 | CHAPTER XI. The Shoshonee Valley |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
Eternal King! And thy mysterious steps
Are o'er the trackless deep. Oh, might I ask,
Why thou hast stored such fountains fathomless
Of love? why woven countless thrilling ties
Of exquisite and unnamed tenderness,
Within a heart ordained to break in death!
M. P. F.
The Czarina had already made some leagues down
the Oregon, and the ships and Astoria were out of
sight, when the captives were delivered from the suffocating
torment, inflicted by two brutal sailors, who
held handkerchiefs in their mouths, so as only to allow
them respiration, while two others held them fast
in their arms. The ruffians disappeared, left them
in a little interior cabin, and bolted the door behind
them.
Jessy comprehended in a moment, that wailing, and
struggle with their destiny, and frantic grief, would
be alike unavailing to mitigate their disaster. Beside,
her heart had been exhausted by her recent agonies
to such a degree, as to blunt her keener perceptions,
in view of this new source of wretchedness.
Through a kind provision of our nature, we can neither
enjoy, or suffer beyond a certain degree. All
farther is insensibility. Her recent cup of grief had
been so full, that it could contain no new measures of
sorrow. Despair first brought supine submission; and
the ship had already touched the tumultuous billows
beyond the mouth of the Oregon, before either of the
orphans had uttered a word. Clasped in each other's
arms, their grief had the character of mute and inexpressible
agony. The sensation of tossing on the sea,
though never experienced by either before, told them
but too plainly what was their position. The dim
light from their little window and sky light panes was
waning; and the heavy roll of the sea and entire
darkness came upon them together. The fortitude
of despair, and the indignant energy of a strong mind,
slowly returning to a full consciousness of the new
outrage practised upon her, began to supply Jessy
with thoughts and words. She gently unlocked the
embracing arms of Katrina, and placed the sobbing
girl on the plank seat by her side. She kissed her
repeatedly, and spoke to her in an assumed tone of
soothing calmness. `My dear companion in sorrow,'
she said, `all is not yet lost, so long as we are innocent,
and can place our confidence in our ever-present
heavenly Father. Grief and weeping will avail
us nothing. God has appeared for me, and brought
deliverance in a case, apparently as hopeless as this.
Let us be wise, and call into exercise all our powers,
while we invoke the aid of the Almighty. I charge
you to imitate my example, to be as sparing as possible
above all, let us never be separated a moment from
each other, while we have life.'
The affectionate Katrina threw her arms anew
round her neck, watering it with a shower of tears.
For a few moments her grief was boisterous and irrepressible.
But the soothing persuasions of Jessy
calmed her. She gradually restrained her sobbing,
crossed herself, told the beads of her rosary, looked
upwards in the darkness, and promised to act implicitly
according to these directions. Both again fed
in silence upon their gloomy reflections.
They had been at sea, perhaps, an hour, when the
cabin door was unbolted; and Baptiste, with insolent
satisfaction upon his countenance, presented himself
before them, with a lamp and a tray, on which were
various refreshments. He had not forgotten his usual
obsequious politeness. He wished them bon voyage,
and felt himself infiniment hereux, that he was appointed
to attend them. He proceeded in his usual
jargon of mixed French and English, to instruct them,
what a happy condition awaited them. They were
bound, he told them, to a paradise. Messieurs, the
officers, were most charming gentlemen. Their old
friends, Julius and Hatch, were on board. They had
plenty of stores. They must enjoy themselves in another
fashion here, from what was possible among the
savages. He hoped to have the infinite satisfaction
of seeing them happy. To this end he had brought
them supper. As he said this, he sat his tray on a
little circular table, manifestly disconcerted at the
contemptuous silence, which Jessy maintained towards
him. A slight suffusion colored his sallow and
impudent face, as he stood bowing to persons, who
deigned not the slightest mark of recognition in reply.
After a few moments of awkward hesitation,
he retired, muttering `sacre bleu! You are dem forouche
find your tongue again, after leet time, sacre!'
Tea, meats, fish, bread and wine were before them;
but beside, that they began sensibly to feel the motion
of the sea, it may be readily imagined, that they had
little inclination for supper. It remained untouched;
and the desolate captives relapsed into a sad silence,
interrupted only by an ejaculation interpreted by
starting tears. An interval of some time ensued, before
their cabin was again entered. Captain Orlow
then introduced himself. His manner was that of affected
and proud humility. He mentioned his name,
and that of his ship, and explained some of the circumstances
of the intended voyage. His conversation
was in French, which he spoke with ease and
fluency. He regretted, that a voyage in those seas
must be unpleasant to ladies, notwithstanding all his
efforts to render them comfortable. If any were
wanting, which his means could supply, he hoped,
they would so far honor, and oblige him, as to let him
know their wishes. He feared, from seeing their
supper untouched, that they were suffering from sea
sickness, a circumstance of discomfort, that would soon
pass away, with much more unmeaning commonplace
of the same sort.
During this tedious harangue, Jessy had leisure to
take a general survey of him, on whom, apparently,
her destiny depended. His appearance was not destitute
of nobleness. In society he would have been
called handsome; and she remarked with a gleam of
joy, that traces of feeling and humanity were not
wholly obliterated from his countenance. Alternations
of suffusion and paleness passed over it, indicating,
that shame, in the consciousness of his outrages
and base purposes, had not been entirely overcome.
It was enough in their forlorn case to banish absolute
despair. Perhaps he might be inspired with relentings.
them from the ultimate purposes of Julius.
She summoned all her energy of self-possession, to
answer him with calmness and discretion. She told
him, that she was not wholly bereft of hope, in finding
herself addressed by a person, who seemed to have
known the manners of a gentleman, instead of receiving
the greeting of a ruffian, which she expected, and
for which they had prepared themselves.
Pride and wrath flashed in his eye. It was equally
unexpected by him, he said, to receive the language
of contumely and superiority, instead of the subdued
and more befitting address of persons completely in
his power.
`Why are we in your power?' retorted Jessy. `By
what authority have you torn us from our friends and
protectors, and imprisoned us here, as if we were seized
to be sold beyond the sea, as slaves?'
`By the authority,' he rejoined, `which a natural
guardian, an authorized relative has over a recreant
fugitive, bringing disgrace upon herself and her
friends. With such views, I understand, M. Landino
has crossed the sea, and pursued you to your retreat
among the savages of the interior. I am thrice
happy, to serve such a highly respectable gentleman;
and be in any way instrumental in restoring to honor
and her friends a lady, at once so beautiful, and lost
to a sense of reputation.'
She must have been more or less than woman, if
such a speech had not roused her indignation beyond
the measured terms of prudence and calculation. She
dashed the burning tear from her eye. Her face
glowed; and she made him feel in the powerful painting,
which she drew of him, of Julius, and this outrage,
what he was, what they considered Julius, and
in what light they regarded the whole transaction.—
There was no power in human speech, to probe an
pale came over his face, as she continued her cutting
and humiliating view of his infamy; as she expatiated
upon her sorrows, her destitution, and her claims
upon pity and forbearance from being so recently and
terribly made an orphan. `The dastardly and abandoned
wretch,' she concluded, `of whom you are the
vile instrument, no doubt, procured the murder of my
parents. Condemned to the stake by the Shoshonee
for a former outrage, I forgave him, and saved his
infamous life; and this is my return! You, too, must
be a fiend in the form of man, if, when you have
learned the entire truth of these charges, you do not
immediately release me from his bad power, and subject
him to condign and deserved punishment.'
Her eloquent appeal, made with the invincible
truth and severity of outraged youth, beauty and forlornness,
appeared to produce the faltering feeling of
transient compunction, pity and shame. Long habits
of abandoned conscience, and loss of self respect soon
resumed their accustomed sway. He waited, however,
with decorous observance, until she had come
to a finish. He then resumed, with the semblance of
subdued and gentlemanly forbearance. His good
fortune, he said, had thrown the beautiful in his path
before. He was well aware, that ladies of her appearance
were every where privileged, to say whatever
came into their thoughts. She could not but
know, that indignation infinitely became her, and
added to her charms. It was a stratagem wholly unnecessary
on this occasion, since she was but too irresistible
without the necessity of resorting to any such
arts. It was matter of infinite regret to him, that
she considered herself, in his ship, in durance. Still
he could not help thinking, that his accommodations
might compare with those of the Shoshonee; and his
protection, and that of M. Landino, with that of a
circumstance of finding ladies, so young and beautiful,
in such company and under such circumstances,
was of itself sufficient warrant for conveying them,
either voluntarily, or by compulsion, to more befitting
society. He should consider it a proud circumstance
in his life, that he might be in any way subservient
to such a restoration of them to society. The testimony
of the respectable merchant and the intelligent
Frenchman on board, who had amused him with many
passages of their residence among the Shoshonee,
corroborated the narrative of M. Landino, if it had
needed additional confirmation, which, however, he
begged to assure her, it did not. Notwithstanding
her harsh statements and severe remarks, he felt
bound to continue resolutely to act on the presumption
of the truth of M. Landino's statement, and to
serve her against her will. He was willing to resort
to measures as painful to him, as they appeared to be
severe to her, to remove her at once and forever from
such unworthy intimacies and predilections, as she
seemed to have established. For the rest, he added,
that very unfortunately, M. Landino had been ill
from the moment of coming on board. The motion
of the ship had rendered his illness severe, and had
precluded him from the power of visiting them in person.
He hoped, that this obstacle would soon be removed,
and that he should be able to resign the temporary
guardianship, which circumstances had imposed
upon him, to the hand of their worthy and respectable
relative.
This addition of insult to injury, under this show of
gentlemanly and decorous views, added the ultimate
finish to the outrage of their case; and by arousing
indignation, and inspiring the elastic purpose, either
to countervail their base intents, or to resist them to
death, furnished them excitement and motive to action.
of their prospects, in the information that Julius was
sick. The intelligence fell upon Jessy's mind, as
light from heaven. She hailed it, as an omen, that
He, who had so wonderfully interposed for her deliverance
before, would not forsake her now, in this her
utmost need.
She replied, with a composure inspired by such
purposes and hopes, that `conference with a man,
who, under the semblance of the manners and pretexts
of a gentleman, could allow himself in such acts,
and cloak them with such professed motives, was
wholly useless and unavailing. You cannot but know,'
she concluded, `that we both equally feel, that your
whole conversation, in relation to this abominable
transaction, is one tissue of falsehoods from commencement
to close. I have but too much reason to fear,
that words are lost on such as you. Yet your countenance
and manners cannot belong to a person, who
will wholly forget, that I am a mourner, that in tearing
us from those, whom you are pleased to call vagabonds
and savages, you have removed us from every
thing dear to our hearts. This poor child is, like myself,
an orphan. The only favor you can render us,
so long as we are compelled to remain in your ship,
is to spare us the agony of your presence, and to leave
us to ourselves. As to the food before us, we would
willingly partake of it. But we know this respectable
M. Landino, and we fear poison.' As she said
this, the burst of indignation passed away. She sat
down pale, and faint, to hide the trickling tears, which
the affectionate Katrina kissed away, as they formed.
Nothing, that wears the form of man, could be so hardened,
as to see these innocent and lovely mourners
in this predicament, wholly unmoved. The purposes
of the captain seemed for a moment undecided.
He hesitated, and was visibly touched with pity. He
this was altogether a new business; and that these
belles demoiselles, in his phrase, were trop talentees pour
lui; and, with a smile compounded of shame, vexation
and embarrassment, he began to taste of the different
articles on the tray. `It is enough,' said Jessy.
`Now have the goodness to leave me. You ask me,
what you can do to render me comfortable, while on
board your ship? I answer again, you can relieve
me from the presence of any one, but this dear companion
of my sorrows. It is all I ask of you.' He
withdrew in visible embarrassment; and, in giving an
account of the interview, he swore, that `he had never
been so completely thrown out of his reckoning in his
life.'
When left to themselves, the debilitating and disheartening
sensation of sea sickness, the feeling of
utter desertion, the gloominess of their little lonely
cabin, dimly lighted by a single lamp, their narrow
and uncomfortable births, the difficulty of respiration,
from the close air, and the various nauseating odors,
all pressed upon them together. Katrina lost all
fortitude, wrung her hands, wept like a child, and insisted,
that she could not survive the night. Whatever
discouragement was in the heart of Jessy, she
felt that the emergency demanded a different spirit.
She talked in a tone of courage and even cheerfulness.
She expressed a firm conviction, that these circumstances
of gloom would all pass away, that they
should be delivered, and again see happy days. She
rapidly presented soothing and encouraging images
to the imagination of the dejected orphan, called
upon her to take refreshments, and set the example,
by making an effort over herself, assuring her that to
avail themselves of the chances of deliverance, they
must economize, and preserve all their strength and
courage. The example of real magnanimity is, more
took refreshment, and assumed an air of resigned
cheerfulness, embraced each other, recited their
prayers with pious earnestness, and laid themselves
down in their narrow births, without throwing off any
portion of their dress, to such sleep and such dreams,
as such a condition and circumstances may be naturally
imagined to bring.
Next morning the sea was more calm. The ruddy
beams of a bright sun fell upon their sky lights.—
Baptiste entered with his usual obsequious bow, and
national shrug, sat down his tray, wished them bon
jour, and, though visibly disconcerted by their accustomed
dead silence, which marked the contempt of
not appearing even to note his presence, he put forth
his usual loquacity, apparently from the habit of being
unable to restrain his tongue. `The news,' he said,
`were fort mauvaises. Julius had one dem fort fievre,
and cursed, like a madman. It would do him infinite
good, if the demoiselles would condescend to go, and
see him—sacre!' `It is a token for good,' exclaimed
Jessy, folding her hands; `heaven be praised for this!'
`It is one dem villain priere ca'—cried Baptiste, shrugging
as usual. But, encouraged, by having obtained
a single word of reply, he continued to publish his
budget of news, from which Jessy learned, that the
wretch was in fact seriously ill in his birth, feeling,
that the hand of God was upon him, and his mind alternating
between the coward terrors of conscience,
and blaspheming rage, in being thus a second time
precluded the indulgence of his projects and desires.
His was a condition of horror and rage, that no words
could adequately express. It seemed to have wrought
a salutary effect on the officers of the ship. His terrific
execrations and blasphemies had appalled them
with mental misgiving, and a certain superstitious
shrinking from their purpose; which produced in their
they were annoyed by no visits, but those of Baptiste,
bringing in their regular meals. They felt, that this
avoidance of dreaded evils, could they have forgotten
the past, would almost have amounted to enjoyment.
When the ship was still, they could occasionally hear
the cries and blasphemies of Julius, even when their
cabin door was closed.
At every visit Baptiste became more familiar, impudent
and communicative. By the third day, he
kept no measures of scruple or restraint of delicacy.
Aware, that they could not silence his communications,
and conscious, too, that it was of infinite importance
to them, to be forewarned, and forearmed, in
reference to whatever was in agitation respecting
their fate, they drew up, and affected to receive his
voluble narratives, as a disagreeable penance, which
they could not avoid, and which they uniformly treated
with silent contempt. They did not, however, the
less hear, and perpend, that the two officers of the
ship expected, that Julius would die; that they were
already involved in an angry dispute, in relation to
the appropriation of the captives. Each claimed
Jessy, and each was pertinacious. The version of
Baptiste not only taught them this; but, so vociferously
and unscrupulously were these claims urged, that
they occasionally reached the ears of the captives over
the usual noises of the ship, and the delirious ravings
of Julius.
To complete this composition of Hecate's cauldron,
it was only necessary, that Julius should learn these
kind prophecies and intentions of his co-partners, in
regard to his case and the disposal of the captives.
He did learn this, and, united to his delirium and terrors,
it taught him the agonies of a fiend. Not only
so, but Baptiste had more than once heard the captives
express a decided comparative confidence in the
neither concealed, nor diminished the magnitude of
his secrets. He attempted to win favor with the
captain, by assuring him, that both the demoiselles
were in love with him, and talked of him incessantly.
In the same manner he furnished food to the inordinate
jealousy of Julius, in his calmer intervals. `The
demoiselles,' he said, `were certainly much taken with
the joli capitaine, while, in regard to the lieutenant,
and Julius, Hatch and himself, they were farouches
comme diables. The best word, which they got, was
a curse, sacre!' Such views tended not at all to lessen
the distance between the captain and lieutenant,
nor to soothe the troubled spirit of Julius.
During one night the death of Julius was expected.
Every thing on board was in uproar; and it seemed,
as if even the ship was left to plow its undirected
course. In the extremity of his mental horror, Julius
despatched Baptiste to implore Jessy to visit him,
and receive his confession of his purposes and his penitence.
Jessy deigned not to notice the request even
by a change of countenance. The officious Baptiste
soon returned again. `His master,' (so he called Julius)
was disposed to make all the reparation, for the
injuries he had done them, now in his power. In
case of his death, he intended to bequeath all his hereditary
estate, and the blessing and protection of his
parents, to Jessy.'
For once she departed from her wonted silence.
`Say to your master,' she replied, `that had I the
slightest persuasion of his penitence, much and irreparably,
as he has wronged me, I would visit, and forgive
him; but I am confident, his repentance is the
coward horror of guilt, deprived of its purpose. With
his health, all his vileness would return. May he see
in his present condition the righteous reaction of an
avenging Providence. He will not see me.'
As Baptiste reported this stern message to his apparently
dying master, he added, that he had seen
much of demoiselles, but never such dem farouches, impitoyables
sujets before. Their hearts were hard,
comme des roches, sacre!' Julius died not, neither did
he convalesce. The passage was rather boisterous,
and the ship made slow headway. The captain and
lieutenant seemed to be withheld from outrage only
by their mutual jealousies, which often found vent in
such loud words and fierce menaces, as were over-heard
by the parties concerned, notwithstanding the
frequent exclamation, `hist! They will hear us.' The
tossing of the large, but mismanaged ship, the cries
of the numerous and awkward crew, the intolerable
odor of the skins on board, the rolling of a rough sea,
narrow and uncomfortable births, and the cramping
confinement, for more than a fortnight, to an area but
a few feet square, such, along with their dark and
foreboding anticipations for the future, were some of
the circumstances, under which the captives made
this voyage. One cheering point of view presented
itself, from which Jessy failed not to derive strength
and support. It was nothing new, that such men
should be sick, or jealous of each other. But she
could not but regard the singular coincidence of the
sickness of Julius, and the abominable question of
claims between the two officers, as providential arrangements,
a wonderful neutralizing of one element
by another, in virtue of which they had been hitherto
left unmolested and to themselves.
