him, the parting being cold
and distrustful on both sides. They then reentered their boat, Scarlet
Feather accompanying them to the bank; and just as the moon appeared
above the forest-llne in the eastern horizon, the canoe floated into the stream,
and, propelled by the strong arm of the tall Hunter, shot rapidly down the
tide, and was soon lost to the gaze of the young Chieftain in the gloomy
shadows of the overhanging shores.

Natanis remained standing for some moments where his brother had last
parted from him, his arms folded across his breast, his face thoughtful, and
his manner grave.

`This is a strange visit of Sabatis to me!' he said, in a slow reflecting
tone. `There is something lies deeper than the surface I have had shown
me! my brother came not thus far from his own hunting grounds to ask
me what he knew before, and then to go back again as he came. Their
canoe was standing up the river, and but for seeing me here, I am sure it
would have kept on its upward course. There is, perhaps, treachery meant

towards me. Sabatis loves me not; and would readily sacrifice me to his
own ambition. His visit in this quarter is not to see me, alone, else why
did he make me no definite proposition? It is clear my presence here was
unlooked for by both him and Sharp Knite, and their embarrassment I could
read in their looks and efforts to ingratiate me. Nor could they have known
my hunting lodge was here. Not one of my own warriors knows it, nor
hath any one crossed my trail the three days I have been here. My presence
here is known only to one!'

And he pronounced the last word his face assumed an expression of tenderness
and gentle pride, and looking towards the moon he said, with lively
emotion,

`It is time I sought again the lodge of Willewa. For love's sake, might I
have answered the white Hunter, am I here in the huntinfi-grounds of the
Nerigewees! for the sake of the beautiful Pearl of the Eye, is the hunting-lodge
of Natanis pitched in the sight of the smokes of a tribe hostile to his
fathers!'

As he spoke he turned from the spot and advanced towards his lodge.—
As he came near it, he saw standing before it a young female who, while
he was gazing down the river after the departing Sagamore, had crossed
the stream above, in a light bark propelled by her own hand, and landed
near his cabin, which she approached with shrinking, yet anxiously hurried
steps.

`Willewa!' he exclaimed, recognizing her, for the moon shed her radiance
full upon the spot where she stood.

`Natanis! Pardon me! I came hither to—'

He interrupted the tremulous, musical tones with which she would have
hurredly explained her errand, by pressing her to his manly breast, and
saying, smilingly,

`What need I care, fair Peal of my Eyes, what brought thee hither, so I
behold thee, and know thou art present with me? Comest thou, doubtless,
to chide Natanis for loitering when he should have been on his way to meet
thee at the Doe's fountain beyond the river, as he promised last night when
he parted from thee there!' and again he pressed the graceful Indian girl to
his heart; and then holding her back, gazed by the moonlight upon her
lovely olive brow, and ingenious countenance, over which grateful love, and
maidenly modesty, played charmingly.

`Natanis, I bring thee strange, and weighty news!' she said withdrawing
herself with sweet, native dignity from his ardent gaze.

`What, dear Willewa? Has thy pet doe escaped? or the singing bird I
gave thee flown away to its fellows in the wood? or—'

`Nay, Natanis, I have more serious news than this,' answered the indian
maiden impressively.

`Then I will hear thee tell what makes thy warbling tones so sad to-night.
Sit down in my lodge, for thy heart throbs like a fawn's that has been pursued!
There is my mantle,' he said taking the panther's skin from his shoulders,
and throwing it down upon the floor of his lodge.

No, not in thy lodge, Natanis,' she said with blushing embarrassment.—
`Here, without by the door in the fair moonlight!'

`Then here in the fair moonlight, sweet Pearl of my Eyes!' said the lover
playfully; and taking the skin from the lodge, he placed it for her upon
the ground outside. `Now what have those little talking cherries to say?'
he said touching her lips lightly with his forefinger.

But ere we listen to what the beautiful Willewa has to reveal to her noble
lover, which brought her at that hour alone, to seek him at his lodge,
we will tell who this maiden was. Allusion has already been made to the
tribe of Norigewees as having their national lodges not far from where
Natanis had planted his own hunting cabin, and as being hostile to him and

his tribe. This people were once the most warlike and imperious in all the
East. Their tribe had originally, in centuries past, belonged to the Tarratine
and Abanaquis races, from which all the inferior tribes in Maine had
also sprung. The Norigewees were a powerful Tarratine family which had
rebelled under a younger brother of the Tarratine King, and never being
subdued, had increased to become a distinct and powerful tribe. Its sway
extended over the vast region between the falls of the Kennebbis, and the
mountains of the northern wilderness; and its chiefs were all distinguished
for their warlike courage. The feud which existed from its very origin between
this tribe and the equally powerful families of the Tarratine's and
Abanaquis, kept alive in all three nations a spirit of war, and an hereditary
quarrel. The Tarratine and Abanaquir chiefs were by no means disposed
to acknowledge the independance of a revolted tribe, though three hundred
years had elapsed since the original ogence; nor was the haughty rebel
ceieftain disposed to yield submission to a power that was no stronger than
himself.

This state of hostile feeling prevented all intercourse between the parties,
and the warriors of both families only met in the hunt, to convert the
hunting-field into a battle plain.

It was on such an occasion as this not long before the opening of our
story, thht Natanis chanced to see Willewa the beauteous daughter of the
proud Nerijewca chieftain Canassa! But we have the further development
of this love-passage to the next chaptor.