University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

It was about the noon of the same day, when the
son of Sanutee, the outcast and exiled Occonestoga,
escaping from his father's assault and flying from the
place of council as already narrated, appeared on the
banks of the river nearly opposite the denser settlement
of the whites, and several miles below Pocota-ligo.
But the avenger had followed hard upon his
footsteps, and he had suffered terribly in his flight. His
whole appearance was that of the extremest wretched
ness. His dress was torn by the thorns of many a

thicket in which he had been compelled to crawl for
shelter. His skin had been lacerated, and the brakes
and creeks through which he had to plough and plunge,
had left the tribute of their mud and mire on every inch
of his person. Nor had the trials of his mind been
less. Previous drunkenness, the want of food and extreme
fatigue (for, circuitously doubling from his pursuers,
he had run nearly the whole night, scarcely able
to rest for a moment), contributed duly to the miserable
figure which he made. His eyes were swollen—
his cheeks sunken, and there was a wo-begone feebleness
and utter abandon about his whole appearance
He had been completely sobered by the hunt made
after him; and the instinct of life, for he knew nothing
of the peculiar nature of the doom in reserve for him,
had effectually called all his faculties into exercise.

When hurried from the council-house by Sir Edmund
Bellinger, to save him from the anger of his
father, he had taken the way under a filial and natural
influence to the lodge of Matiwan. And she cheered
and would have cherished him, could that have been
done consistently with her duty to her lord. What she
could do, however, she did; and though deeply sorrowing
over his prostituted manhood, she could not at the same
time forget that he was her son. But in her cabin he
was not permitted to linger long. Watchful for the return
of Sanutee, Matiwan was soon apprized of the
approach of the pursuers. The people, collected to
avenge themselves upon the chiefs, were not likely to
suffer the escape of one, who, like Occonestoga, had
done so much to subject them, as they thought, to the
dominion of the English. A party of them, accordingly,
hearing of his flight and readily conceiving its direction,
took the same route; and, but for the mother's
watchfulness, he had then shared the doom of the
other chiefs. But she heard their coming and sent
him on his way; not so soon, however, as to make
his start in advance of them a matter of very great
importance to his flight. They were close upon his
heels, and when he cowered silently in the brake, they

took their way directly beside him. When he lay
stretched alongside of the fallen tree they stepped over
his body, and when, seeking a beaten path in his tortuous
course, he dared to look around him, the waving
pine torches which they carried, flamed before his
eyes.—

“I will burn feathers, thou shalt have arrows, Opitchi-Manneyto.
Be not wroth with the young chief
of Yemassee. Make the eyes blind that hunt after
him for blood. Thou shalt have arrows and feathers,
Opitchi-Manneyto—a bright fire of arrows and feathers!”

Thus, as he lay beneath the branches of a fallen
tree around which his pursuers were winding, the
young warrior uttered the common form of deprecation
and prayer to the evil deity of his people, in the language
of the nation. But he did not despair, though
he prayed. Though now easily inebriated and extremely
dissolute in that respect, Occonestoga was a
gallant and a very skilful partisan even in the estimation
of the Indians. He had been one of the most
promising of all their youth, when first made a chief,
after a great battle with the Savannahs, against whom
he first distinguished himself. This exceeding promise
at first, made the mortification of his subsequent fall
more exquisitely painful to Sanutee, who was proud
and ambitious. Nor was Occonestoga himself utterly
insensible to his degradation. When sober, his humiliation
and shame were scarcely less poignant than that of
his father; but, unhappily, the seduction of strong drink,
he had never been able to withstand. He was easily
persuaded and as easily overcome. He had thus gone
on for some time; and, with this object, had sought
daily communication with the lower classes of the
white settlers, from whom alone liquor could be obtained.
For this vile reward he had condescended to
the performance of various services for the whites, held
degrading by his own people; until, at length, but for his
father's great influence, which necessarily restrained
the popular feeling on the subject of the son's conduct,

