University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The incident just narrated had scarcely taken place,
when the dog of the Indian chief bounded from the
cover, and made towards the spot where the deer lay
prostrate. At the same instant, emerging from the
copse whence the shot had proceeded, and which ran
immediately alongside the victim, came forward the
successful sportsman. He was a stout, strange looking
person, rough and weather-beaten, had the air,
and wore a dress fashioned something like that of
the sailor. He was of middle stature, stout and muscular,
and carried himself with the yawing, see-saw
motion, which marks the movements generally upon
land of that class of men. Still, there was something
about him that forbid the idea of his being a
common seaman. There was a daring insolence of
look and gesture, which, taken in connexion with the
red, full face, and the watery eye, spoke of indulgences
and a habit of unrestraint somewhat inconsistent
with one not accustomed to authority. His dress,
though that of the sailor—for even at that early period
the style of garment worn by this, differed from that
of all other classes—was yet clean, and made of the

finest material. He wore a blue jacket, studded
thickly with buttons that hung each by a link, and formed
so many pendent knobs of solid gold; and there
was not a little ostentation in the thick and repeated
folds of the Spanish chain, made of the same rich
material, which encircled his neck. His pantaloons,
free like the Turkish, were also of a light blue cloth,
and a band of gold lace ran down upon the outer seam
of each leg, from the hip to the heel. A small dirk,
slightly curved, like that worn by the young officers of
our navy in modern times, was the only apparent
weapon which he carried, beyond the short, heavy
Dutch fusil he had just used so successfully.

The deer had scarcely fallen when this personage advanced
towards him from the wood. The shot had been
discharged at a trifling distance from the object, which
was pushing for the direct spot where the stranger
had been stationed. It had penetrated the breast, and
was almost instantly fatal. A few moments served to
bring him to his victim, while Sanutee from the other
end of the copse also came forward. Before either
of them had got sufficiently nigh to prevent him, the
dog of the chief, having reached the deer, at once,
with the instinct of his nature, struck his teeth into
his throat, tearing it voraciously for the blood, which
the Indian sportsmen invariably taught him to relish.
The stranger bellowed to him with the hope to
arrest his appetite, and prevent him from injuring the
meat; but, accustomed as the dog had been to obey
but one master, and to acknowledge but a single language,
he paid no attention to the cries and threats of
the seaman, who now, hurrying forward with a show
of more unequivocal authority, succeeded only in transferring
the ferocity of the dog from his prey to himself.
Lifting his gun, he threatened but to strike, and the
animal sprang furiously upon him. Thus assailed, the
stranger, in good earnest, with a formidable blow from
the butt of his fusil, sent the enemy reeling; but recovering
in an instant, without any seeming abatement
of vigour, with a ferocity duly increased from

his injury, he flew with more desperation than ever to
the assault, and, being a dog of considerable strength,
threatened to become a formidable opponent. But
the man assailed was a cool, deliberate person, and
familiar with enemies of every description.—Adroitly
avoiding the dash made at his throat by the animal, he
contrived to grapple with him as he reached the earth,
and by a single hand, with an exercise of some of
the prodigious muscle which his appearance showed
him to possess, he held him down, while with the
other hand he deliberately released his dirk from its
sheath. Sanutee, who was approaching, and who had
made sundry efforts to call off the infuriated dog, now
cried out to the seaman in broken English, “Knife him
not, white man—it is good dog, knife him not.” But
he spoke too late; and in spite of all the struggles
of the animal, with a fierce laugh of derision, the
sailor passed the sharp edge of the weapon over his
throat; then releasing his hold upon him, which all
the while he had maintained with the most iron inflexibility
of nerve, he left the expiring dog, to which the
stroke had been fatal, to perish on the grass.

It was fortunate for himself that he was rid of the
one assailant so soon; for he had barely returned his
knife to its sheath, and resumed his erect posture, when
Sanutee, who had beheld the whole struggle—which,
indeed, did not occupy but a few minutes—plunged forward
as furiously as the animal had done, and the next
instant was upon the stranger. The Indian had hurried
forward to save his dog; and his feelings, roused
into rage by what he had witnessed, took from him
much of that cautious consideration, at the moment,
which an Indian commonly employs the more securely
to effect his revenge; and with a cry of ferocious indignation,
throwing aside the bow which rather impeded
his movements, he grappled the seaman with an embrace
which might have compelled even the native
bear to cry quarter. But the sailor was bold and fearless,
and it was soon evident that Sanutee, though
muscular and admirably built, but tall and less com

pact, laboured of necessity under a disadvantage in the
close struggle which ensued, with one so much shorter
and more closely set. The conditions of the combat
seemed to be perfectly well understood by both parties;
for, with the exception of an occasional exclamation
from one or the other in the first movements of
the struggle, no words passed between them. Their
arms were interlaced, and their bodies closely locked
for a desperate issue, without parley or preparation.
At first it would have been difficult to say
which of the two could possibly prove the better man.
The symmetry of the Indian, his manly height, and
free carriage, would necessarily incline the spectator
in his favour; but there was a knotted firmness, a
tough, sinewy bulk of body in the whole make of his
opponent, which, in connexion with his greater youth,
would bring the odds in his favour. If the sailor was
the stronger, however, the Indian had arts which for a
time served to balance his superiority; but Sanutee
was exasperated, and this was against him. His
enemy had all the advantage of perfect coolness, and
a watchful circumspection that seemed habitual, still
defeated in great part the subtleties of his assailant.
The error of Sanutee was in suffering impulse
to defeat reflection, which necessarily came too late,
once engaged in the mortal struggle. The Indian,
save in the ball-play, is no wrestler by habit. There
he may and does wrestle, and death is sometimes the
consequence of the furious emulation;[1] but such exercise
is otherwise unpractised with the aborigines.
To regret his precipitation, however, was now of little
avail—to avoid its evils was the object.