After a fortnight's beating through these tempestuous
seas, the prisoners perceived by the cries of the
sailors, by the reports of cannon, and by the sudden
quietness of the ship, that they had entered a haven.
Through the narrow window above their birth, they
descried a rugged and rocky shore, and log houses
scattered here and there. The faint hum of population
dogs, the cheerful and shrill note of the chanticleer,
and the associated sounds of human habitancy, would
have been the sweetest music in their ears, could they
have hoped to find a single protector and liberty.—
But to their dark thoughts, all showed as the home of
their enemies, and the increased number and strength
of the league against them. Night, too, the dark and
foggy night of these northern regions, was settling
upon the scene.
As the evening came on, they could easily distinguish
the voices of the inhabitants of the village, in
bustling communication with the officers and crew of
the ship. How the heart of Jessy throbbed, as she
could now and then distinguish a conversation carried
on in English by an interpreter. `Suppose,' said Jessy
to Katrina, suddenly seizing the thought, `we
should cry for help, and throw ourselves on the protection
of these people. Do you, Katrina, open the
cabin door, and see, if there are any chances of escape.'
The affectionate trembler implicitly obeyed;
and for the first time, since their captivity, opened
the cabin door, and advanced into the larger common
cabin. A moment afterwards, the rough and fierce
voice of Davidow was heard in loud expostulation.
He caught the shrieking girl in his arms, brought her
back to her narrow prison, and set her down beside
Jessy with a curse, affirming, that if she was found
moving from her place again, it would be on the penalty
of being thrown overboard. `Desist, monster,'
cried Jessy, her face glowing with indignation. `You
could do us no greater favor, than to deliver us from
your power, by plunging us both in the sea.' `Ah!
lady,' he replied, with a tone of irony and sneering,
`yonder is your delightful home. Such a spirit renders
beauty more piquant. That place has tamed
many a spirit, as haughty as yours. We will soon
that place, to love your keepers, and embrace your
chains.'
Every thing was now in the bustle of busy movement.
Captain Orlow presented himself. `Ladies,'
he said, `we are at the end of our present voyage.
Your relative and guardian, M. Landino, is too ill at
this time to proceed for China; and we know of no
vessel, that will sail for that country, perhaps for
months. In the interval, and during the convalescence
of M. Landino, we purpose to place you where
you will be more pleasantly situated, than at this
miserable town, without any befitting accommodations.
The place, to which we transfer you, is a paradise.
To reach it, we have to embark on a small
coasting vessel, which sails immediately. The wind
serves, and the vessel is ready. Your sick relative
and your friends from the Shoshonee country are already
on board. Allow me to aid you to join them.'
The name of the place of their destination had already
reached her ear, and the terrible notoriety of
that place had been the theme of conversation even
among the Shoshonee. Her heart sunk within her,
at the idea of being forced to that impregnable prison
in the midst of the sea. Resistance was the first
thought, and the purpose to yield her life, rather than
be carried there. Her countenance and manner evinced
the struggle within. `Please to be speedy in your
choice, ladies,' the captain resumed. `We will die,
rather than go,' she rejoined, as Katrina clung fast to
her. The captain blew a whistle. Three or four
horrid looking beings, dressed in seal-skins, and of a
form and physiognomy unlike any she had seen before,
appeared. The captain uttered a few words,
which she comprehended only by the result. In a
twinkling, they were carried by main force; and almost
before they recovered breath, down a ladder on
crowded to overflowing, in which a passing glance
discovered to them Hatch, Baptiste, and Julius, haggard,
and showing like the ghost of what he had been,
and sustained in his birth by persons holding volatiles
to his nostrils. On the deck and in the cabin by the
glare of torches were visible a great number of strange
faces, requiring little fancy to transform them in the
eyes of the captives to demons. They had no time
for more detailed survey. They were deposited in a
little dark place beyond the main cabin, lighted only
by the uncertain glimmer of a miserable lamp. Compared
with this, their former cabin had been spacious
and agreeable. In a few moments, they again felt
the rolling of the sea, rendered more irksome by the
pitching of the little crazy vessel, and a space too
narrow to allow them the liberty of extending their
limbs.
The second voyage, though excessively disagreeable,
was short. The anchor was cast. The same uncouth
beings in the seal-skin dresses clutched them
again, and carried them on deck. A number of skiffs
surrounded the vessel, and were successively filled
with passengers, and immediately rowed towards an
island, which began to be dimly visible through the
uncertain light of morning dawn. Baptiste seemed
to be deputed to superintend their transfer to their
new destination. He asked them, if they would descend,
volontiers, into the skiff, that waited for them;
or if they desired the aid of their friends, the jolis garcons
in seal-skin dresses? He could tell them, that in
a few minutes, they would now see one dem superbe
place, where there were great numbers of jolies et riantes
femmes, and where there were divertisemens,
like those of Paris, every day. Seeing that force
was at hand, and that opposition would be unavailing,
Jessy said, with an upward look, `my dear Katrina,
lambs to the slaughter. The time for resistance has
not yet come. Let us enter the boat, and God be
our guide.' With an air of resignation, they both
stepped down the ladder to the skiff. Their uncouth
keepers followed them, and took their oars. Baptiste
closed the rear, and they sped away towards the
island.
The isle of Ostroklotz, which they were approaching,
is situated a few leagues from the main land, and
rises with a high and bold front of rocks, on which a
prodigious surf is always whitening, and bursting.
When southern storms sweep over unimpeded wastes
of sea for two thousand leagues, a sublimer spectacle
can scarcely be imagined, than the surge, that breaks
upon this front of cliffs, rising five hundred feet above
the common level of the water. A moment after the
blow is struck, the whole height is laved with the
dashing brine from the base to the summit. When
the wave retires, it seems to disclose the fathomless
bases of the isle. The mighty mass, in its advance
and recoil, shows, as if urged by Omnipotence acting
upon the wrathful and heaving element. The incessant
alternation of afflux and reflux, and the deep and
hollow roar, and the irresistible sweep of the onward
course of the wave, present that sublime spectacle,
which can only be felt in its grandeur, when some
immovable object opposes its power.
From the strength and mass of the current, which
always sets towards this isle, mariners have a tradition,
that, at fathomless depths, its bases are perforated;
and that the ocean current rushes under it. A
mile from it, there is firm anchorage, from which it is
accessible only by small crafts, that can be chiefly
guided by oars; and that only in one narrow channel.
Whatever vessel, large or small, should attempt to
approach it, in any other direction, would experience
irresistible power, and shivered against the cliffs, like
a potter's vessel. This constituted a very material
part of its fancied impregnable security. From circumstances
unknown, this strange isle was frequented
by immense numbers of sea monsters, of all the uncouth
and unwieldy classes of those seas. They alone
can venture to sport beneath the tremendous surges,
that break upon the shore. Here they resort for sun
and repose in calm weather. During storms, even
these expert water dwellers are wrecked, in such
numbers as to have offered the inducements to the
first settlement of the island.
From the bar of anchorage, about a mile from the
shore, commences the narrow current, by which the
small crafts are carried to the island. This current
is as a rapid river, still much swifter, than the general
current that sets towards the shore. On each
side of it is an eddy. Those wishing to land on the
isle, and initiated into the secret of this narrow and
rapid ocean stream, commit their skiff to it. Oars
are of little use. The skiff is borne passively and irresistibly
onward. It sweeps them beneath the over-hanging
and moss-covered cliffs, for the distance of
a quarter of a mile, during which transit they are in
almost rayless darkness. They again emerge to the
light of heaven, and view themselves still borne onward
between parallel walls of stone, rising, as it
were, to the sky. From the fury of the current, the
stream is of a foamy whiteness. At the landing, it
disparts from a cliff rising in its centre, and rushes on
to unknown distances beyond in two branches. An
eddy is formed by this rock, which becomes a natural
harbor for the boats. Round a high point of this
cliff they throw their fasts. Failure to seize this eddy
would merge the boat in one or the other of the disparting
currents beyond. To the experienced it is a
it would be destruction. Departure from the
island is by either of the eddies on each side of the
stream. Committed to either, the boat is swept almost
as rapidly to sea, as the current brought it to
land. Such are the peculiar circumstances of approach
to this singular island, and departure from it.
They have no parallel in any other known portion of
the seas; and in the imaginative and superstitious
thoughts of sailors might well pass for the work of
enchantment.
The skiff, which conveyed the captives, was put
into this current. It sped away, like an arrow towards
the isle. The morning sun at the same moment
emerged from the orient wave, and threw its
own glory upon the blue and illimitable expanse.—
Before them was the terrific burst of the full ocean
upon the cliffs. The deafening roar, the surges swelling
aloft, the dizzying swiftness of their motion, every
thing about them would have inspired awe and terror
in minds less painfully occupied with other thoughts.
They had scarcely time to view their position, before
they were swept into the dark chasm. Again the
light of heaven opened on them from above. They,
who managed the skiff, dexterously threw their fast
around the point of rock. The skiffs, which had left
the small vessel at anchor, had apparently just arrived
before them. The rock spread out a broad table
surface, on which Baptiste bade them land. Violence,
they knew, was at hand if they did not. They
stepped on the rock. `Montez volontiers, s'il vous
plaise,' cried the Frenchman, in a tone of command,
while one of their conductors preceded them. Natural
blocks of sand stone formed commodious stairs of
ascent for the greater part of the height to the level
of the isle. Where they failed, stairs had been carefully
wrought in the solid stone. The ascent of between
would have exhausted the captives, had not the tension
of their minds precluded the consciousness of the
sensation of fatigue.
When they reached the level of the island, they
discovered an armed guard, at a point, where two
could defend the pass against any numbers, that might
approach abreast. Words of intelligence passed between
the guards and the conductor, who preceded
them. The former clubbed their arms, and motioned
the captives to move past them. The orphans
pressed their feet once more on the stable earth, and
on grass and flowers. What a grateful change, under
other circumstances, it would have been, from the
roll of the sea, the deafening roar, and the awful spectacle
of the swelling billows in their wrath threatening
instant destruction. Ancient forests of larch and the
most beautiful white birches, with their pensile
branches, imitating the forms of the weeping willow,
overshadowed a turf of the softest verdure. The fragrance
came upon their senses like the breath of paradise.
The fully developed vernal foliage trembled
above them. Ginseng, the beautiful May-apple, innumerable
columbines, vocal with the hum of bees,
ladies' slippers, and purple violets decorated the
sward. Strange birds flitted, and sang around them,
and unknown animals skipped from their path. Here
and there, a cone shaped hill arose, like the dome of
a noble temple, from the forest, charmingly surmounted
with spruces and cedars, and showing, in the uncovered
intervals, gigantic piles of square blocks of
stone of dazzling whiteness. Nature seemed to have
exhausted her efforts, in giving to this remote northern
isle the flaunty gaiety, the aromatic atmosphere and
the rich vegetation of the south. Wretched as they
were, their eyes still saw, their senses still conversed
with this cheering nature. `It is a beautiful spot,' said
see, that the Author of beauty, and the Father of
mercies has been here before us. Let neither our
trust, nor our courage fail us.'
Their pioneer was before them, and signed them to
advance, with a look, that required no explanation.
Baptiste and the other conductors brought up the
rear. The captives moved on, already warned by
bursts of cannon, and the reports of small arms, and
repeated huzzas in the intervals, that some peculiar
festivity was enacting, but a short distance from them
in the forest. They passed onward, at every step pressing
down the strawberry blossoms, and their path
was at the declivity of one of the curious, cone-shaped
hills, that might easily have been mistaken for an artificial
cupola of five hundred feet in height. Fifty
paces carried them past this hill, when a circular
plain of cleared ground opened upon their eye. All
the varieties of domestic animals were moving about
in seeming terror over this verdant plain, apparently
frightened from their peaceful ruminations by the
bursts of the cannon, the smoke of which arose, like
a cloud, from a magnificent square and high fortification
in the centre of the cleared plain. From its
highest tower the Russian standard, with its proud
national emblazoning, fluttered in the breeze. To
persons, like the captives, who had never seen such
works of art before, the fortification had an aspect of
the most imposing grandeur. It was evidently composed
of the massive blocks of white stone from the
singular hills, that arose in its vicinity. Covered on
the roof, as it was, with the bark of the white birch,
it shone in the morning sun with a dazzling whiteness,
forming a strong contrast with the deep and funereal
green of the larches, that surrounded the open
space. Arrived in front of this formidable place, the
captives shrunk back, and turned, apparently with
conductors dragged them, faint and almost unconscious,
within the walls. Soldiers surrounded them.
The gate recoiled on its hinges. The roar of cannon
was repeated. They felt, that they were shut up in
the fortification. Overcame by terror, fatigue, and
emotion, the whole scene swam for a moment before
the eyes of Jessy, and she sank in unconsciousness.
When she recovered, she opened her eyes upon
a spacious dining hall, carpeted richly, and gorgeously
fitted up in the style of a sumptuous military saloon.
She was on a mattrass. The hall was full of
people, many of whom were ladies flauntily tricked
out for show, and the rest were chiefly officers in uniform,
or servants. At no great distance from her lay
Julius on a settee, in the sallowness of extreme and
haggard debility, snuffing volatiles, and fanned by
Hatch. Ladies were tendering him officious services.
Over her own mattrass hung the captain and lieutenant.
Women at her head and her feet were proffering
aid, and bathing her temples. Katrina held
to her by an immovable grasp, and a flow of tears
announced her joy at being again recognized. `Dear
Jessy,' she exclaimed, `I entreat you not to die just
now, and leave me alone in this dreadful place.' `I
desire to live,' she answered, `my dear companion,
for thy sake, for the sake of my friends, and the confusion
of these our cruel oppressors.'
This heroic manifestation, and the color again mantling
her pale cheek, renewed the merriment and joy
which rung in the hall at their entering, and which
had evidently been suspended by the alarm, occasioned
by her faintness. `You are exhausted with fatigue
and the discomfort of your voyage,' said captain
Orlow. `Rest and refreshments will soon, we hope,
restore you. You are welcome a thousand times to
Fort Ostroklotz, or, as we more familiarly call it, the
in this place. All its comforts are at
your command, and its inhabitants your servants.'—
`Thanks for your infinite condescension,' replied Jessy,
summoning spirit to sustain her, and striving to disguise
her palpitation and terror. `Our thanks are
the rather due, as we receive all this kindness involunatarily.
You proffer kindness. I take you at your
word. I even ask it of you. I am feeble and faint.
I am a woman, a captive and a mourner. You have
availed of brute power to bring us to this detested
den. Enjoy your triumph over two unprotected orphans.
But, I supplicate, I implore of you one favor.
The spectacle of what I here behold, in my present
state of health, would shortly kill me. You cannot
doubt it. Dispose of us in any way, so that we be
by ourselves. Remove us from these hated sights.
Allow us repose, and time to recover our thoughts,
and reconcile ourselves to our hard condition.'
She folded her hands, and uttered these requests
in the form of a suppliant, and with almost frenzied
earnestness. Fearful that her faintiness would return,
and apparently moved alike by alarm and some
remains of humanity, captain Orlow assured her, that
her request should be granted. He whispered a lady,
who seemed to be a personage in authority among
the women of the establishment. Whatever he had
said to her, she received it with a laugh of derision.
However, she disposed herself to execute his charge,
and came to the bed. She said, that she would have
the honor to aid her and her young friend to their
apartment, and she offered her arm. Jessy immediately
arose, and indignantly refusing her aid, begged
her to lead the way. The female inmates of the
place surveyed them meanwhile with intense interest,
whispering in groups. The view of sin-worn
beauty in gaudy finery, and in unblushing dissoluteness,
faint mourner to firmness and dignity as she withdrew,
casting upon them a look of withering scorn.
The authoritative personage, who preceded the captives,
before she left the hall, laughingly said to captain
Orlow, `why count,' (such was his title) `you have
brought to us queens of tragedy. Did I enact the
virtuous and forlorn damsel as well, when I first came
among you?' `Indeed you did,' he replied; `and I
hope, she will be as docile, and as ready to lay aside
the buskin, as you were.' `No doubt of it,' was the
answer from a dozen voices.
Their conductor led the way out of the hall, and
the captives followed into a long entry, which led between
two suits of apartments, apparently sleeping
rooms. `You,' she said to Jessy, `will occupy this
apartment;' `and you,' to Katrina, `that,' pointing to
one, a considerable distance onward in the entry. A
look passed between them. Katrina embraced Jessy.
`Be assured,' she exclaimed with resolute firmness,
`that death alone shall separate us.' `It is the express
command of the count,' said the woman, `that you each
occupy her assigned apartment. Each room is supplied
with but one bed, and is intended for but one
person.' `We two, however,' rejoined Jessy, `will
occupy the same or none.' The boisterous tone of
the conductor soon brought the captain and lieutenant,
Baptiste and Hatch into the entry. A whistle
summoned the uncouth beings in seal skins before
them. `Will you have the kindness,' said the captain,
`to repair quietly to your assigned apartments.'
`We will not,' replied Jessy, `nor to any other, except
together.' He nodded to the lieutenant, and,
as if ashamed of what was to ensue, returned to the
hall. `Take them,' said the lieutenant to the persons
in seal skins, `to their separate apartments.'
They attempted to separate them. But Katrina held
even to their force; and the abode was in the meantime
filled with shrieks of such agony, as appalled
even the callous and abandoned inmates of the place.