he had long since been thrust from any consideration
or authority among them. Originally, he had been
highly popular. His courage had been greatly admired,
and admirably consorted with the strength and beauty
of his person. Even now, bloated and blasted as he
was, there was something highly prepossessing in his
general appearance. He was tall and graceful, broad
and full across the breast, and straight as an arrow.
But the soul was debased, and if it were possible at
all, in the thought of an Indian, for a moment to meditate
the commission of suicide, there was that in the countenance
and expression of Occonestoga, as he rose
from the morass, on the diversion from his track of
the pursuers, almost to warrant the belief that his detestation
of life had driven him to such a determination.
But on he went, pressing rapidly forward, while the
hunters were baffled in rounding a dense brake through
which in his desperation he had dared to go. He
was beyond them, but they were between him and the
river; and for the white settlements, his course—the
only course in which he hoped for safety—was bent.
Day came, and still the shouts of the pursuers, and
occasionally a sight of them, warned him into increased
activity—a necessity greatly at variance with the fatigue
he had already undergone. In addition to this,
his flight had taken him completely out of his contemplated
route. To recover and regain it was now his object.
Boldly striking across the path of his hunters, Occonestoga
darted along the bed of a branch which ran
parallel with the course he aimed to take. He lay
still as they approached—he heard their retreating
footsteps, and again he set forward. But the ear and
the sense of the Indian are as keen as his own arrow,
and the pursuers were not long misled. They retrieved
their error, and turned with the fugitive; but the instinct
of preservation was still active, and momentary
success gave him a new stimulant to exertion. At
length, when almost despairing and exhausted, his eyes
beheld and his feet gained the bank of the river, still
ahead of his enemy; and grateful, but exhausted, he
lay for a few moments stretched upon the sands, and
gazing upon the quiet waters before him. He was not
long suffered to remain in peace. A shout arrested his
attention, and he started to his feet to behold two of his
pursuers emerging at a little distance from the forest.
To be hunted thus like a dog was a pang, and previous
fatigue and a strong impulse of desperation persuaded
him that death were far preferable to the miserable and
outcast life which he led. So feeling, in that one moment
of despair, he threw open the folds of his hunting
shirt, and placing his hand upon his breast, cried
out to them to shoot. But the bow was unlifted, the
arrow undrawn, and to his surprise the men who had
pursued him as he thought for his blood, now refused
what they had desired. They increased their efforts
to take, but not to destroy him. The circumstance
surprised him; and with a renewal of his thought
came a renewed disposition to escape. Without further
word, and with the instantaneous action of his
reason, he plunged forward into the river, and diving
down like an otter, reserved his breath until, arising, he
lay in the very centre of the stream. But he arose
enfeebled and overcome—the feeling of despair grew
with his weakness, and turning a look of defiance upon
the two Indians who still stood in doubt watching his
progress from the banks which they had now gained, he
raised himself breast high with a sudden effort from the
water, and once more challenged their arrows to his
breast, which, with one hand, he struck with a fierce violence,
the action of defiance and despair. As they saw
the action, one of them, as if in compliance with the
demand, lifted his bow, but the other the next instant
struck it down. Half amazed and wondering at what
he saw, and now almost overcome by his effort, the
sinking Occonestoga gave a single shout of derision, and
ceased all further effort. The waters bore him down.
Once, and once only, his hand was struck out as if in
the act of swimming, while his head was buried; and
then the river closed over him. The brave but
desponding warrior sunk hopelessly, just as the little
skiff of Hugh Grayson, returning from his interview
with Chorley, which we have already narrated, darted
over the small circle in the stream which still bubbled
and broke where the young Indian had gone down.
The whole scene had been witnessed by him, and he
had urged every sinew in approaching. His voice, as
he called aloud to Occonestoga, whom he well knew,
had been unheard by the drowning and despairing man.
But still he came in time, for, as his little boat whirled
about under the direction of his paddle and around the
spot, the long black hair suddenly grew visible above
the water, and in the next moment was firmly clutched
in the grasp of the Carolinian. With difficulty he sustained
the head above the surface, still holding on by the
hair. The banks were not distant, and the little paddle
which he employed was susceptible of use by one
hand. Though thus encumbered, he was soon enabled
to get within his depth. This done, he jumped
from the boat, and by very great effort bore the
unconscious victim to the land. A shout from the
Indians on the opposite bank, attested their own interest
in the result; and they were lost in the forest just at
the moment when returning consciousness on the part
of Occonestoga, had rewarded Grayson for the efforts he
had made and still continued making for his recovery.

“Thou art better now, Occonestoga, art thou not?”
was the inquiry of his preserver.

“Feathers and arrows for thee, Opitchi-Manneyto,”
in his own language, muttered the savage, his mind
recurring to the previous pursuit. The youth continued
his services without pressing him for speech, and his
exhaustion had been so great that he could do little if
any thing for himself. Unlashing his bow and quiver,
which had been tied securely to his back, and unloosing
the belt about his body, Grayson still further contributed
to his relief. At length he grew conscious and sufficiently
restored to converse freely with his preserver;
and though still gloomy and depressed, Occonestoga
returned him thanks in his own way for the assistance
which had been given him.

“Thou wilt go with me to my cabin, Occonestoga?”

“No! Occonestoga is a dog. The woods for Occonestoga.
He must seek arrows and feathers for Opitchi-Manneyto,
who came to him in the swamp.”

The youth pressed him farther, but finding him
obdurate, and knowing well the inflexible character of
the Indian, he gave up the hope of persuading him to
his habitation. They separated at length after the delay
of an hour,—Grayson again in his canoe, and Occonestoga
plunging into the woods in the direction of the
Block House.