One circumstance now gave a turn to the affair,
which promised a result decisive on one side or the
other. So close had been the grasp, so earnest the
struggle, that neither of them could attempt to free
and employ his knife without giving a decided advantage

to his enemy; but in one of those movements
which distorted their bodies, until the ground
was nearly touched by the knees of both, the knife of
the Indian warrior fell from its sheath, and lay beside
them upon the turf. To secure its possession was
the object, upon which, simultaneously as it were,
their eyes were cast; but duly with the desire came
the necessity of mutual circumspection, and so well
aware were they both of this necessity, that it is probable,
but for an unlooked-for circumstance, the battle
must have been protracted sufficiently long, by exhausting
both parties, to have made it a drawn one.
The affair might then have ended in a compromise;
but it so happened, that in the perpetual change of
ground and position by the combatants, the foot of Sanutee
at length became entangled with the body of
his dog. As he felt the wrinkling skin glide, and the
ribs yield beneath him, an emotion of tenderness, a
sort of instinct, operated at once upon him, and, as if
fearing to hurt the object, whose utter insensibility he
did not seem at that moment to recollect, he drew up
the foot suddenly, and endeavoured to throw it over
the animal. By separating his legs with this object,
he gave his adversary an advantage, of which he
did not fail to avail himself. With the movement
of Sanutee, he threw one of his knees completely between
those of the warrior, and pressing his own huge
body at the same time forward upon him, they both
fell heavily, still interlocked, upon the now completely
crushed carcass of the dog. The Indian chief was
partially stunned by the fall, but being a-top, the sailor
was unhurt. In a moment, recovering himself from
the relaxed grasp of his opponent, he rose upon his
knee, which he pressed down heavily upon Sanutee's
bosom; the latter striving vainly to possess himself
of the tomahawk sticking in his girdle. But his
enemy had too greatly the advantage, and was quite
too watchful to permit of his succeeding in this effort.
The whole weight of one knee rested upon the instrument,
which lay in the belt innocuous. With a fearful
smile, which spoke a ferocious exultation of spirit, in
the next moment the sailor drew the dirk knife from
his own side, and flourishing it over the eyes of the
defenceless Indian, thus addressed him:—

“And what do you say for yourself now, you red-skinned
devil? Blast your eyes, but you would have
taken off my scalp for little or nothing—only because
of your confounded dog, and he at my throat too.
What if I take off yours?”

“The white man will strike,” calmly responded the
chief, while his eyes looked the most savage indifference,
and the lines of his mouth formed a play of expression
the most composed and natural.

“Ay, damme, but I will. I'll give you a lesson to
keep you out of mischief, or I've lost reckoning of my
own seamanship. Hark ye now, you red devil—
wherefore did you set upon me? Is a man's blood no
better than a dog's?”

“The white man is a dog. I spit upon him,” was
the reply; accompanied, as the chief spoke, with a
desperate struggle at release, made with so much earnestness
and vigour as almost for a few moments to
promise to be successful. But failing to succeed, the
attempt only served seemingly to confirm the savage
determination of his conqueror, whose coolness at
such a moment, more perhaps than any thing beside,
marked a character to whom the shedding of blood
seemed a familiar exercise. He spoke to the victim
he was about to strike fatally, with as much composure
as if treating of the most indifferent matter.

“Ay, blast you, you're all alike—there's but one
way to make sure of you, and that is, to slit your gills
whenever there's a chance. I know you'd cut mine
soon enough, and that's all I want to know to make
me cut yours. Yet, who are you—are you one of these
Yemassees? Tell me your name; I always like to
know whose blood I let.”

“Does the white man sleep?—strike, I do not shut
my eyes to your knife.”

“Well, d—n it, red-skin, I see you don't want to

get off, so here's at you,” making a stroke of his
knife, seemingly at the throat of his victim. Sanutee
threw up his arm, but the aim in this quarter had been
a feint; for, turning the direction of the weapon, he
passed the sharp steel directly upon the side of the
warrior, and almost immediately under his own knee.
The chief discovered the deception, and feeling that
all hope was over, began muttering, with a seeming
instinct, in his own language, the words of triumphant
song, which every Indian prepares beforehand for the
hour of his final passage. But he still lived. The
blow was stayed: his enemy, seized by some one
from behind, was dragged backward from the body of
his victim by another and a powerful hand. The
opportunity to regain his feet was not lost upon the Indian,
who, standing erect with his bared hatchet, again
confronted his enemy, without any loss of courage,
and on a more equal footing.