A cry from the hall summoned Hatch and Baptiste
thither. It was that of Julius, increasing the din by
his execrations. `I positively forbid you,' he exclaimed,
`on penalty of being abandoned, and disowned by
me, from allowing any disposal to be made of the two
girls, until I shall have regained my health, and shall
be able to take my own measures in the case. In the
mean time see to it, that they have one apartment,
and are not separated. Let none carry them food,
but yourselves. You are answerable, that they are
shielded from all intrusion unauthorized by me.'
His determined tone brought on a violent altercation
between him and the two Russians. Each talked
of his claims. Each began to recur to threats of violence.
Curses and recriminations ensued. Each
one of the females took some part in the fray. The
mercenaries of Julius were ranged on one side, and
those of the Russians on the other. Dirks were drawn,
and the place was filled with shrieks; and Hatch
and Baptiste stood beside Julius, who was gasping
with rage and weakness; while his champions, though
armed to the teeth, were pale with affright. The
doors were thrown open. Some of the inmates had
already escaped to the esplanade, and the soldiers on
duty hearing the infernal din, were advancing towards
the hall.
The captain stamped on the floor, and ordered silence
in a voice of thunder. The soldiers were ordered
back to their posts. He conversed a few moments,
in a low and confidential tone, with Julius. At
the close of the parley, he gave new orders to the woman,
to allow the young ladies, since such was their
pleasure, to occupy the same apartment. `Quiet
shall be together, and no one shall intrude upon you,
unbidden by yourselves, until M. Landino shall be
able to decide upon future arrangements.' The woman
led the way, and they followed her into a spacious
apartment, at the end of the entry. The hangings
were of glaring colors, covered with landscapes,
figures and scenes, appropriate to the character and
pursuits of the place. The bed was voluptuously
curtained in the same style. `This is the state room,
and the apartment of honor in the castle,' said the
woman, with a knowing glance at the style of the
hangings and the curtains. `The taste must be fastidious,
that will not be gratified with the fitting up of
this room.' Every part of the furniture was in perfect
keeping; and the first movement of the captives
was to examine every nook, corner and concealment
of the apartment, to see that nothing dangerous was
covered from view in it. The woman had thrown
herself into a lolling chair, and laughed aloud, while
they proceeded in the survey, as if unconscious of her
presence. `You will search in vain for a lover in
this desolate place,' she said. `You might have found
better fortune in separate rooms.' The captives continued
their search, and when finished, Jessy replied,
`you will perceive, that your presence is no longer
desired.' At the same time she moved towards the
door, to take possession of the key. The woman anticipated
her. `I am commanded,' she said, `to hold
this at my own disposal.' She dropped them a contemptuous
courtesy, assuring them, she had no
doubt, that they would soon be as ready to solicit other
society, as they now seemed so outrageously desirous
to avoid it. She wished them a good morning, and
fiercely closing the door behind her, was heard locking
it upon the outside.
The precious moments, after they were thus left to
and counsels; and in sacramental promises in
relation to the conduct, which they mutually pledged
to each other in certain specified cases of trial. Nor
did they fail to invoke the aid and guidance of the
Almighty, to sustain them in whatever might befal
them. They then threw themselves on the bed, and
reposed themselves, as they might.
Baptiste, as on ship-board, seemed to have been
deputed to serve them with refreshments; and at once
in his new position resumed his familiar and annoying
habits of loquacity, being not less desirous, than formerly,
to communicate all the news of the castle. `It
was a thing dem strange,' he was in the habit of remarking
frequently, `that Julius should be so much
sick, just at the time, when he had such a particular
desire to be well.' He was eloquent in praise of the
place. Every one was happy to a charm. He admired
at their taste to coop themselves up in that single
dull room, like owls in a hollow tree. He constantly
ended by averring, that the people there,
though happy as angels, were dem farouche. We
sleep, he added, shrugging, upon gunpowder. Il fait
grand peur. To all this Jessy would sometimes say,
`were you not a happier man, Baptiste, when you
were honest and industrious among the Shoshonee?'
To this question, Baptiste would answer with his
shrug, `dem Spotted Panther non bon.'
It is foreign to the intentional brevity of these annals
to give a detailed journal of the daily incidents
of the captives during the many days of their imprisonment.
Baptiste regularly supplied them with
food. After the second day, the female inmates of
the place seemed to have it in charge to visit their
apartment in companies, with the professed object of
being desirous to amuse their solitude. Nor did
their frequent and pointed assurance, that these visits
them from the annoyance. They were soon made
aware, that it was a persecution, for which they had
no other remedy, than to submit in silence and patience.
The insolence and immodesty of these visitants
were neither to be avoided, worn out, or
abashed. When the captives talked of other subjects,
they still pursued their detestable theme at the same
time. Nor could they, so completely was their moral
sense destroyed, be brought to realize, that themes of
such extreme interest to them could be disgusting to
their victims.
It was manifest from their own account of their
condition, that their want of understanding, and their
unblushing destitution of modesty, had long deprived
them of any interest even for their abandoned keepers.
Some of the inmates, in weariness with life, put
an end to their existence. Others went off voluntarily
with the Aleutians, that inhabited the island, and
became more filthy and disgusting, than even the native
females. The loud and forced gaiety of brandy
and revel made up the sum total of their joys. Their
only mental pleasure seemed to be to beguile other
unhackneyed victims to the same condition with themselves.
Though such had been their envy, in regard
to newly acquired favorites, that while they had labored
with all their arts and powers to seduce the
victims to their own level, the moment they had
achieved their abominable success, they were known
to have mixed poison for them.
It appeared from their tales of occasional confession,
that they were natives of various countries; that
some of them had arrived there to a certain degree
innocent, as most of them had once been beautiful. It
was the maxim of the establishment, always to prefer
seduction to violence. The victims were mentally
and physically drugged. Each one, that had fallen,
the innocent down. Their principles were assailed.
Their moral sense was weakened by gradual development
of such views, as shocked less and less, every time
they were contemplated. They were plied with company,
or solitude, as was judged best to subserve the
designs upon them. Their wants, their hopes and
fears were all tried in turn. It was constantly sounded
in their ears, that there was no escape from the
castle. Sometimes it was hinted to them, that compulsion
extenuated, if it did not destroy the guilt. It
was the triumphant declaration of the inmates, that
no one had ever yet resisted the seductions of the place.
The male partners of this establishment united in
one reckoning business, pleasure and military defence.
It was always in times of alarm garrisoned with one
company of soldiers, who were for the most part supplied
with wives from the abandoned inmates of the
officers' harem. The present was a time of profound
peace, and the soldiers scarcely exceeded twenty in
number. It was a great depot of the furs taken in
those seas, and the rivers, that emptied into them. A
certain number of Aleutians always belonged to the
establishment. The most rigid military discipline
was sustained. Every instance of detection in any
attempt, to enter or depart from the castle, except in
the authorized form, had been most severely punished,
and generally with death. The regular roll of the
drum, and noise of arms and shouts of the bacchanalian
inmates in their orgies, became familiar sounds to
the ears of Jessy and Katrina; and they were the rather
indulged in their wish to be to themselves, as regarded
male visitants, inasmuch as it gratified Julius,
who was now daily convalescing; and as solitude had
been found by former experience the most effectual
mean of bringing over the victims to the purposes of
their seducers.
These callous debauchees measuring, as is their
custom, the character of the species by their own
amount of experience, found it difficult to doubt, that
the same measures, which had proved successful in
every other case, should fail in that of their recent
subjects. Hence they were the more ready to practise
the accustomed policy with their habitual forbearance;
as they were at the same time avoiding the chances
of a new rupture, and fulfilling their stipulated
engagements with Julius, who, adroit and practised
at intrigue, and with money at command, they soon
found, had half the garrison in his interests.
The female instruments of their policy were, therefore,
enjoined to show no temper, and to make no return
in kind to the contempt and disdain manifested
towards them by the captives. But they were bidden
systematically to practise all their accustomed arts of
seduction. Nor were these vile beings destitute of
either ingenuity, or experience in plying their vocation.
They knew well, could they find, where the
slumbering passions were, to drop among them the
kindling spark. They were acquainted with all the
modes, by which the foundation of virtuous thought
and feeling are sapped. At one time they uttered eulogies
upon the master spirits of the castle. At other
times they painted the pleasure of converse with new
and unsubdued guests, and described with a voluptuous
minuteness the downward course, by which they
became as themselves. They were eloquent in describing
the ever varying pleasures, and constantly
appealing to their own example of reckless and exhaustless
gaiety, as a proof that they were really happy.
The island, they affirmed, was like the grave.
No female, at least, ever escaped from it. Cut off at
once, and forever, from all future communication with
any portion of the world, except the inmates of this
delightful island, what was the world, or reputation,
to them?
The master spirits of the castle, weary and impatient
in view of their slow progress, would, no doubt,
gladly have plied mechanical aid, and drugged their
food or drink; auxiliaries, which had been called to their
aid on other occasions. But the wary and unsleeping
vigilance of the captives, in insisting upon partaking
of nothing, which Baptiste had not first tasted,
precluded their availing themselves of these measures.
Their female visitants, they remarked, began
to be less scrupulous of keeping measures of decorum
in their presence. Baptiste, too, in his prolix babblings,
darkly hinted, that more decisive measures in
relation to them were ripening. Contrary to the practice
of their first days of confinement, their door was
purposely thrown open, and the entry guarded by
soldiers. The door of the hall, communicating with
the entry, was also opened. Hence the revelry of
their hours of feasting, drinking and evening debauchery
could not but reach the ears of the terrified captives.
Not unfrequently they were obliged to hear
their own case and character a subject of discussion
by these vile men and abandoned women. What ludicrous,
obscene, and shocking descriptions met their
ears! Nor was it the least humiliating part of their
penance, that the females generally transcended the
men in these disgusting and detailed narratives.—
Sometimes Hatch gave caricatured passages of their
history among the Shoshonee, in his peculiar Dutch
English, which Baptiste, with his own emendations
and additions, translated into French. Next the
preaching of Elder Wood and his amours with the
Song Sparrow were travestied. His own adventure
with his red skin wife furnished him merriment at his
own proper expense. Then the hall would echo with
long and reiterated peals of laughter. Every day,
of this sort fell upon their ears. That no uncertainty
might be left upon the objects of this course of discipline,
if they closed their door, to avoid the annoyance
of hearing, an Aleutian or a soldier was at hand to
retain it in its place.
Their mental anguish may be imagined, and their
horror calculated, when they ascertained, not only by
the testimony of Baptiste, but by hearing the firm
voice of Julius, that he was actually so far recovered,
as to come to the table of the hall. He could be even
heard urging his natural and bargained claims upon
Jessy. Nor could she fail to have collected from
different sources the state of party and the progress
of future purpose in the castle. Julius had his devoted
partizans; and although the Russian commanded,
such was the character of the establishment on the
main land, and the people of so many other flags were
concerned in the interests of Ostroklotz, that policy
had kept his passions in check. One motive had so
mysteriously hitherto balanced another, that the innocent
had remained unmolested. True, the Russians
had, more than once, meditated despatching Julius
by poison or assassination, and settling the captives
upon themselves. With the instinctive keenness
of native villany he had suspected, and anticipated
such designs, and had always been so guarded,
as to render such practices difficult, if there had been
no danger in them.
Not only so, but when these wretches should even
have disposed of Julius, they were aware, that they
had their own appropriate difficulties in regard to
themselves. The captain insisted upon Jessy. The
lieutenant, though subordinate in the present command,
failed not to remark, that he had held higher
rank than his captain, in another sphere; and he pertinaciously
insisted upon their settling their claims by
access through his emissaries to the privacy of each,
dexterously fomented this jealousy, which was rapidly
ripening to a serious quarrel, when the decided
convalescence of Julius put another face upon the
aspect of things.
Such continued to be the order of events, until Julius
felt himself completely recovered. His passions
awoke, invigorated by returning health, and by their
long slumber. The remembrance of his failure in his
purposes at Manitouna, and of his humiliation among
the Shoshonee, began again to kindle volcanic fires
in his bosom. The beauty and innocence of Jessy,
and the long and singular disappointment of his purposes,
in relation to a victim so completely in his power,
added fuel to his internal fires. As soon as he
was in perfect health, he was immediately seen assuming
that ascendency among the master spirits of
the castle, that superior always exercises over inferior
intellect. It was soon discovered, that his will
was the ruling star of this establishment. A conclave
council was held. The parties came forth from it
apparently agreed. His claims upon Jessy were
formally acknowledged, with an understanding, that
after a certain time, he should resign in favor of the
captain. The two rivals drew lots for Katrina, and
she fell to the share of the lieutenant. However indignant
and chagrined, the affair had been settled upon
stipulated premises; what was called honor in the
castle, required the acquiescence of the commander.
Departure from the terms of the treaty would be sufficient
to generate a mortal fray. He gave his pledged
word, that each was at liberty, the evening after
the ratification, to take possession of his prize, or bride,
as the phrase was with them. He swore his heaviest
curse, that the parties should be unmolested by interference
from any quarter.
The terms of compact were promulgated early in
the afternoon. With an infernal promptitude Baptiste
sped to the captives with the intelligence. `It
be only one marriage, after all,' said he. `I marry
T'sellenee, rather than be burnt to death. Surely it
be one plaisir infini, to go out of this dem dull room,
to marry such noble gentilhommes as Julius and the
colonel—for the lieutenant was once a colonel, and a
very big man. N'importe. Marriage first—love
come in the suite. We shall have one dem fine wedding
this evening after supper. We are to drink
wine, and dance. I shall be so happy, sacre. One
of the demoiselles takes to Baptiste, too.' Having
published his bulletin, he sat down his refreshments,
and capered away with a joy which apparently
amounted to intoxication.
The orphans were alone, and the direct and earnest
appeal of Jessy on her knees was to the Strength of
Israel. It was that wrestling of the heart with strong
entreaties and cries, which by seers and the holy of
the bygone years was called the prayer of faith. She
then conversed with Katrina on their immediate expectations.
`The hour is apparently come,' she
said. `How feel you, my dear companion, in view of
what is before us?' As she went into a clear and unshrinking
annunciation of their pledged course, she
observed with inexpressible anguish, that the danger
seen at hand, and measured in its palpable dimensions,
affected Katrina far differently from its distant
and indistinct contemplation. Tears of feminine terror
and attachment to life rolled down her fair cheek.
Brought up in view of frequent marriages, effected
by Indian violence, that had afterwards proved as
happy as others, she could not view, what their persecutors
affected to call marriage, in the same horrible
light with Jessy. Her mind had probably been
enervated by confinement and terror. Possibly the
sophistical arguments of the female visitants, daily
and hourly repeated, might have imperceptibly and
unconsciously relaxed the strength of her principles.
Youthful love of life and fear of death came in, as
formidable temptations. `Oh!' she said, as she wrung
her hands, `it is such a dreadful thing to die—and to
die so young! Is there no escape? Is there no right
way, but to die?'
`Dear Katrina,' replied the other, `it is too late to
inculcate new principles now. Follow the dictates
of your own heart. For myself, I am determined.'
Katrina threw her arms around her neck, `and so,'
she sobbed, `am I. Think not, that I will survive
alone, and in disgrace. I vow,' she cried, crossing
herself, and looking upward, `by the immaculate
Mother of God, that I will in all things imitate thy
example.' High resolve and unshaken purpose, of
an aspect in her glowing countenance, which could
neither be assumed, nor mistaken, reassured the confidence
of Jessy. The manner, in which they passed
the remaining hours, until the sun was below the horizon,
must be left to the imagination.
The roar of cannon, the crash of small arms, the
hurrahs of the soldiers, the howl of the drunken Aleutians,
witnessed, that a bacchanalian fete was at
hand, and that brandy had already been distributed
unsparingly. The passing footsteps were, as of persons
treading on air. Every door was thrown wide.
The glare of torches filled the esplanade. Women
dizened in tinsel flauntiness, and glittering in false
jewels, and their faces rouged high, paced the entry,
and repaired to the hall. The clatter of plates and
vessels and of all sorts of preparation for supper succeeded.
During the repast, their own supper was
brought in by Baptiste, as usual. But this time it
was deposited before them without a word. It may
riot and revelry grew louder every moment at
the table. The clatter, the toasts, the noisy and incessant
babble, mixed all tongues in the ancient confusion
of Babel. Another burst of cannon succeeded;
a rocket streamed aloft; and in a moment the
hall was hushed, as in death. A marriage service,
after the rites of the Greek church, was celebrated.
A wag, with a voice of well imitated solemnity, enacted
the Greek papa. Two of the harlot hags were
god-mothers, and gave away the two orphans by
proxy. The husband's vow was pronounced, first by
Julius, then by the lieutenant; and that this part of
the service might be intelligible, the vows were repeated,
in French, Spanish and English. Two females,
as proxies, for the captives, in like manner,
pronounced the vows to love, honor, and obey till death,
in the same languages. Cannon were fired anew.
Rockets went up. Hurrahs and shouts rent the air,
and reiterated peals of laughter shook the castle to
its foundation. A full band then commenced glees
and dances, and the revellers began to dance. The
voice of captain Orlow was heard, meanwhile, above
all the other din. `Now to unflinching business,' was
his order.
The captives were on their knees in prayer, and
clasped in each other's arms. Six of the painted hags
entered upon the privacy of their devotions. Half
intoxicated, and their faces inflamed even above their
rouge, they danced towards their victims. `Abominable
affectation!' said their leader, when she saw
their occupation. `I swear to you, my sisters, that
they are returning thanks, that they are at last like
to have husbands. Sweet ones, you are married,
married with all the rites of the church Handsomer
husbands, you could not have found, the world over.
We congratulate you, thrice lovely brides, and envy
Julius! What a gallant figure, the martial colonel!
Poor dear count Orlow, he curses like a fiend; and
we are obliged to keep him drunk, and treat him like
a petted child, to prevent murder. Poor count! we
must provide for him. Ah! girls, this crying, and
sobbing is all for joy, and we understand it. Come
now, have done with this nonsense. Dear girls, we
have a trick, in these cases, of examining the brides.
