 | THE SPECTRE WARRIORS. Legends of New-England |  |
THE SPECTRE WARRIORS.
[In 1692, the Garrison at Gloucester was alarmed by the appearance of
several Indian warriors, some of whom advanced even unto the walls of the
Garrison. They were repeatedly fired upon at the distance of a few yards,
by the best marksmen, and, although the shot always seemed to take effect,
and the strange Indians frequently fell as if mortally wounded, they always
passed off in the end, unharmed. These invulnerable visitants continued for
the space of three weeks to alarm and distress the Garrison.
Cotton Mather, in describing this circumstance, says:—“This inexplicable
war might have some of its original among the Indians, whose Chief
Sagamores are well known unto some of our captives, to have been horrid
sorcerers, and hellish conjurers, such as conversed with Demons.—Magnalia,
Book 7, Article 18.]
The yell of the red man is loud on the car!
On—on to the garrison—soldiers away,
The moccasin's track shall be bloody to day.”
The fortress is reached—they have taken their stand—
With war-knife in girdle, and rifle in hand;—
Their wives are behind them—the savage before—
Will the puritan fail at his hearth-stone and door?
There's a yell in the forest—unearthly and dread,
Like the shriek of a fiend o'er the place of the dead—
Again—how it swells through the forest afar—
Have the tribes of the fallen uprisen to war?
In the serpent-like mood of the blood-seeking foe—
Nor stealing in shadow nor hiding in grass,
But tall, and uprightly and sternly they pass.
“Be ready!”—the watchword has passed on the wall,
The maidens have shrunk to the innermost hall—
The rifles are levelled—each head is bowed low—
Each eye fixes steady—God pity the foe!
They are closely at hand!—Ha! the red flash has broke
From the garrisoned wall through a curtain of smoke,
There's a yell from the dying—that aiming was true—
The red-man no more shall his hunting pursue!
Look—look to the earth, as the smoke rolls away,
Do the dying and dead on the green herbage lay?
What mean those wild glances? no slaughter is there—
The red-man has gone like the mist on the air!
Unharmed, as the bodiless air, he has gone
From the war-knife's edge and the ranger's long gun,
And the Puritan-warrior has turned him away
From the weapons of war, and is kneeling to pray!
He fears that the Evil and Dark One is near,
On an errand of wrath, with his phantoms of fear,
That the spectres of Evil may never be slain!
He knows that the Powwah has cunning and skill,
To call up the Spirit of Darkness at will—
To waken the dead in their wilderness-graves.
And summon the demons of forest and waves.
And he layeth the weapons of battle aside,
And forgetteh the strength of his natural pride,
And he kneels with the priest by his garrisoned door,
That the spectres of Evil may haunt him no more!
| THE SPECTRE WARRIORS. Legends of New-England | |