Please to humor us in this ceremony of the castle.'—
At the word they fell upon the victims. Part held
them in a smothering grasp. Part proceeded to examine
their dress. `Aha! here is a knife, and here
are scissors. You are delicate brides in truth, to
meditate murder, before the close of the honey moon.'
Another and another weapon was discovered. `Why
these girls,' they cried, `have carried the deception
farther than we did.' Their victims, exhausted with
struggling, had ceased to resist. The hags proceeded
to undress them, and to dress them again in night-clothes,
which, having also examined, they appeared
to consider harmless; for they exclaimed, when their
work was finished, and their victims were allowed to
rise—`There, girls, you are no longer dangerous.
Heaven defend us, what ideas you must have had of
marriage!' They then compelled them to endure the
odious ceremony of their kisses, and with the customary
wishes and peals of laughter, they left them.
Scarcely had they resumed their former attitude
of supplication, when Julius and Davidow entered.
In a composed, and business-like tone, Julius proceeded
to announce the articles of the late agreement.—
He talked much of the honor of both. `They meant
kindness, protection, and inviolable fidelity. At any
rate, the arrangement was inevitable. Cries, defence,
entreaties, struggle, resistance, would be equally unwise
and injurious. They should both infinitely prefer
to Jessy, and begged her to follow him, a ceremony
which Davidow repeated to Katrina. Seeing, that
they did not relax their embrace, he said, `come colonel,
the time is fast spending.' Jessy fell on her
knees before him, crying, `Julius, you cannot intend
to separate us from each other. Pity me for the sake
of my murdered parents! Pity me by your hopes of
heaven.' Katrina seemed inspired with a frenzy of
heroic enthusiasm, as she heard the imploring words
of Jessy, in tones, which might have softened a tiger.
`Jesu-Maria!'—she cried, `monsters, you shall not
harm her!' and she held her in a fast embrace, and
filled the place with her shrieks. But Davidow seized
her rudely, and tore her from the grasp of Jessy.
Her cries, her resistance, and even her force were appalling.
She held to the curtains of the bed, which
were torn from their rods. Chairs, the table, and
every thing in her way were overturned. Jessy made
less resistance, for her physical strength was more exhausted.
`Wakona,' cried Julius, as he dragged her
into the entry, `the first, last purpose of my soul will
now be accomplished. Thou hast my love. I care
not, whether thou accept it, or not.' Screams mingled
with peals of laughter, as the lights were extinguished,
and the victims dragged away.
A different and a louder cry was heard. It was
the majestic voice of Elder Wood, `The sword of the
Lord and Gideon! The sword of the Lord and Gideon!'
he exclaimed in a voice, that was heard to the
remotest recess of the den. Cheowanna-ha! shouted
the Shoshonee. The flash of guns glared upon the
darkness. The war cry of Areskoui rang loud and
terrible. Lights were rekindled. Areskoui appeared
like a minister of the divine vengeance; and the
glare of the sword of Frederic gleamed among the
half intoxicated rioters. Elder Wood continued to
he cried. `Wash out the stains of lust and violence
with blood. Accursed be he, who holdeth back his
hand from slaying. Make Kentucky work of it.'—
Davidow was cut down with the war hatchet of Areskoui.
Frederic with the hilt of his sword felled Julius
to the floor. The Shoshonee bound him in a moment.
The half drunk, astounded, wounded and knocked
down captain was also bound. Straggling discharges
of fire arms and the war shouts of the Shoshonee
gave evidence, that the soldiers were attacked on the
esplanade. But victory soon proclaimed aloud for the
invaders, and the triumphant war song of the red men
rung long and loud over the plain. The soldiers and
Aleutians had chiefly escaped by the open gate, and
had dispersed in the woods. Two faithful Shoshonee
were charged not to allow the escape of Baptiste and
Hatch, whom they observed cowering behind the
flying Aleutians. They groped along, ignorant of
the way, until they also cleared the gate. The spies
had anticipated them; and as they arrived in breathless
trepidation at the flight of stairs, and were about
to descend to the boats, each Shoshonee seized his
victim at the same moment. Whirling them round
with their whole force, they precipitated both into the
dark and bottomless gulf below. A fiendish yell of
horror noted their descent, and a hollow dash their
final plunge into the fearful abyss. `Cheowanna—ha-ha!'
cried the red men. `Go, cowards, to the land of
souls, and be tormented by old women.' At the same
time, their peculiar and indescribable note, as they
drew their fingers over their mouths, broken into
countless fragments of their exulting scream, as usual,
raised the howl of the dogs in chorus.
A number of captive Aleutians were retained, as
pilots, and hostages; and the passage to the boats was
guarded by some of the most brave and trusty Shoshonee.
something like a report of what had been transacted
was made to the reunited friends in the hall. As no
words could at all reach the circumstances of rapture,
in which the delivered captives were once more
made free, and pressed to the bosom of their friends,
the whole transaction must be left to the imagination.
They were soon rehabited, and one at the right hand,
and the other at the left of Frederic, were receiving
wine and water at the table, to restore their strength,
which had sunk under the united influence of agony
and inanition. Their emotions were as yet too tumultuous
and mighty for words, or even tears.
Elder Wood and Areskoui were still busy in the
important business of trial and retribution. The women
were all collected in the state room, which the
captives had occupied. Shrieks and hysterics and
cries for mercy, though they knew not to whom to
address them, made the room a bedlam. Elder
Wood heard some of their stories, as a kind of state's
evidence. He came to some general and strong conclusions.
`I think,' said he, `they would expound the
law after this fashion in Kentucky;' and he entered
into his views of justice in the case. `Be it as you
please,' said Areskoui. `You know the medicine rules
of the pale faces.' The captain was brought into the
presence of the women. The Shoshonee gathered
bundles of rods, after their fashion of preparing a victim
to run the gauntlet. The women, who had used
violence towards the captives, received a severe drubbing
from members of their own fraternity who proved
themselves not to have participated in the actual outrage.
Others in the same predicament were compelled
to whip the captain; and, if in either case,
these extempore lictors showed the least lenity, or
disposition to be sparing and unfaithful, the Shoshonee
instructed them in the right manner of application,
Meanwhile, their capers and cries were such a treat
to these red men, that they danced, and shook their
heads, and wept for very laughter. Elder Wood
stood by, guiding the discipline, according to his notions
of even-handed and retributive justice, as it was
understood in the earlier periods of his native state.
The rod of justice was first stayed over the executive
hags; but not until they were in a condition, to carry
durable memorials of this exercise, which, Elder
Wood prayed the Lord, might do them good, and
lead them to repentance. The captain received a
discipline considerably more severe, and protracted,
Elder Wood preaching all the while to him in English,
not a word of which he understood. At length,
seeing him exhausted, `let the son of Belial alone,' he
cried. He, Areskoui and the Shoshonee retired,
locking the door upon the outside, and leaving them
to comfort each other.
`We have done much, and fought valiantly the battles
of the Lord,' cried Elder Wood; `and now let me
again embrace our dear lost children.' Jessy and
Katrina were pressed to his bosom, while paternal
tears streamed down his venerable cheeks. `It is
enough,' he said. `I have seen enough. This second
time in my life, I might repeat the words of the ancient
Simeon, `Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart
in peace.' But my children,' he cried, as embrace
succeeded to embrace, and as Frederic and Areskoui
joined the rescued, to solicit a share in the tender
greetings, `let us away. Let us cross the sea, and go
forth into the wilderness. I shall hardly feel liberty
to pour out the fulness of my heart to the Almighty,
till I am in the sanctuary of a Kentuckian, the free
and wide forest. Let us reassemble all our friends,
and report `what has been done, and take counsel,
what remains to do.' Areskoui uttered his peculiar
There lay the miserable Julius, once more bound and
a prisoner. `What shall be done with this wretch,'
cried Elder Wood. `It were meet, it seems to me,
that we punish him condignly, where he lies, and in
view of the victims of his outrages.' `Not so,' cried
Areskoui. `We have medicine rules, that apply to
his case, and we are unwilling, that the pale face
should pass upon him again.'
The council was short, for the business was urgent.
`We have to pass over a wide waste of wilderness,'
said Elder Wood. `We owe it to our necessities, and
still more to avenging injured innocence, to do, what
in us lies, to destroy the means of repeating such injuries,
to plunder this den of lust, and these habitations
of cruelty. Let us utterly spoil the tents of the
Philistines.' `The easiest and shortest way to this,'
cried one of the young chiefs, `would be to burn the
wigwam and its inhabitants together. This would
be a purification by fire, as well as blood.' `Shall
we so avenge ourselves?' asked Areskoui. `God forbid,'
replied Elder Wood. `Many of these abandoned
women may have been brought here by violence,
like our rescued ones. Let us leave them a space for
repentance. The more guilty are slain. Baptiste
and Hatch are justly sent to their everlasting account.
Julius is in our hands. Our triumph is complete.
We will not stain it with cruelty. But this hinders
not, that we should carry with us, for our own proper
use, every thing, that will comfort us on our way, or
be useful to the red people at their own homes.'
They, who had acted as guides, in conducting the
Shoshonee rescue to Ostroklotz, felt, that residence in
that region would no longer be safe to them; and they
requested permission to return with the Shoshonee,
and dwell among them. The plunder was collected,
and such parts as were deemed worth bearing away,
of Shoshonee, and the aid of the prisoners. The
case was felt to demand despatch; and the most decisive
promptitude marked all their movements. Many
hands and extreme and hurried exertion soon completed
their arrangements for departure. The prisoners
and the stupid Aleutians, who had taken no
share in the outrages, and who were not required as
pilots from the island, were dismissed. The pilots
advanced to the shore under a strong guard. Julius
was in the keeping of four Shoshonee, who distinctly
warned him, that the least movement towards escape
would be punished with instant death. The rescue
party took up their line of march for the shore, Areskoui
at the head of his warriors, and Elder Wood
leading Jessy, and Frederic Katrina. `We leave the
accursed abode to the malediction of God,' cried Elder
Wood, as they cleared the gate, advancing onward
by the glare of torches. The whole party rapidly
bestowed themselves in their boats, with a pilot
in the bow of each, who answered for the safe pilotage
of his boat with his life. To increase the difficulties
of pursuit, and of despatching tidings from the
island, all the crafts, that were not filled with the expedition,
and the plunder, were turned adrift, pushed
into the eddies, and carried away to sea. But the
expedition, the plunder, and the prisoners occupied
the greater portion, that lay at the landing. `Now
may He,' cried Elder Wood, `who holds the waves in
the hollow of his palms, and the winds in his fists, guide
us through this dreadful passage.' Eight boats, four
on each eddy, cast off their fasts in succession. The
heavy and eternal roar again sounded in their ears.
The moon and stars, dimly shining amidst the leaden
clouds, seemed to rest on the summit of the awful
chasm; and they rose, and sank with fearful and dizzying
movements. The glare of their torch lights
terrific grandeur; and the poised and intense earnestness
of the pilots, sufficiently instructed the crews that
it was felt, that a single false dip of the oar would
merge them in the angry brine. The lapse of a few
moments showed them, in the brightness of their
lights, the sublimity and terror of the subterranean
passage; and by noting the strata of spar, two hundred
feet above them, they could accurately measure
the swell, which at one moment brought them so near
it, that it seemed as if they could reach it. Plunging
down the next moment, its phosphoric and gem-like
radiance faded in their eye, resembling a shooting
star. A dead silence, as of those who held in their
breath, gave all its distinctness in their ear to the
Ocean dash without, which sounded along this passage,
like the angry howl of the monsters of the seas.
If the passage was terrible, it was short. Almost
before they were aware, the eddy had shot them past
the anchorage. A favoring and fresh breeze blew
towards the main land. They erected their sails.—
The moon emerged from the clouds, and the lights of
the camp fires of those Shoshonee, who had been left
on the main land,could be distinctly descried, glimmering
in the distance, and affording the most unerring
direction to their course. The joyful Shoshonee raised
themselves in the boats at the sight; and the loudest
and gayest Cheowanna ha-ha was sung in the most
triumphant style of the red men, sounding more impressively
in the stillness of night, and on the swelling
bosom of the sea, a scene to them so strange and unaccustomed,
than in their natural haunts in the desert.
The spirit of music and enthusiasm and religious joy
was stirred in the bosom of Elder Wood. The little
fleet was speeding beautifully onward by the moonlight;
and each craft within a few oars' length. Jessy
was resting on the arm of her beloved protector, and
cried the excited minister, `that those of us, that are
Christians, sing our triumph in a song of Zion, than
in these heathen and wild notes of the desert. Let
us sing.'
O'er swelling waves their trade pursue,
Do God's amazing works behold,
And in the deep His wonders view.
The Indians all joined in the strain, and louder music
has not been heard on the sea, than that of the
Kentucky minister leading the Shoshonee through the
strains of that hymn, which so delightfully celebrates
the wonderful works and deliverances of the Almighty.
They had scarcely struck the third stanza of the
hymn, when the deep bursts of cannon from Ostroklotz
notified them, that the dispersed inhabitants of
the castle had reassembled, and were striving to make
known their disaster. `Let them pursue,' cried Areskoui.
`We shall shortly press the firm soil with our
feet, and rejoin our brothers. Then let them come;
and, so that we can safely dispose of our rescued ones,
it would delight me to meet them in battle.'
A brief and happy passage landed the boats in the
little cove, where the Shoshonee periogues had been
built. What triumphant joy can be imagined more
complete, what meeting, at the same time delightful
and indescribable, more grateful to the heart, than
that of the once more united Shoshonee! The warriors
from the shore, in their impatience, sprang into
the water to embrace their friends. Elder Wood
raised his fair charge, who had fallen asleep from
complete exhaustion, on his shoulder, and lifted her
gently ashore. Katrina, too, slumbering as deeply as
an infant babe, was gently laid on a mattrass. The
considerate Indians spared their accustomed Cheowanna,
that they might not awaken the rescued ones.
their position might not be betrayed to their enemies.
And though united, armed and under the invigorating
impulse of triumph, they might now have defied
whatever forces their foe might bring against them,
yet it was remarked in the hasty council, which they
held, that nothing but revenge could be gained by a
fight; and, as their retribution had been ample, that
was no longer desired even by the Shoshonee.
The note of packing and preparation for departure
was heard through the camp. The bright morning
sun of summer shone upon this bleak coast, before
their marching arrangements had been completed.
A breakfast was prepared under Areskoui's tent.—
Luxurious refreshments from the castle were spread
before the guests. The finest fresh fish, taken by the
Indians, who had kept the camp, and abundance of
game, hardly required their long abstinence and their
voracious appetites to be rendered sumptuous. The
rescued sleepers were awakened, to renew the scene
of tears, embraces, thanksgivings and unutterable
joy. The imperious wants of nature were acknowledged
even by them, for they had taken no sustaining
refreshment for days. Sleep and food and joy
soon restored their exhausted strength; and they were
the first to rise, and call for that commencement of
their return march, which prudence so imperiously
dictated. The Shoshonee, their hunger appeased,
and moderate quantities of brandy from the castle
distributed among them, speedily loaded their horses
and mules. Jessy and Katrina were mounted upon
the surest and easiest horses. The general word to
mount was given. The prisoner pilots were ordered
to accompany them one day's march, that they might
not guide the forces of the Russian establishment upon
them. Julius was pinioned to a horse incapable
of speed, and placed between two Shoshonee, who
for their vigilance and trustiness. They gave him
well to understand, that he could not move, except
by their direction, and that death would be the instant
penalty of any effort to escape.
The dogs raised the marching yell of delight. The
Indians beat their drums. The horses neighed with
pleasure, as if unconscious of the immense march,
and the whole expedition set forth from the sea, with
their faces towards their green retreats in the interior.
Many of the details of this return march are pretermitted,
and left to be filled out in thought. The
march was rapid; for until beyond the first range of
mountains, they could not feel secure from the assaults
of their foes. It was fortunate, for the season
was delightful; the horses were fresh; provisions and
even bread, wine and brandy abundant. It was a
triumphant expedition, loaded with plunder and peltries.
Even Jessy, in the joy of recent deliverance,
and the transition from terror and outrage to security
and friendship, was as cheerful as returning remembrances,
associated with her native valley, would allow.
Hence the expedition encountered with cheerfulness
the ocean of sand-hills. On its skirt, they dismissed
all those prisoners, who did not prefer to remain
with them, to return to the Russian settlement,
as aware that they were now sufficiently secure
against the chances of soon rallying, and directing forces
in pursuit. Most of the prisoners voluntarily preferred
to accompany them; but three only chose to
return, and they were despatched towards their
homes on horseback.
The expedition returned by a route different from
that on which they came out, longer, but deemed
more practicable and abundant in game. Beyond
the first range of mountains they found it necessary
to halt in order to rest their horses, and allow them
was in the verge of a beautiful wood, on the
margin of a stream abounding in fish. Illimitable
prairies, dotted with wooded isles, and with herds of
buffaloes and elk quietly feeding on the grass, were
in view. Their tents were pitched. The little extempore
Shoshonee town sprung up in the wood,
showing in its domestic hum, its streaming smokes,
and its busy inhabitants, that a city of bark habitations
can be as social and as cheerful as one of marble
mansions.
The first business of such an encampment, after
witnessing the horses luxuriating in the tender grass,
was to take fish and hunt buffaloes. Supplies as ample,
as their wants, were obtained with facility in a
stream, which had seldom been rippled by a hook or
a spear; and on prairies, whose buffaloes and elk rarely
snuffed the scent of human footstep.
Around the abundant and cheerful supper of that
evening in the tent of Areskoui were assembled his
domestic guests. Katrina had resumed all her former
freshness and buoyancy. Her raven curls hung in
her neck in their former luxuriance; and whilst gaiety,
delight, and feelings kindled from the sun beamed on
her cheek and in her eye, she affirmed, that all, that
was requisite to render her the happiest being in the
world, was to see every trace of gloom removed from
the countenance of Jessy; while she, aware how many
more of the circle felt this want, as the only draw-back
to their hilarity, suppressed her deep remembrances,
as she might, and made an effort to seem as
happy as the rest.
It may well be imagined, how eager was the curiosity
of the rescued to hear the whole story of their deliverance,
a chronicle not a circumstance of which had
yet transpired. `Come then,' said Elder Wood, `since
God has again spread our table in the wilderness,
all, but the pleasant sounds of the whippoorwill, and
the rippling leaves, and the murmur of the stream are
still, since this is an evening of rest and jubilee, let
us relate to these, my dear rescued children, the story
of their deliverance. Not unto us; not unto us, but to
their Almighty deliverer be the gratitude and the glory.'
A white stranger, whom the rescued had already
noticed, as a member of the expedition, was introduced
by the name of Jablinski, a Pole by birth, who, if
his enormous mustachios had been shorn, and his seal
skin dress replaced by that of a civilized being, might
well have been called handsome. Tall, strong-built,
and erect, dogged self-will and good nature sat on his
countenance, which showed a certain amount of fairness
through the varnish of smoke and the tanning of
exposure to the inclement elements, which had been
superinduced by time. He was requested to relate
his agency in the deliverance, in his own way. He
gave it in French, and it was to the following effect.
He had been a soldier in the Russian army, and had
served in Germany and France. Indignant at not obtaining
promotion, he deserted, and escaped to Kamtschatka.
There chance brought him in contact with
the crew of a fur ship bound to the Russio-American
settlements. He proved himself to possess capabilities
of uncommon adroitness in taking seals and sea
otters. These qualifications procured him the command
of the Aleutian seal takers on the isle of Ostroklotz.
Some hundreds of these people resided on the
island, who were found useful subjects by the Russians,
as being simple, incapable of resistance, perfectly
docile and subservient to their purposes, and
withal excellent fishermen and seal takers. Thither
Jablinski had been removed. He took an Aleutian
wife, and soon mastered their language. His superior
intelligence, and this intimate amalgamation with
Conversing frequently with the officers of the castle,
he strove to win their confidence, and to obtain some
appointment within its walls, where his imagination
had fixed the abode of all possible enjoyment. But
he had too bright an eye, and was seen with a scrutiny
too jealous, to be admitted into that place. He had
even solicited some petty office in the castle, and had
been roughly and peremptorily refused. The affront
rankled in his bosom, and stimulated him to revenge.
Curiosity, imagination, and a licentious temperament,
sharpened his purposes. His whole study, while guiding
his Aleutians to their pursuits, centered upon
the desire of gaining illicit ingress to the castle. His
dreams constantly ran upon the delights of that interdicted
place.
On pleasant summer nights he often traversed the
exterior of the quadrangle in the darkness, pausing
from time to time to catch the softened sounds of music
and revelry, that came on his ear from within.
He had often climbed the nearest cone-shaped hill,
from the summit of which he could look down upon
the illuminated interior space, and see the officers and
the gaily dressed women promenading the esplanade
in couples. Oh! thought Jablinski, could I but once
place myself in fair competition with these happy officers.
He had meditated the expedient, (for Jablinski
had read romances) of carrier pigeons, paper-kites,
and the other conveyances of amatory verses and
assignation billets over envious walls and into such
guarded recesses. But pigeons, kites, conveyances
of the sort he had none. Even had he the conveyances,
it was quite doubtful, if the fair ones could
read. He had had no chance of captivating them by
the exhibition of his person and mustachios. There
would have been a most disheartening vagueness, in
making love to a fair one, that had never seen him.
responding sigh for sigh, the most formidable difficulty
was, that `she could not get out at all, and he could
not get in.' One of the favored servants of the establishment,
the confidential pilot, was an Aleutian.
He might, perhaps, be bribed to procure his admission.
But this kind of eunuch was a dull fool, and
was in confidence, because known to be brave, a good
pilot, and so stupid, as to be unable to practise concealment.
Jablinski feared detection, if he should
be found tampering with such an one. He knew, that
death would be the inevitable consequence.
Earnest desire is probably the phrenological organ,
where originates invention. The winter of Ostroklotz
is excessive for its severity. Most of the Aleutians
had their winter habitations in the caves, with
which the island abounded. It was a country of that
class of formation, which is every where perforated
with long subterranean passages, and hollow caverns.
Jablinski knew one of these, the entrance of which
was a quarter of a mile from the walls of the castle,
and its labyrinths tended towards that establishment.
As an experienced trapper, he knew well, that even
the animals had the discretion to burrow towards
their objects. `Have I not as much sense,' said he to
himself, `and industry, as an oppossum?' Forthwith
Jablinski was in the habit, whenever he had a spare
day, or night, and the latter case often occurred, of
repairing to this subterranean cave, of exploring it by
torch light, of enlarging its passages, in the direction,
where they tended towards the castle. He finally
discovered one labyrinth, which had so many windings
and zigzags, that it might have required a less
acute or adventurous general lover to make his way
by the clue of a thread. He was no geometrician;
but his invincible desire to obtain an admission stood
him instead of the sciences and inspiration. He satisfied
perpendicularly under the castle, and that portion of
it occupied by the female apartments. But there
might be ten feet of earth and rock between them.—
Forthwith he began to burrow, like a ground squirrel,
or muskrat. Rocks and earth were detached from
above, sometimes not without the risk of breaking his
head, or burying him alive. In the employment of
every spare interval, he had labored for some months,
not without exciting, more than once, the suspicions of
his honest Aleutian wife, in view of his long absences.
At length he had fairly wrought a practicable burrow
quite to the surface of a female apartment. It
happened to be the loose plank floor of a closet. The
candle of the fair occupant shone through the crevices!
Here, his heart throbbing with the triumph of
successful invention and industry, and with voluptuous
anticipations, he often heard confidential narratives
and adventures, which would not be worth relating,
and which the parties dreamed not, that they
were shared by any ears, but their own.
To be brief, Jablinski emerged from his sepulchral
den. The fair occupant screamed; but her curiosity
outran her terrors. She was not long inexorable, or
either loth, or slow to aid him, in removing a plank or
two, that gave him admission. It was easy, when he
chose to retire, to replace the plank by which he entered.
He disappeared in his cavern, when the interview
terminated; and every thing showed as before.
While he was thus exulting in the success of this
clandestine intercourse with the interior, the two captives
were brought there. Such parts of their story,
as were known, became a subject of frequent discussion
between him and his fair one. Her highly colored
painting of their beauty aroused his curiosity.—
Her story of their persecutions and wrongs stirred up
his indignation; for Jablinski had a heart, notwithstanding
It happened, that he had been ordered, about that
time, with his Aleutians, to the continent, to pursue
a prodigious herd of sea lions, that had been discovered
haunting that part of the shore. They passed
the mouth of the cove, where the Shoshonee were
preparing their periogues. Circumstances brought
Frederic and him in contact. They both spoke
French, and he was from innumerable sympathies
much more likely to become a friend to Frederic,
than the Russian officers. Frederic comprehended
at a glance all the importance of gaining such a confederate.
He was introduced to Elder Wood and
Areskoui. After satisfying themselves as to his capacity
and fidelity, they disclosed to him their position
and their object. He was the more ready to participate
in it, from the circumstance, that he had been
made fearfully aware, that his female friend was already
excessively jealous of him, having in fact discovered
him to be on terms of intimacy with another
inmate of the castle. It was not without difficulty,
and after the most earnest protestations of breaking
off all other acquaintance in the castle, except with
her, that she had hitherto been withheld from disclosing
the secret of his subterranean access. Carrying,
as he was well assured, he did, his life in his hand,
every time he thus visited the castle, and promised
protection, reward, and citizenship among the Shoshonee
on the other hand, he was prepared to enter
with his whole heart into their plans. A more fit instrument
could not have been found. Visiting the
island frequently, and repairing by night to his castle
confidant, he was made acquainted with the state of
things within, and taught his new confederates, that
no time was to be lost, in making the effort to rescue
the captives. Perfectly experienced in the secret of
safe approach to the island, he bribed the Aleutian
steered another. They landed at the mouth of the
cove, near the working camp of Areskoui. His two
periogues were now finished. They would conveniently
contain fifteen persons each, beside the pilots.
He had procured two Aleutian pilots, already on the
continent pursuing seals, to steer the periogues of the
Shoshonee. Before sunset the squadron of periogues,
with sixty select warriors, among whom were Areskoui,
Frederic and Elder Wood, piloted by three
Aleutians and Jablinski, hoisted sail from the mouth
of the cove for the anchorage ground near the island.
There they waited till dusk began to conceal their
approach. They landed safely. The Aleutian pilot
ascended the steps in the first instance, and drew
the guards from their position, by pretending to have
something of great moment to communicate. It was,
beside, an evening of holiday; and they were already
nearly drunk. Areskoui and three of his friends
sprang up the steps, seized the guards, and made
sure of the pass, without giving an alarm. Areskoui
and his friends and warriors made the circuit of the
woods, to avoid discovery, from which they were also
shielded at once by the darkness, and the universal
occupation of every thought in the revelry of the
castle. They followed Jablinski, darkling, through
his labyrinth. His fair one was occupied with the
rest in the festivities of the mockery of marriage.
Her room was filled with the confederates, one mounting
through the subterranean avenue after another.
They examined their arms, and took counsel for a
moment together. Elder Wood was preluding to
give them an harangue on the occasion, when the
increasing din, and now the shricks of the victims, met
their ears. The door was thrown open, and the armed
mass rushed into the entry, at the moment, that
the lights were extinguished, and the victims dragged
the two principal villains in the light, as to make
sure of them in the dark. The orgies of the evening
precluded, on the part of the inmates, and the soldiers
without, any chance of effectual resistance. All were
occupied in some way in preparation for the expected
festivities. The inmate of the apartment, which
they entered, made one of the detestable company,
who searched the captives for weapons. The expedition
passed, a part into the hall, and a part into the
esplanade. The soldiers, drunk, paralyzed, and thunderstruck
with terror, were either knocked down, disarmed,
or disposed to escape through the gate, which
was at once thrown open. With the subsequent
transactions all parties present had been acquainted,
by being themselves actors in it.
With her quick and instinctive sense of propriety,
Jessy made such acknowledgments, and expressed
such gratitude to the Pole, as the case called for; and
as might be rendered, without trenching upon self-respect.
It would be to no purpose, to think of presenting
the joy and renewed congratulations of this
group of friends, bound to each other by such peculiar
ties, as they resumed their march, with restored
cheerfulness and vigor, along the desert. The chief
passed them at the head of his warriors, his countenance
rendered more interesting by the sallow and
pale cast of fixed melancholy worn into it by habit,
and contrasted by the intense brilliance of his eye,
kindled by recent triumph, and the consciousness, that
Jessy was once more with him in the care of her
friends. In passing, he paused, and enquired with
considerate kindness, `if the march could be rendered
less fatiguing to them, by change of horses, or any of
the circumstances, under which they journeyed?'—
`Sister of my soul,' said Katrina, in a low voice, as he
passed beyond hearing—`what a chief is this! How
reared in the desert, and among the red people,
should look at him, as I do. Admire not, that to me
he is nobler and more beautiful, than even our Frederic.
There is something in his sad countenance and
bright eye, that soften me to pity and almost to tears'
—and her innocent and ardent spirit continued to dictate
the most enthusiastic praise of every thing in the
chief, that is naturally the subject of female admiration.
Jessy sighed with the sad presentiment, that
she had succeeded but too effectually, in inspiring her
young bosom with love; and her mind immediately
began to ruminate the ways and means of undoing
the web, which she had so recently woven. Hence
her thoughts strayed away to forecast the uncertain
future, and meditate, how she ought hereafter to dispose
of herself and her time. One sacrifice would
probably restore the chief to all his former energy
and cheerfulness. The Shienne were subdued beyond
the power of working future mischief. Hope
and joy would at once restore to Areskoui all that
manner and appearance, the want of which had produced
murmurs among the disaffected, that they loved
not a chief with the spirit of a woman. She would
ensure permanent protection. In fixing her destiny
beside the graves of her parents, she would probably
fulfil, what had been the most settled plan and desire
of her father. The Shoshonee might be civilized,
and Christianized; and the heart of her venerable
adopted father, in view of becoming the Apostle of
the nation, made as happy, as human heart could be.
She could not but trace her double deliverance to the
chief, as the prime moving agent. In looking back
to the first remembered period of her life, every act
of his had been so considerate, disinterested, and of
such unmixed purity, heroism and self denial, that she
chided herself for allowing the dreadful associations
`Have I not said,' she asked herself, `a thousand times,
that beauty is of the mind; and what mind can show
more beauty and nobleness?' In this way she would
cancel, by the only mode in her power, her infinite obligations.
Here was the beautiful, innocent and
warm hearted Katrina, who saw all his worth, without
a thousandth part of her sense of obligation. Why
had she not a similar feeling? What was love, but a
specious and deceptive word, an apology for the caprices
of the passions in opposition to reason, expedience
and duty? But alas! there was no mistake. The
more deeply and faithfully she probed her heart, the
more clearly she discovered, that truth and sincerity
and an invincible repugnance forbade the idea; and
at the same time, afflicting and terrible disclosures of
another kind began to be manifest to her search.
How unjust and capricious, she thought with self-abasement,
is the human heart! How little is it
swayed by a sense of right and duty!
At noon they halted among rocks and cliffs, on the
lofty table summit of the second range of mountains,
they had to pass. `There,' cried Areskoui, as they
dismounted, and prepared for dinner, `there is our
country. We may now defy the pursuit of the Russ.
Wakona, never to unbend thy brow to cheerfulness,
is to be ungrateful to the Master of Life. Thy parents
are in the sunny plains of joy, in the land of souls.
If thy brother has deserved aught in thy rescue, let
me be repaid by once more seeing the smile of the
early days of thy life.'
At the foot of the mountains was the most northern
hunting range of the Shoshonee. A salmon stream
laved their base. Beyond were intermixed woods, and
prairies, and a wide plain abounding in game. They
crossed the stream by a natural bridge of fallen trees,
and encamped in this region of abundance, to hunt,
corn.
Julius had been brought on thus far, pinioned after
the Indian fashion, and guarded with such unremitting
vigilance, that the thought of escaping from the
tried Pentanona on one side, and Dembea on the
other, had scarcely occurred to him. His horse, he
knew, was purposely of inferior speed; and he felt,
that the first movement to escape would be met by
cutting him down. Bitter, it may be imagined, was
the theme of his reflections, as he moved onwards, fatigued,
despised, and shivering with anticipation at
every halt, that there his fate would be decided. It
tended not to mitigate the anguish of his dark
thoughts, to see the affectionate courtesies of Frederic
and Areskoui to Jessy, and the smile of gratitude,
with which they were received. Every redoubled
effort to soothe, and cheer her on their part, carried
a new pang to his heart. Her murdered parents
sometimes come over his mind, like a dark cloud.
He felt within himself the strange enigma of the tormenting
fury of his base appetites still unmitigated,
and unsatisfied. `There they go,' he reflected, `loving
and happy as angels; and what am I, and what
soon to be!' Dark and interminable views of the
dreadful future would then scorch his brain, as though
it were pierced with a stream of lightning. Hopes
of rescue or escape alike relinquished, his last reliance
was a new appeal to the shrinking tenderness
of Jessy. Horror thrilled from his heart to his remotest
nerves, as he remembered the position, in
which the weapon of Frederic had felled him, and
the improbability, that Elder Wood and Frederic,
and much less the Indians, would relax from their
firmness, even if Jessy should ask his release. Whenever
he contemplated the chances of his trial, the
clammy sweat of death instantly started on his forehead.
could no where be imagined, than in his case.
The Indians, who passed him, deigned no reply to his
questions, and looked at him as a thing that no longer
had a sensitive existence. A hundred messages had
been requested by him to Elder Wood. Areskoui,
Frederic, Jessy, and even the more influential of the
warriors. Not the slightest recognition or reply was
manifested by either.
When his thoughts wandered, as they sometimes
would, during his long and silent marches, from the
horrible reality of the present to the dreamy remembrances
of the past, there rose his magnificent home,
in its oriental splendor and voluptuousness. There
were the soothings, the indulgent fondness, the unlimited
homage from numerous dependents, of his
early years. There were his long revelries and the
blandishments of riches, art, and the unlimited scope
of his passions in the bowers of pleasure in Europe.
He remembered the fawning obsequiousness of the
victims, he had betrayed. He remembered in how
many circles of the fair, titled, and distinguished, he
had seen mothers stealthily pointing him out to their
daughters; and he comprehended by the interpretation
of vanity, the flattering portraits of these experienced
instructers, as they described his wealth and
amiability and beauty to their daughters.
What was he now? An abhorred, pinioned captive,
a wretch in the midst of the American deserts,
an object of abhorrence even to the meanest retainer
of an Indian camp. The twice outraged, and rescued
object of his guilty passions, passed in her loveliness,
every day in his sight, and the vision of her beauty
not rendered less interesting by the unalterable sadness
of mourning occasioned by assassination of his
procuring, and conscious that the fact must now be
known to her. Yet, on her relenting, all his hopes
of mercy must rest.
He had often striven to call up the hardihood necessary
to suicide. When riding, as he had often
done, on this long march, on the verge of precipices,
whence a single plunge of his horse would have dashed
him in pieces on the rugged rocks below, he had
looked fearfully, and wistfully down the dizzy depths,
and attempted to imagine the momentary mortal
agony of the quiver and recoil, which would precede,
what he hoped would be the extinction of his being.
His head whirled, and he became faint at the thought.
Then he meditated the death, which he could procure
from his guards, by attempting to escape; and
his coward heart shrunk at the imagination of feeling
the cold hatchet's edge in his cleft brain. `Not now.
Not now. To-morrow. Another time. Hereafter I
may feel nerved to an unshrinking fortitude to die.'
Such were his mental soliloquies. Once he thought
he might strangle himself in such a way, as not to
feel himself die. He seized his throat with his right
hand, and held fast, till his effeminate dread of pain
convinced him, that he could no way beguile himself
out of life, without feeling the transit. Not unfrequently,
the most torturing thought of all was, the
fast snatch of his broken slumbers, when a disturbed
dream presented Jessy once more struggling in his
arms. The contrast of his waking consciousness was
a darkness of the soul, like that of Egypt, to be felt.
Areskoui informed his guests, as they halted on the
opposite side of the stream, that he had promised his
warriors to remain there for the maize festival; and
that he should repose his horses and the expedition by
a rest of three days. Preparations were instantly
commenced for an encampment of more than ordinary
consequence. The thicket sounded with frequent
strokes of the hatchet, and bark cabins, of considerable
size, and even neatness, rose in the green wood
shade. It is one of the joyous circumstances append-ed
that wherever their feet press the soil, wherever
there are streams, woods, grass, game, fish and fowl,
and the circumambient blue above, they instantly find,
in the language of the bible, their city of habitation.
Their moral world surrounds them, like the atmosphere,
wherever they pitch their tents. Towns, mansions,
spires, towers, the fastidious creations of art, the
complicated wants and aspirations of civilized pride,
ostentation and ambition, are not requisite to supply
every association, that belongs to the universally sacred
word, home. In a remote desert, with desolate
mountains, which they had scrambled over, on one
hand, in a wood, by a stream, and with an ocean
prairie, where elk and buffaloes were feeding on the
other hand, they were cheerfully trampling down the
grass, to form the lanes and alleys of communication
between the habitations, which had been the work of
but a few hours. Jessy and Katrina had already
decked their little abode with evergreens and fragrant
flowers; and had sauntered with Frederic on
the banks of this desert stream, unknown to song,
sketching the outlines of the landscape, as they paused,
to survey the lonely grandeur of the scenery about
them more attentively. Conversations in such a
place, and between persons so situated, could scarcely
fail to arouse from their deep places the long repressed
sentiments of their hearts. These walks and these
conversations, uninterrupted by the presence of either
Elder Wood, or Areskoui, whose whole thoughts and
energies had been given to fishing and hunting, had
already occupied two days of their sojourn.
During these two days, they had procured as ample
a supply of fish, fowl and game, as the exigencies
of the expedition required. On the third, the Indians
showed in their countenances, that some ceremonial
of solemn import, and of a more stern character,
A deep and murky gravity and thoughtfulness dwelt
upon every face; and they answered the questions of
their civilized guests with the shortest economy of
speech. Areskoui breakfasted with his guests in unwonted
silence. His voice faltered, as he addressed
them on rising from their food; and an unusual paleness
and melancholy marked his countenance. `My
sisters,' he said, `medicine man, and you, younger pale
faces,' pointing to Frederic and Jablinski, who at this
moment entered the tent, `we have a great medicine
solemnity to keep this day, which can be duly celebrated
only by an unmixed assembly of red men. You
will bear me witness, that this is the first time I have
ever intimated to you, that we wish to be alone. In
yonder pleasant point of wood, at the foot of the river's
bend, you will find a tent prepared for you of the
pale face. You will perceive, that it is supplied
with the best of our stores, and the medicine drink
from the grape. You will meet there two servants of
the Spanish race, that your food may be prepared for
you, according to your pleasure. It is the day sacred
to your Wahcondah, as we keep that, which is hallowed
to ours. It is right, that your medicine man
should sometimes perform his more sacred rites, undisturbed
by the presence of the unbelieving red
men. When to-morrow's sun shall have walked forth
above the mountains, we will unite again and resume
our march in peace.'
Elder Wood and his friends, ruminating the import
of this solemn prelude, arose to depart. They comprehended,
that this separation was enjoined, chiefly,
that the Shoshonee might proceed to the decision of
the fate of Julius, uncensured and uninterrupted;
without being diverted from their purpose by entreaties;
and without having to exercise the harshness of
refusing to listen to them. They perceived, too, that
which such a spectacle would excite in their minds.
In this view, the requested separation rather evinced
considerate delicacy than harshness. `Are they intending
to sacrifice that man with the name not to be
uttered,' asked Jessy, as paleness crossed the transient
crimson of her cheek. `Oh! were it not better, that
we entreat his life once more?' `The entreaty will
not be mine,' gravely responded Elder Wood. `I
know not, that we ought to wish forbearance. I should
feel no reluctance to hear, that he were punished with
a quick and merciful death. We must leave him to
that God, who is righteous and terrible in his judgments.
I well know the ways of this people. Areskoui
himself could as easily turn the sun from its path,
as this people from their ways, even if he would. I
am well assured, he would not make the trial. Let
us refrain from intermeddling with their usages, which
would not swerve their purpose, and might injure us?'
They arrived at their assigned tent, and were struck
with the extreme beauty of the position, and the taste,
with which it was fitted up. It was large, and cone
shaped, and covered with buffalo robes, brightly
stained, and neatly disposed upon long poles, bent over
each other in an elliptical curve. Every part was
decked with the gayest desert flowers; and, as they
had been notified, abundant provision had been made
for food and refreshment. The day was the Christian
Sabbath, a solemnity, on which Jablinski placed no
particular value. He felt, beside, that his presence
would be no addition to the pleasure of their confidential
privacy. He begged to be allowed to amuse himself
with his yager in his own way. Elder Wood, after
a short remonstrance touching the violation of the
Sabbath, added, `that a compelled observance of the
holy season was not that incense of the heart, called
for by the God of the Sabbath.' Thus the little endeared
immediately drew forth his pocket bible and hymn
book. He read that beautiful psalm, in which the
various deliverances of the Almighty, from the different
calamities of human life, by land and by sea, are
celebrated; and at the close of each strain of which
it is added, O praise the Lord for his goodness, and for
his wonderful works to the children of men. He prayed,
and touched with a tenderness, that filled his own
eyes, and those of his hearers, upon the merciful and
wonder working providence, which had been so conspicuously
manifested in the rescue of his dear children
there in the presence of God. Scarce had he
risen from prayer, and given out the hymn which they
commenced singing, than another song, the death song
of three hundred Shoshonee, was heard coming in broken
peals, and in its appalling energy over the plain.
When the chorus sunk, its deep and guttural notes
might be best likened to the hollow and distant murmur
of a full mountain torrent.
The song of Zion was broken off in the midst. No
one had the heart to sound another note. `Let us
away,' cried Jessy, `before the sound shall be so in my
ears, as that it can never be blotted from memory.'
Giving, therefore, a hasty charge to have supper ready
at the accustomed hour, and taking refreshments
with them for dinner, they set forth towards a spectacle,
which showed at the distance of more than a
league to the east of their tent. It presented the appearance
of an immense temple, separated a few paces
from the perpendicular face of a high mountain.
Even seen at that distance, the columns would have
been estimated six hundred feet in height, and the
magnitude of the whole in every respect corresponding.
Compared to this desert temple, the pyramids
were the erections of children. The morning sun
shone upon its purple color, changing it to the most
Manitou,' (for such was the import of its name in Shoshonee)
said Elder Wood, `and in admiring the grandeur
of the works of God, let us forget the angry and
unrighteous passions of man.' The servants preceded
them, bearing refreshments; and they hurried their
steps over the flowering prairie, solicitous, as soon as
might be, to get beyond the increasing fury of the
Indian death song.
Before they reached the magnificent pile, every
moment swelling its dimensions in their eye, they had
ceased to hear the death song, except in some of the
softened notes dying away on the breeze. The temple
of nature, as Jessy named it, although at a distance
it had the semblance of being scarcely separated from
the mountain, when reached, measured a distance of
at least fifty paces from it. The mountain rose in
mid air between two and three thousand feet in perpendicular
height from the level of the prairie. It
was all of purple colored stone. Its naked front showed,
as if it had been hewed, and polished. A considerable
stream above, just before its leap separated
into numerous channels, and streamed down this surface,
like ribbands of lustring let down from the sky.
The most splendid rainbows were painted upon them;
and when they united at the mountain's base, they
formed a beautiful transparent stream, skirted with
innumerable wild flowers, surmounted with humming
birds and bees. Turtles, orioles and song sparrows
emulated each other's notes, in the beautiful shrubs
that fringed the stream. The temple's roof was supported
on more than a hundred columns. Its circular
dome showed of Grecian proportions, and it rested
upon circular ranges of columns. Near it rose tall
pillars of the same purple and polished stone, showing
like obelisks. Beyond were structures resembling
pyramids. If all this magnificent show were really
and its indescribable grandeur showed it to be, nothing
could more resemble the works of art. The
party long contemplated this stupendous work in silent
admiration and amazement, interrupted only by
the devout ejaculation of Elder Wood, `great and
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; in wisdom
hast Thou made them all. The earth is full of
thy riches.'
To render the resemblance of this wonder of the
solitude to a temple still more striking, the falling waters
generated a breeze between the mountain side
and the temple, which in rushing along the columns,
and under the vaulted dome, formed a kind of Eolian
harp of a hundred chords, and a power, like that
of the deeper notes of the Harlem organ. Here they
all joined in Elder Wood's favorite hymn, almost deafened,
and alarmed at the extent and power of the
echoes; and ceasing at intervals, only to listen to the
incessant voluntary of the house of nature.
Between the mountains and the columns was an
area of some acres, beaten perfectly smooth, and of a
polished purple surface. It was one of those places,
so common in the western portions of this continent,
called a Lick. When they concealed themselves within
the temple, in a direction not to be scented by the
desert animals, it was covered with antelopes, buffaloes
and elk, who came there to lap the saline particles,
which nature had mixed with the earth. It was
only to show themselves, and these free dwellers of
the wilderness sped away, evincing how little grateful
was the sight of man.
In listening to this music, in surveying this magnificent
pile, in noting these habits of the larger animals
of those regions, and in such conversations, as
the day, the scene and their peculiar state of feeling
elicited, they forgot the dreadful ceremony, and the
Beneath a sugar-maple, where they heard on one
hand the song of a hundred birds, and on the other
the incessant swell of this magnificent Eolian harp,
they brought forth their refreshments. They refused
not the wine cup, dashed with the cold and limpid
element, which fell from the mountain. When they
had temperately partaken, Elder Wood bade them
enjoy themselves in that beautiful place, while he retired
to his solitary devotions in the interior of the
temple of nature. One of those conversations ensued,
which are chiefly interesting in the ear of the young,
and which brought smiles even on the sad countenance
of Jessy. It is only necessary to indicate, that
Frederic became eloquent and most enthusiastically
poetical, in expatiating upon the beauties of that
place, and the perfect happiness, which he felt conscious,
he could there enjoy with only the selected of
his heart—of the world forgetting, and forgotten—
worshipping with the beloved one in that temple, with
its unceasing music, drinking from that transparent
stream, sheltered in that beautiful wood, and feeding
from the wild fruits and beasts of the desert, and the
feathered tenants of the woods and the streams, as
fearless of them, as the primitive races were of the
first pair in Paradise, before sin had brought terror
of man among them. `You would almost make me
curious to hear the name of the Eve, who would share
your Eden,' said Jessy. `That name,' he answered,
`must rest ever unrevealed.'
That day, so passed, and in the calm delight of the
confidential intercourse of the heart, each of the three
felt to have been one of the happiest of their lives.—
The slant rays of the sun were already falling in sober
majesty upon the verdure of the prairie, imparting
a rainbow tinge of gold to its green, when Elder
Wood, having finished his private devotions, called
cried Frederic, `to impress this scene upon my memory,
that hereafter, by intense recollection, and by closing
my eyes, I can recall it again.' `And I,' said
Jessy, `have taken a method more consonant to our
gross material structure, to preserve the vivid remembrance
of this scene. She unrolled her port folio.
There were the sleeping mountains. There
was the polished and perpendicular surface of that,
which impended them. There was the temple of nature,
to which St. Peter's was but the erection of
pygmies. There were the buffaloes and elks—ready
to bound along the prairie, and the birds reposing in
the firmament, and the ducks seemingly pattering in
the stream. There was Frederic electing his Eve, and
apparently about to build his bower;—in short, a bold
and spirited outline of all, that was before them—
with much of moral grandeur and sentiment which
the sketch spoke to the imagination. `To how much
better purpose you have occupied your time, than
we,' exclaimed Frederic;—and all this the work of
but an hour;—for we have scarcely noted the operations
of your pencil. You have grasped every thing,
but the music;—and when I look on those columns,
I shall easily imagine that also sounding in my ear.'
`It is for you,' she said, `if you will accept it;'—and
as she presented it, he cried in classical enthusiasm,
Feriam sidera sublimi vertice, and felt, that this was
the happiest moment of his life.
They returned. Supper was prepared. Elder
Wood renewed the worship and thanksgivings. The
evening hymn was sung, and the parties sat at the
door of their tent in delighted silence, listening to the
blended cries of the desert, in which no voice of human
being mingled, and in watching the appearance
of the countless gems sparkling on the grass and flowers
from the fire-flies. Pentanona entered the tent,
the other to Jessy. Torches were lighted, and the
latter turned pale, as she recognized the autograph
of Julius. In other times, it had been one of extreme
beauty. It was now with difficulty legible. Her
hand trembled, as she essayed to make out the contents.
She passed it to Elder Wood, requesting him
to read. Though superscribed to her, the contents
were addressed to him.
Minister of Jesus—A wretch in agony implores you
by Him, who suffered for mankind, to have mercy
upon him. He extenuates nothing. The vilest outrage
and abandonment were his purpose. He confesses,
that he deserves the worst. His only plea is,
that he was ruined by the doting indulgence of his
parents. Luxury and pleasure have enervated him,
and he has not the courage to bear pain. Death is
horror to him, and Oh, God! Oh, God!—the terrible
death of a slow fire. Christ pitied his tormentors.
Oh! let Jessy pity me. The agony is greater, than
human nature can bear. Oh! Elder Wood, come,
and pray with, and for
The other paper, addressed to Elder Wood, was a
full and accurately drawn will, conveying his whole
inheritance, in the amplest form, to Jessy, or her assigns,
as some inadequate reparation for insults intended,
or inflicted. Annexed to it was a line to his
parents, confessing his repeated outrages to Jessy,
and begging them to regard her, as their child in his
place, and assuring them, that his only consolation in
death was the firm persuasion, that they would regard
that, as the last will and testament of their dying
son. Of this will Elder Wood and Frederic were
named witnesses and executors.
The whole was enclosed in an unsealed envelope,
and it had evidently been prepared, as a last expedient,
with a view to soften the heart of Jessy. The
envelope was scrawled with these words.
`They have unbound my hands, and furnished me
with the means of writing this. They are dancing
round the pile, on which I am to suffer by fire. My
oath, that I would possess thee, at the expense of
death and hell, rings in my ears, as a knell, that would
awaken the dead. Oh God! have mercy. Every
thing whirls before my eyes, and I can only pray, that
you may forget, if you cannot forgive
The countenances of the readers and hearers were
equally pale, as they studied out these expressions,
word by word. Katrina supported Jessy, bathing
her temples, and holding her volatiles. Pentanona,
the while, calmly smoked his calumet, appearing not
to notice the successive changes of their countenances.
When the reading was finished, he stood up,
and said, `I am charged to inform you, that the bad
pale face, who made these medicine marks, has gone
to the land of souls. We have accomplished the
most solemn sacrifice of the red men. We have sent
the spirit of the bad pale face, with that of Nelesho,
to minister to the parents of Wakona, and others slain
in that fray, in the country of shadows. Tomorrow
we resume our march. If the medicine man would
know the particulars of this sacrifice, let him come
forth, and I will relate them to him apart.'
Elder Wood followed him from the tent, and heard
the appalling story. It was a recital to create horror
and curdle the blood. When the Indians expire,
in these terrible sacrifices, the hardened endurance,
the seeming insensibility, the invincible apparent apathy,
show, that there is training, that there are resources
of firmness, that there are motives, under the
influence of which, the moral exhibits a striking triumph
over the physical nature—that, fear and every
form of pain and death can be completely vanquished.
The martyrs of all time, under certain circumstances
the most sensitive and delicate women, and universally
The sufferer of the latter class smokes, chaunts his
death song, defies his enemies, and by every movement
evinces that self-possession, which is the strongest
testimony, that the mind has the mastery of the
body—a most impressive proof, that man is not all
clay, and that this elastic and invincible spirit, which
quails not in the endurance of agony, has a presentiment,
that it cannot be touched by death.
In this case there were none of these circumstances
tending to mitigate the horror of the scene. The enervated
coward, libertine, voluptuous, effeminate, and
pampered from his cradle, united the most masculine
fierceness of inordinate passions, the most unshrinking
conceptions of cruel enormity to the nervous timidity
of a weak and hysterical female, spoiled by affluence.
When he meditated crime, mercy, consequences, heaven
and hell, the present and the future, were alike
laid out of the case. When his projects miscarried,
and the righteous reaction of his guilt returned on his
own head, his dastard spirit quailed, and the meanness
of his humiliation was as extreme, as the cruel enormity
of his purposes. `Who could doubt,' Pentanona
asked, `that notwithstanding all his show of penitence,
and his crouching submissiveness of supplication, to
save his vile life, that, had he been spared, he would
have renewed his purposes the first day of his freedom.'
There is a peculiar excitement operating upon the
red men in cases of burning, which renders the beholders
as inaccessible to feeling, and as inexorable
to pity, as the sufferer seems to be incapable of pain.
The preparations were all executed under his eye.
He saw the warriors eagerly adding faggot to faggot,
and mixing green billets with dry. He heard them
carelessly discussing all the circumstances of torment,
they were preparing. The medicine men, hideously
painted, stood apart, beating their drums, and at intervals
in those horrible strains, which had so rung in their
ears at the tent in the morning. He saw these warriors,
so peaceful in their repose, so shepherd-like,
when reclining in the shade of their camp in the slumber
of their passions, apparently transformed by this
scene and singing to the rage and fury of demons.
They yelled, leapt aloft in the air, and danced; and
when they paused for a moment, it was to resume the
fearful chaunt of their death song. An insatiable delight
in the groans and agony of the victim had been
created by the spectacle. He made his last effort to
operate upon their obdurate natures, in thrilling entreaties,
uttered in screams of terror, that they would
not fire the pile, until they had a return to his messages
to their friends. He struggled with his pinions,
till his unheeded cries to the young chief for mercy
sunk away from exhaustion. The serious and calm
indifference of the chief might have been taken for
the result of deafness. Not so the rest. Their shouts
of laughter, and the energy of their dancing were increased
to tenfold vehemence. `The fair pale face
cries, like an old woman,' they shouted amidst their
peals of merriment. The medicine men, meanwhile,
beat their drums with a seriousness as inflexible, and
an industry as uninterrupted, as though the ceremony
could not proceed, if they were for a moment to remit
their beating. They occasionally chaunted, `we hear
their spirits cry for vengeance. Wait till the sun
casts no shadow, and the debt shall be paid.'
The stake was a sapling shaft, stripped of its bark,
of fifty feet in height, and planted perpendicularly.
The moment to fire the pile was, when that stake
should cast no shadow; and the fearful shortening of
that shadow was noted by the quailing eye of the victim,
who was bound fast to it. A human hand might
now have spanned the shadow. The whooping and
have been aptly imaged by that impressive figure, the
sound of many waters. The young chief raised his
hand. `The eye of the Master of Life is now directly
upon us,' he said; and as his hand fell, a few low
notes upon the drums, and the death song sinking almost
under the breath of the warriors, and an imitation
of the cry of one in the last struggles of dissolution,
was the signal to fire the pile. The oldest warrior
of the expedition seized a flaming brand from a
fire in the centre of the camp, kindled on purpose.
He flourished it swiftly three times over his head. He
then calmly applied it to the pile, amidst shrieks from
the victim, which none but a red man's heart could
have endured.
As the fire streamed aloft, `I saw,' said Pentanona,
`big drops rise on the forehead of the base squaw. You
know, that Pentanona, cannot say the thing that is not.
I saw the hairs on his head become white, before they
kindled in the blaze. After all, our warriors, who
suspended their dancing, and their songs, to feast on
the groans of the squaw, were robbed of their joy.
The green wood hissed with the steam of a hot, but
slow fire; and we intended to have danced, and sung
to his cries, till the setting sun. But, as the fire began
to scorch his locks, we saw him fall lifeless and motionless.'
With the morrow's dawn, the Shoshonee expedition
was in order for marching. The averted eyes,
with which Areskoui met, when he presented himself
in Elder Wood's tent, had been expected. `I am
aware,' he said calmly, `that your thoughts utter,
this it is to be a savage. Be it so. I bear the spirit
of a red chief. The shades of the parents of Wakona,
and of my slain warriors have visited my
dreams. Their cry for vengeance has been in my
ears. Their shades are now appeased; the bad
my bosom is lighter. The timorous shrinking of the
pale face, which invites the repetition of crime, is
with you mercy and civilization. Our stern and inflexible
justice, which measures blood for blood, and
life for life, is with you abhorrent savage cruelty.
Had I once more released this pale face, I might say,
that I should have been able no longer to control my
warriors, who would have viewed me, as an old woman.
But I will not endeavor to win your opinion
by any insincerity. From the moment he came in
my power, I laid myself under an interdict, that he
should die. I would have preferred, that he should
have fallen, as your men of war fall—pierced by the
instant death of the yager. But, remember, our customs.
They come down to us with the sanction of
ten thousand moons. How barbarous would many
of the ways of the pale face appear, deprived of this
sanction.' `There is ample truth in all that,' said the
Kentucky minister, in whose bosom the calm sternness
of the young chief found palliation, if not a kindred
feeling.
`Sister of my heart,' said Katrina to Jessy, as their
horses ambled side by side, `how could you look so
coldly on the chief, as he entered our tent this morning?
Were my heart in thy bosom, he would no longer
despair, though he has allowed his warriors to
punish Julius;' and as usual, she continued to expatiate
in the ear of her musing companion the praises of
Areskoui.
Much of this return march was over mountains,
unfrequented even by the Shoshonee. They were
found to be of the most rugged and precipitous character;
and opposing an uncommon distance of snowy
summits, where sterile and inhospitable nature offered
nothing to man or beast. Everlasting storm and frost
reigned among these desolate and appalling peaks.
and fatigue. Here the expedition would have
fallen, without a record of their catastrophe, had not
Areskoui, as a pioneer, discovered a pleasant valley
among the central mountains, which yielded grass,
service berries, mountain sheep, antelopes and other
game. The cold and ice formed torrents, also, were
alive with the speckled trout. They reposed in this
charming vale, called in Shoshonee the Valley of
Deliverance, two days; and recommenced their
march. The indefatigable young chief, although
lean, sallow, and apparently in decay, alone seemed
unwearied, undismayed, and alike impassible to hunger
or fatigue. Even the Kentucky minister felt his
limbs stiffened with toil. Jablinski was little more
than a rough and unpolished voluptuary, and rather
required aid, than felt disposed to yield it. Frederic,
though he had the spirit of a lover and a hero, had
the habits of endurance only of a common man. Jessy
and Katrina were, in some passes of peculiar difficulty,
physically exhausted beyond the possibility of
further exertion. The capabilities of Areskoui were
new even to them. It would have furnished a subject
for the pencil, to see the son of Ellswatta bearing
one of these fair girls, as incapable of further exertions
as an infant, from rock to rock, and from cliff to
cliff; and depositing her on a level spot, and returning
for the other.
Pleasure and pain, toil and repose all have their
assigned limits in the ever varying vicissitudes of human
things. Areskoui no longer had the pleasure of
leaping down the mountains, carrying Jessy in his
arms, as the mother bears her infant. The green
vallies, and the wood fringed and winding course of
the Sewasserna were once more visible from the declivities
of the last mountain. The spirit of repose
rested upon it, in the form of beautiful wreathings of
reached this view, before it had become visible to the
household of Elder Wood. But they were cheered
with the warrior's rejoicing song. `We have come
in triumph from the foiled Russ. We have come
from the wigwam of ice. We have redeemed the
captives. Thanks to the Master of Life, we see once
more our own vale—where are our babes, and the
bones of our fathers.'
Soon they were on the pleasant banks of the Sewasserna,
feeling once more the bland south breeze,
under the shade of branching sugar-maples. A short
distance below was the deposit of their periogues.
The horses were unpacked, and the crafts laden with
their burdens. The conscious and joyful animals
neighed for gladness, and commenced a return course,
parallel to that of their riders, in a brisk pace, and
guided by the unerring precision of instinct towards
their homes. The dogs whined awhile for admission
to the boats with their masters. A few favorites only
were indulged. The rest raised a joyful yelp, and
started away in the rear of the horses. The warriors
forthwith, and Elder Wood's friends, were reposing
in the cool shade of the over arching sycamores
and peecans, as they floated down the sinuous bends
of the beautiful stream.
The domestic smokes of these primitive valley
dwellers were once more seen, rising in the quietness
and repose of the setting sun. The thronging of congregated
and reunited wives, fathers, children, friends,
lovers, the joyful garrulity of clusters of acquaintances,
endeared by habit, furnished that picture of the
union of half a nation, that had been long over the
hills, and far away, with the stationary half, which
had remained to guard the sepulchres of the rude
forefathers of the nation, which must be dear to the
heart to contemplate. `Welcome! Welcome!' cried
`Welcome from the far north—from the foiled Russ,
and the mountains.' The song was more loud and
cheerful—for it told of triumph and success, unmixed
with mourning, and of abundance of peltries and spoil.
As the venerable Ellswatta and his wife relinquished
the embrace of their son, they most affectionately welcomed
the friends of Elder Wood. With mute and
delighted attention they listened to the story of their
son's exploits, and the adventures connected with the
deliverance of the captives, as successively told by
Jablinski, Elder Wood and Frederic. As the eventful
story closed, Ellswatta drew his calumet from his
mouth. `All we desire,' he said, `of the Master of
Life, is, that our son may come after us, as the sun rises
upon the darkness, and that our rescued children,
Wakona and Katrina, may be content with our valley,
and never expose themselves to the cruelty of the bad
pale face again.'
Jessy and Elder Wood were speedily settled in the
house, built under other auspices, and for the Song
Sparrow. Once more she sat beneath those pines,
where she had first seen the light, and felt the parental
caress. The deep strain of the evening breeze in
their tops discoursed to her the joy of grief, remembrances
of joys that were past, and restored the shades
of the departed to the eye of memory. Close in view
were the brands and coals and ruins of her paternal
dwelling; and but a few paces thence the fresh graves.
From what scenes, from what toils, from what wastes
of land and sea had she returned! True, Katrina
was by her side. But the presence of the blithe and
buoyant girl accorded not with the tone of her mind
on thus revisiting spots so sacred to memory.
The first bursts of feeling and sorrow, by the soothing
influence of the effort to resume her former pursuits,
and by the repetition of a few days, softened
without its pleasures. Dividing her society and her
walks equally between Frederic and the young chief,
when Elder Wood accompanied them not, her manner
seemed to say, `I have had enough of adventures,
in attempting to return to the world. I mean to cling
to the shelter and protection of the valley.' But such
had been the revulsion of the feelings and habits of
all the parties, concerned in the terrible recent events,
that it was many days, before the ancient order of
things resumed its course, and brought its former interest.
Elder Wood preached, and Jessy painted,
and Frederic played his flute, and Areskoui governed,
as those, who only performed the offices mechanically,
and took little interest, in what they did.
The two orphans, indeed, wanted no temporal
comfort. The confiscated property of Hatch furnished
Elder Wood's establishment with such conveniences,
as had formerly belonged to the habitation of
William Weldon. Elder Wood manifested towards
his two wards the good fidelity and the paternal solicitude
of a father. The first return of intelligence
from Astoria informed them, that the pecuniary and
other resources of Jessy, left at her lodgings, when
she was carried into captivity, were still in the custody
of their host, and disposable at her order. Elder
Wood, as a devoted missionary of the cross, was once
more busy, in season and out of season, in the pursuit
nearest and dearest to his heart, the attempt to bring
these heathens to the obedience of the gospel. A
feeling of shame aroused Jessy from the indolence and
apathy of grief, as she saw all else beginning to be interested,
and occupied as formerly. `Shall I be the
only being in this valley,' she asked herself, `who cannot
exercise sufficient energy of character, to awaken
to a pursuit, and find interest in some duty, as if no
duty in the universe any longer remained to me?'
With such purposes, she intimated to her friends,
that she would strive to resume her pencil in the bower
of the blue lake. This wish was as a command.
Areskoui directed his warriors, while they grubbed
up the intruding tangle of foliage. The vines were
trained. The walks were smoothed. The interior
was fitted up, as formerly. There were no longer
fears from insurgent Shienne, or their moody and plotting
chief. There could be imagined no grounds for
fear of danger from aught, that surrounded them.—
Her books and drawing apparatus once more surrounded
her. Their suppers and their coffee were
once more taken in this charming spot. But, while
Josepha and Ellswatta sat on the sod seats, enjoying
the cool of sunset, two figures were so conspicuously
wanting, that tears unconsciously fell from the eyes
of Jessy, while she was even speaking the accents of
gladness. Frederic played his flute, but the tones
sounded in her ear, as those of a dirge. She attempted
to sketch the scenery; but her pencil involuntarily
evoked the shades of her dear parents, as they used
to ascend the acclivity, to conduct her home at night-fall.
Elder Wood was the only one of the establishment,
who soon found himself completely at home. By his
share in the property of Hatch, he was placed above
the necessity of longer following his yager or his traps,
except for exercise, and as an amateur; and the much
enduring Kentuckian returned from his wanderings
with an unbroken and unabated love for his holy function,
bringing to that the same generous intrepidity,
warmth of heart and capability of sacrifice, that had
so endeared him to his friends and Areskoui on the
late expedition. Again his sonorous voice was heard
on the Sabbath, and whenever circumstances admitted
of a gathering of the red men under the sycamore,
in exhortations, prayers and hymns of praise.
of the paternal care, that God exercises over innocence
in oppression and distress, enabled him to speak
with more unction, and from a fuller heart, of the parental
character of the Almighty. The vacant seats
where Julius had been accustomed to sit, the wide
unoccupied space, which had been formerly filled by
the proud and Herculean Nelesho, in the centre of
his Shienne, these circumstances were well calculated
to be seized by an ardent and imaginative mind,
like his, as themes of powerful and impressive eloquence.
`But a short time since, they had listened
with us,' he said, `in comparative innocence. They
were swift as eagles. They were strong as lions.
But they are fallen in their sins. They have gone
down to the lake, that burneth with brimstone and
fire; and a voice seems in my ear to come from their
vacant seats, calling on you, who are still subjects of
mercy, to avoid their doom.' The minister, as usual,
once on this exciting strain, seldom failed to pour
forth the fullness of his heart, till his own excited feelings
caused the tears to descend his cheeks. The
pale and thoughtful countenance and the tearful eye
of one of his wards evidenced, that he carried her
feelings, if those of none other, with him.
But while the man of God in his respectable employment
was engaged and happy, while the nation
had returned to its pristine quietness, while new trappers
from the shores of the sea and the sources of the
Missouri were occupying the vacant cabins of the
Shienne, while Katrina, joyous, buoyant, and in the
freshness of youth and health, was developing a beautiful
form, and new personal charms, so gay and happy
herself, as hardly to be capable of conceiving that
care and gloom could exist about her, Frederic, Jessy
and Areskoui were, each in their own way, proofs
of the old adage, that men may change their sky and
of the young chief had exulted, on his return, in
the sanguine anticipation, that now, when nothing further
was to be apprehended from the Shienne; now,
that Wakona had returned, and it was understood, was
to remain perpetually in the valley, sharing her kindness
between their son and Frederic, as a sister
to brothers; now, that he had come back in triumph
from such a glorious expedition, he would be cheerful,
spirited, and such a chief, as would more than replace
his father. For a few days, his renovated efforts
to resume his former spirit and activity, the gladness
of a return to his parents, and the consciousness
of the deliverance he had wrought for her he loved,
seemed to promise the fulfilment of their hopes. But
in situations of extreme peril, in the long and trying
expedition, in the fury of the fray at Ostroklotz, when
bearing Jessy in his arms over the mountains and precipices,
in the distractions of a long journey, one sentiment
neutralized another. Now, that events had
resumed their accustomed course, that the valley was
in repose, that a ray of cheerfulness played once more
upon the pale cheek of Jessy, the one, single, absorbing
sentiment of his heart began to resume its terrible
empire there, as hectic fixes its surest influences,
where every thing external gives the strongest promise
of health and life. His parents remarked, and all
that felt sufficient interest in him, to note his habits,
observed, that he no longer cared for his wonted enjoyments.
Sometimes he rose from his food, apparently
unconscious, that it had been spread before
him. He was absent, dreaming and abstracted. He
returned vague and wrong answers to the questions
of his parents. Even, when in council, or command
among his Shoshonee, he was inactive and spiritless;
and required, that his proper course should be dictated
to him by another. Hunting, trapping, Indian
prompt calls to precede in the duties of a chief, were
either neglected, or required that Pentanona, or some
other devoted friend, should whisper them in his ear.
Chieftainship was indeed, to a certain extent, hereditary
among his people. But, unless energy and the
spirit of command descended with it, the charter of
transmission soon became an obsolete form.
As this fierce people saw these symptoms of decline
in their chief, saw him growing pale, feeble,
languid and indifferent in the discharge of his duties,
instead of pitying him, or being softened by sympathy
for his case, they began to murmur in disaffection.
They said, and they said perhaps, truly, `that it was
the poison of the mixed blood of the pale face in his
veins, that rendered him the victim of this medicine
spell, for which there was no corresponding feeling in
a red man's bosom, to enable him to account. They
remembered the fierce and ever active Nelesho. He,
too, had loved Wakona. But it was a love, that
rendered him more fierce and terrible, and abated
no portion of his power.' They failed not, at the
same time, to remark, that it was, because the enervating
influence of no mixture of blood was in his
veins.
His parents expostulated. His mother wept with
him and for him, while his father used the stern and
uncompromising language of a red man and a chief.
`It is shame to thee, my son, said the hoary chief in a
voice of bitterness, `as I have said to thee in seeing
former follies of this kind, that thou hast no more
spirit, nor pride, than thus to allow thyself to yield to
this vile weakness, like a blighted prairie flower, cut
down under the withering of a summer's sun. I
have seen thine eye in battle become as that of the
eagle; and then I joyfully recognized my son. But
the moment thou camest back in triumph, and beholdest
thee—the moment, thou once more becomest the
light of thy father's and mother's eye, thou art languid,
like a sick woman. I feel the bold and upward
spirit of a chief still burning at my heart, old, and
worn as I am. Art thou my true son, and yet become
as a withered plant? Curse on the mixture of
blood in thy veins. It has brought on thee the wrath
and the medicine influence of the Wahcondah of the
white race and ours. When I ask, who will govern
the Shoshonee, after thy old father has gone down to
the sunless valley, the thought of leaving behind me
a weak and degenerate son, a passive slave of those,
he should have commanded, I become, as though tormented
by the little white men of the mountains.
Perhaps a chief of the hated Shienne, for such a one
holds the next place in the council to thee, will command
my nation. Little men will walk over my
grave, and Maniteewah's prophecy will be accomplished,
who foretold, that I should be the last of my
race. Thou hast loved Wakona, and for that I blame
thee not; for she is lovely, and at thy period of life, I
might have yielded to the same folly. She returneth
not thy love; and for that I reproach her not. The
Master of Life is alone able to move the fountains of
the heart. The sun, moon and stars, the streams and
seasons, touched by this finger, move on in their unchangeable
courses. But I do chide thee for not remembering,
while thou beholdest the maiden of fair
face and raven locks, that thou art a chief, and shouldst
conquer a love, that cannot be returned, even as
thou must learn to govern others by first subduing
thyself.'
`Thy son listens to thy words,' replied the young
chief, `with reverence, and as if spoken by the Wahcondah.
But dost thou not forget, in thy stern reproof,
that the way of the Master of Life in the heart
sun and the return of the seasons? Ask the wild animals
not to love their offspring. Call on the birds to
forget the spring season of their loves. I, too, am
borne onward with the rest. Ah! it is, because
every thing is unchangeable, and settled by the Master
of Life, that I cannot tear her image from my heart.'
The heart of the mother of Areskoui, formed of a
material less stern, rose against the kindly intended
severity of her husband. All the mother was stirred
in her soul, as she saw him pale, subdued and decaying,
as a plant seared by premature autumnal frost.
She remembered well the devouring fires of her own
youthful bosom; `and I,' she said `have transmitted
him this destroying inheritance. Let me try to soften
Wakona herself.' With this purpose, she sought the
mourner alone. `Wakona,' she said, `I am a mother
in despair. I have an only son. I bore him in my
bosom, to perpetuate my name, and be the chief of
this noble people. Thou hast yet loved no one, but
thy parents, and canst not have sounded the depths of
a mother's love, or thou wouldst not leave us all to
see him consume away, as by a slow fire. Wakona,
did not thy parents love him? Played you not in love
together under yonder pines, when we were all so
happy? Rememberest thou not the pledges of a love,
which fixed upon thee from his infancy? But I will
not remind thee of his deeds of sacrifice and love from
his earliest years, to his late return with thee from the
cruel Russ. Canst thou say, that he is not noble in
appearance, or that the tinge, which he derives from
the red men, adds not a sternness to his visage, befitting
a warrior, born to breast the elements, and look
upon the sun? Is he less noble in thine eye even, than
thy friend with the lily forehead? Were it not more
worthy of thee, to be the wife of a chief, and to reign
over this people by ruling him, than to be one of the
What a race, fair as the angels, beautiful as the children
of the sun, would come after you? How glorious
to thee, to seal his heart for the true God, and the
faith of Elder Wood! We would raise the towns and
churches, and make the great paths, and introduce
the improvements of our own race into this fair valley.
The books of our writers should tell of us in story
and song; and the white people of the far countries
would travel among us, not to trap beaver or cheat us
of our furs, but to admire the female law-giver and
queen of the Shoshonee. I beseech thee, Wakona,
on my knees, to pity him, and not to destroy the hope
of our race, him, us, thyself; for who will protect
thee, when he is no more? I implore thee by the
mother of God, and thy own parents, to listen to a
mother in despair.'
While she was thus pleading with frantic earnestness
for him, he entered, unavoidably instructed in
her purpose, and the tenor of her words, by what he
had heard. He spoke in a tone of calmness, but almost
of authority, `my mother, thou forgettest thyself,
and dost not remember, that our medicine ways forbid
us to importune those, who cannot love. Wouldst
thou force Wakona to speak with a false tongue,
and take from her the charm of truth? Wouldst thou
by such motives use a violence only less, than that of
Julius? Let us away. Wakona has lost her parents,
and is not less sad than myself. I swear by the Wahcondah,
she shall not be tormented by these importunities.
Go, mourner, to thy medicine father; and
thou shalt in this way be vexed no more;' and with a
look of command, he requested his mother to allow
her to depart, to join Elder Wood, who was waiting
for her in the distance. This, thought the mourner,
if my heart could be moved, would be the way to reach
it. But even this noble forbearance, though it produced
detailed review of all, that he had done for her, of all
the disinterested love and truth he had shown her,
failed to awaken that tender sentiment, the reality,
depth and torment of which she began herself too well
to understand.
The destiny of Areskoui was accomplished. The
great mass of our race are too little under the influence
of reason, to follow other guidance, than the mechanical
leading of temperament. What else could
be expected of a chief, like Areskoui, who inherited
the invincible and headstrong determination of his father,
and the ardent and impetuous passions of his
mother, born to the earliest cherished feelings of command
and love, for his infant playmate? To the remonstrances
of his parents, to the grave counsels of
Elder Wood, to the confidential expostulations of his
sub-chiefs, he soon learned to say, `can you cure the
headache, by exerting your will and reason against it?
Can you cool the skin, and render slow and regular
the beatings of your heart in a fever, because you are
uncomfortable from the malady? Think you, that
Areskoui loves pain? Think you, that he is the only
being in the world, who does not desire his own happiness?
Oh! show me, that you are able to cure disease,
and old age, and death yourselves, and then I
will follow your example, and pluck out the image of
Wakona from my heart.'
What the world calls destiny, seemed seriously engaged
in weaving a tissue of cross purposes for the
dwellers of this valley. While the chief was thus
cherishing these sentiments of a morbid and hopeless
affection without a return, Katrina was steadily nursing
a growing passion for the chief. Happily, she was
scarce fifteen, and it was all a feeling of that transient
and evanescent class, which in that period springs up
in the bosom, like weeds, that, sustained not by reason,
the birth of fancy and the blood. Her beauty
might not be said to be intellectual in its associations,
and of the deep and enchaining moral interest of Jessy's.
But measured by the more common standard,
she was every day developing more rich and luxuriant
loveliness. The face was of that bright olive, in which
the eloquent blood mantles the cheek with the passing
sensations within—as the southern clouds chase each
other over the sun. Her intelligent and glistening
black eye was the window, from which looked forth
the ever varying train of sentiments, ardent, frolic,
merely sensitive, or intellectual, as they took their predominant
hue from the store house, where they were
generating. The most splendid, glossy, raven ringlets
covered a head, and curled upon a form, which would
have been sought by a statuary, as a model. Her
movements corresponded with her form; and were
bounding and elastic, the putting forth of the general
expression of her countenance. Add, that she inherited
the Spanish female voice of music, and that the
English, which she had learned, was enunciated in
the Spanish accent, and with a sonorous rounding of
melody; and that her thoughts were naturally colored
in phrases of quaint naivete, with a mixture of Shoshonee
simplicity, and figurativeness, drawn fresh and
direct from visible nature. Such was the ardent,
charming and affectionate being, which the training
of Jessy had developed from the squalid and forlorn
captive child, won from the Black-feet. Jessy loved
her as the most spirited, beautiful, and affectionate
being, she had seen. She loved with the unconscious
fondness of hidden self-complacency, and seeing in her
the exquisite workmanship of her own hand. She
loved, as a sister, a companion, and all she had to
love. She loved her from the natural reciprocity of
an affection, as pure, ardent and disinterested, as ever
of her pupil. To her it was an incredible mystery, to
imagine, that any one could contemplate this lovely
girl, and not share something of her own love. A
hope, that more than once had visited her mind before,
carried a gleam of joy to her imagination. `It is
only necessary,' she thought, `that Areskoui should
see this girl in her loveliness, to transfer to her, in her
freshness and capacity of responding to his sentiments,
all, that he has felt for me.' Must it be said, that a
ray of light passed through the general gloom of her
thoughts, in meditating the possibility of another union
of attachment? Startling disclosures, in regard to
the state of her own feelings, began to be made to her,
in a light, and with an evidence, against which she
could neither blind herself, nor even remain longer in
doubt.
But though she met with little encouragement in
her effort to render Areskoui sensible of the attractions
of Katrina, she became palpably taught, that she
had fearfully succeeded in rendering her pupil abundantly
alive to the merits of Areskoui. She was of
course an object of the natural and national partiality
of Josepha, as one of her own race. Similarity of
natural temperament added another tie; and, wholly
unconscious of a thought of establishing any relation
between her and her son, she caressed the affectionate
girl with a mother's fondness. This order of things
placed her under the continued influence of an intercourse
with the chief, altogether dangerous to her
peace. She had been reared, from earliest remembrances,
with the red people. She knew not higher
standards, from which to institute comparison. To
her there was neither ferocity nor degradation associated
with the term Savage. Jessy was her grand
exemplar; and her estimates of opinions were her
laws. From her she learned the most touching views
chief. Her imagination had been struck with his imposing
and intrinsically noble character. His wan
and hollow cheek, the affecting tones of his voice, and,
more than all, pity inspired by seeing him daily sinking
under the influence of a hopeless passion, taught
her a love compounded of admiration, compassion and
heart-felt attachment. In many striking ways she
manifested the sentiment; and fears that she would
display it at improper times and places, began to be
one of the annoying apprehensions of Jessy, whenever
they met.
In their walks to the blue lake, along the banks of
the Sewasserna, and whenever their pursuits led them
together, Jessy invariably took the arm, and received
the attentions of Elder Wood, as a child conducted
by an affectionate father. Areskoni often shared
their walks, and went thoughtfully by their side, silent,
musing, and seldom interposing more, than a laconic
sentence. Katrina, appropriated by circumstances
to the care of Frederic, generally walked apart with
him, and behind the chief, carefully observing his port
and steps. The retorted eye of Jessy numbered every
case, in which he yielded her any of those natural,
simple and common attentions, called for by circumstances.
It was equally new and alarming to her, to
find, that those attentions, began to seem important,
and particular, and to fill her with anxiety. `Is it possible,'
she asked, `that the chief feels for me sentiments,
which I have not power to return; that I have taught
this ardent and inexperienced girl to love him who
cannot reciprocate love; and that this stern, intelligent,
high minded young American, whom I have so
often deemed incapable of feeling love, is in his turn
smitten with this beautiful and warm hearted, but untaught
girl?' The last question, to her astonishment
and grief, vexed her more than the painful conviction
thrown away.
It was not long afterwards, that she was seated in
private with her pupil of raven locks, delivering her
grave and matronly lectures, hinting at dangers, prescribing
rules, and instructing her, where to receive
these attentions, and where, and how to avoid them,
and intimating, at the same time, with sufficient clearness,
that something was wrong in the case. The
affectionate girl comprehended slowly, and with difficulty,
the drift of her loved lecturer. When she did
at length understand, that Jessy was cautioning her
against walking so much with Frederic, she smiled
through tears, which formed in a moment at her tone
of rebuke, and archly said, `my wise and good sister,
I will obey. But how came you to know all these
things? You are but young yourself; and have never
been, as I think, in love.' `No, Katrina, no. But in
eighteen years I have suffered much affliction, and
that has taught me much.' `But, my wise sister Jessy,
why should you cast on me that reproving glance,
in reference to Frederic? You know, I may walk
safely with him, because I am perfectly indifferent to
his brotherly kindness. Ah! it is not so with the
chief. Ah! my sister, if you could impart to me
your stores of knowledge, and that look, which goes
to my heart, as well as his; if you could teach me to
transfer his love from you to poor unworthy me, he
should not have occasion to waste away in vain, poor
chief. You in turn would wed the fair young
American, and how happy we should all become!'
Elder Wood, deeply intent upon his Apostolic labors,
now promising much more ample results than
formerly, was the last of this group to note the influence
of these capricious and misdirected workings of
affection. It was long before he was fully convinced
that the abstract dogmas of the Calvinistic school
inculcate upon the simple Shoshonee, almost the
whole of whose thoughts ran in the channel of simple
and sensible ideas. The experience of many efforts
of fruitless exertions to make himself understood, and
when he was understood, the never failing conviction,
that his doctrines had inspired disgust, at length
convinced him, that such ministrations were neither
wise, nor expedient. He was far away from creeds
and schools, and had no conclave to dictate to him.
He determined to revolt his audiences no more with
these mysterious, and to them contradictory and incredible
dogmas. He gradually fell into their train
of thought, and their modes of speech. The glorious
truths of the gospel in their simplicity—the sure and
certain hope of a resurrection from the dead—the
perfect example of the Saviour—the paternal character
of the Almighty—the connection of a benevolent
and virtuous life, with happiness here and hereafter,—these
became the prevalent themes of his
preaching, and when expounded in their phrase and
figure, produced an immediate, palpable, and most encouraging
influence. New converts were almost
weekly added to the church, and Elder Wood was
exulting in the hope, that one of his catechumens
would be trained to become a preacher, to continue
the ministry of the gospel among them, after he should
be gathered to his fathers.
Among other persons, who visited him for the purposes
of religious enquiry, his most assiduous and earnest
visitant was the young chief. He had been particularly
impressed with a sermon, in which Elder
Wood had eloquently set forth the parable of the good
shepherd, wandering over the mountains in search of
a single stray from his fold; and affectionately and
joyfully bringing the wanderer home. He was also
noted to evince particular delight in hearing the
of the description of the unfading verdure of the hills
of paradise—the pleasant land, where the sun always
shines; where the sun, moon and elements bring neither
disease, blast or inclemency; where the bread
fails not, and the water is sure; where there are no
bad passions or rankling cares; and, more than all,
where there are neither sorrow, tears nor death. Areskoui
was often observed, during the discussion of such
themes, to turn away, that he might hide his emotion,
and he was often reported to exclaim, as he returned
from the service, `that is the country for the young
chief.'
Elder Wood labored, most of all, to indoctrinate the
chief, upon whose conversion he sanguinely calculated,
that of the nation would depend, in the spirituality
of the Christian doctrine. It sometimes almost vexed
him, that he could never instil into the mind of his catechumen,
that we shall not carry from earth the same
train of thoughts and feelings, which we have had
here. He furnished an additional case, in proof of the
general fact, that religious faith in every mind is apt
to receive the peculiar coloring of the mental temperament,
and the present state of the stronger passions.
`Do you not believe, medicine man,' Areskoui would
say, `that there will be that peculiar love and appropriation,
which belongs to the sexes in heaven?' `They
neither marry, nor are given in marriage there; but
are as the angels,' was the reply. `Be it so,' replied
the other. `Some spirit of the fair white race would
rob me of the love of Wakona, even in the land of
souls. It were better to be wholly free from the sting
of that tormenting passion. But then, what would
there be to desire there? Hopeless, tasteless and
weary existence seems to be equally in store for me
in this vale, and in the land of souls. I feel, as if existence
itself were becoming a burden. It were better
in thy power. God gave it thee. He only can destroy
it.' `Well, medicine man, it may at least be
worth the experiment, to see how that may be. The
brightness of yonder great lamp has become as darkness
to my eyes. Spring, with its flowers and fragrance,
is to me as the fall of the leaf in autumn.—
Upon whatever side I look, all nature is becoming as
dark and desolate, as my own bosom. Wakona still
walks, like a night meteor, surrounded by her own
brightness. But the circle of darkness closes in around
her. Oh! that I could fly away with the eagle above
the mountains, or plunge into the thickest of the battle,
and die. When I look down from Wakona's bower
upon the sleeping bosom of the blue lake, and see the
trees and the sky so beautifully repainted in its far
depths, I would gladly throw myself down, and be at
rest. Father, thine is a true talk, as I now know,
when thou sayest, that all below yon bright lamp in the
firmament is vanity. Well do I know that even the
beauty of Wakona will pass away. Her fair face
will be scathed with wrinkles, and she will be seen as
a withered flower. Father, is there not an easy cure
for this insupportable sickness of the heart? Thou
knowest, it is natural to a red man, not to be afraid
to die. If I have the incurable medicine-burning of
the pale face in my veins, thanks to the Master of
Life, I have also the soul of a Shoshonee.'
It was not the first time that Elder Wood had perceived
the cherished purpose of suicide in his pupil. It may
be easily imagined, that every motive operated to stir
him to the putting forth all his eloquence against this
act; closing continually with the natural and Christian
view of the deed, as a perpetration, which, in its
very nature cut off the suicide from the hope of the
mercy of God. `There, father,' the chief replied, `I
am again at issue with thy medicine book. The Master
had no voice in receiving this hated gift of life. If I
return him that bitterness, for which I asked him not,
will he be angry with me?' `But thy parents, chief; is
it not as a woman to desert thy parents? What will
become of their gray hairs?' `Ah! father, there you
touch my heart. Thou sayest truly, that I ought to
live for them. I have said so to myself, and that has
caused me hitherto to sustain my burden. But then,
I repeat again, that their moons will soon cease
in the course of nature, even if they were happy, and
I were all, they could wish. A short grief is better,
than a long one. They had better follow me by one
stern plunge to the sunless valley, than endure the
slow agony of seeing me live on, a feeble old woman
in the very freshness of my youth. Every plant, father,
that is nourished by the dew of heaven, must
wither. The Master of Life has so formed all things,
that they soon change to blackness. Ah! father, thou
wilt find it hard to persuade a red man, not to court
stillness and relief to his bosom, when it aches to
bursting.'
This was the strain to stir within the Kentucky
minister all the ardent and affectionate eloquence of
his ministry for a person so dear; for a case in every
light interesting. `Would to God, chief,' he said `that
I could show the eye of thy faith, Jesus, the conqueror
of death, coming in the glory of his triumphs, with the
brightness of the resurrection to the tomb. Ah! could
I infuse into thy dark bosom the radiance of that eternal
and unclouded morning, the rapture of that blessed
meeting on the eternal hills, of that glorious country,
where sin, tears, and death are equally unknown, how
would all the little interests of this passing moment
of life vanish? The mere animal fondness, which
you call love, the play of the passions upon the imagination,
dwelling on tresses, which will soon be grey,
soon will feed, how evanescent would these puerile
fancies appear in the light of eternal truth, and measured
by the standard of the sanctuary, the worth of
the undying soul, and that day, which shall have no
night!'
Such at this time was the internal history of those
dwellers in this interesting valley, upon whom these
annals have chiefly turned. It is happy for mankind,
that but a very small portion of the species are so constituted,
as to be capable of such intenseness of either
joy or suffering. Happily for men, the greater portion
move calmly onward towards the grave, in an
unruffled course, as unmarked by incident, as unscathed
either by raptures or agonies, as the green
tribes of the vegetable kingdom, that bud, expand,
flower, mature and die in noiseless quietness. To the
thousands of the Shoshonee, among whom these germs
of joy and grief had evolved, and in the midst of whom
these personages of our history daily moved, most of
these developments would have been information of a
state of feeling, of which themselves, though daily beholding
the subjects, had not dreamed.
| CHAPTER XI. The Shoshonee Valley | |