University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

`My own! my beloved Loena! I wanted but to be
with thee, near thee, thus again; to feel thine innocent
heart swelling against mine: thus to know, as thou art
leaning on my bosom, love, that I am indeed, very dear
to thee. O, thank thee! This trembling, this emotion—
surely, there is no doubting the eloquent language of
chaste endearment. But why, what ails thee, Loena?—art
thou weeping, love? It is very dark, but thy breathing
is violent, and—stay—tears!—yes, thou art weeping!
O, tell me why? I feel the drops upon my own cheek.
What troubles thee? Hast thou aught to conceal?
Aught to fear? Nay, my beloved, I cannot be answered,
even with a pressure like that—thrilling as it does,
through nerve and bone, like electricity. Tell me in
words, my beautiful and good Loena, what troubles
thee?

`Oh, Harold, I cannot speak.' (Her hand fell timidly
upon his bosom—she breathed upon his cheek—a
hurried breathing, humid and faint—) `I have been
doubted, Harold—Shame on my lips for uttering the
word!—doubted, and by thee! Shame on my tears, too!
They tell too plainly of my humiliation and sorrow.
Harold, I cannot endure it. My heart is broken. Have
I not been thine, thine alone, from my childhood? when
have I wandered, in look or word, or thought? And
now—oh, it is hard to be borne!—to have the faith,
the allegiance, the very religion of my heart doubted.
What I have done for thee Harold, has been done,
almost with the feeling of a bride. Bear witness for
me, mother of Harold! princess! daughter of Logan!

when have I wavered? And why have I been doubted?
No, no, Harold, I cannot forget it. I love thee. I do
not deny it. I cannot deny it. Thy own mother taught
me that such an acknowledgment might be made at
times, by the most shrinking and sensitive woman—
and I—I have never breathed it before—never! though
my heart felt heavy with a load of unutterable tenderness!
and often, oh, how often have I held my breath,
in the desire of relieving it by confession, but I could
not. I never could, till now. And now, if thou couldst
see my face, I should die, I verily believe. Give me
thy hand—is there no fever in my forehead? Did thy
temples ever throb like that? O, they are sore with
thought and tenderness—aching with my devout meditation
upon thee. We seem to be met now, Harold,
as by the appointment of heaven, and now, having told
thee how dear, how very dear thou art to me—Nay,
do not interrupt me, I say all this, to prepare thee, the
more assuredly, for my resolution. I have determined,
and thou knowest too well the blood of the Logans, to
doubt that I can do all that I determine, all that I
threaten.'

`Threaten—Loena!'

`Yea, threaten, Harold! It is a threatening, not only
of thee, but of myself. I have at last determined.'

`Do not look upon me thus. I cannot see thine eyes,
it is true, but I can feel them. They are rivetted upon
me. The tone of thy voice thrills me. It is dreadfully
solemn. Nay, Loena, I adjure thee! Do not pronounce
the words. I know not what they are, but thy gasping
frights me, do not, do not—as thou lovest me. If there be
aught which thou prizest in me; aught that thou wouldst
purify and elevate, speak. I am in thy hands. Do thou
thy work, in constancy, and love, and I am thine, thine!
body and soul, forever and ever! But Loena, do not,
I cannot breathe yet—do not threaten me. Tears again!
how cold thy lips are, love—well, well—finish what thou
wouldst say—do with me as thou wouldst. A child
of Logan weeping! Who could withstand it? Come,
come—thy resolution, love.'

`To abandon thee, forever!'

`Me!—me!—Almighty God!'

`Nay, Harold, calm thyself:—to abandon thee forever:
Let me finish—if ever thou tremblest again, for
my love.'

`O bless thee! bless thee! dearest—best of women!'

`Nay—let me proceed. If I am ever again doubted,
be thou where thou wilt—over the great water—beyond
the stars—in the bed of the ocean, with the earthquake—shut
up in the subterranean palaces of the earth,
I care not where, nor when—If I be ever again doubted
by thee, Harold, then, farewell, forever!'

She fell upon her knees, as she uttered these words,
and bowed her head in supplication, upon his hands.
Harold knelt at her side, and held her convulsively to
his heart, which was ready to burst from his side, in
the agony of his delight.

`God bless thee!' he murmured, as his trembling
lips faintly touched her soft, smooth neck—`God bless
thee! I shall never, never again doubt thee. Nay, I never
have doubted thee; but some how or other, Logan
—accursed be the recollection!—It rises like a spectre
before me, and menaces me even now. Look! look!—
Spirit of the wilderness! * * Man of blood! * * whence
art thou? * * why comest thou upon me? * * I feel
thine unhallowed approach * * * Oh, shield me, love—
his cold hand is near me:—oh, how cold!'

He fell, in his delirium, upon the ground, before
the terrified girl. She raised him, pressed her little
hand upon his hot forehead, with the devout and inexpressible
tenderness of one, who joys to show all her
love to a sleeping, or insensible dear one—`Harold,
dear Harold! look up.'

He moved and strained her with a delirious expression
of horrour and dismay, to his bosom! `Hist! hist!
Ah, no, no, no!—my wound.'—Now, for the first time,
did these two creatures discover that he was drenched
with his own blood. Loena staunched it with her hair
her lips—and held his sick and weary head upon her
lap, all the live long night. He slept, and she wept
over him. He awoke, sore, and feverish, but in the full
recollection of the past.

`Am I to be impaled, sacrificed now!' he said, smiling
in her face, and pressing her hands to his mouth.

She could not answer. She smiled too, and a tear fell
upon his lip. `I am going across the water, love.'

`The great water, Harold?'

`Yes, dearest, the great water; not to the land of
souls; but I shall go somewhere, and consummate my
dreaming. I hate barbarism. I hate ignorance. It is abject,
ignoble, slavish. And I go, love, to prepare myself
for leading thy people, princess—forth, from barbarianism
and ignorance, to liberty and light!'

Her eyes flashed fire! `assuredly Harold?—art thou
determined? Wilt thou go? Hast thou, oh, hast thou,
the constancy for such a trial? Canst thou pursue that
object forever, through all peril, all intimidation, sickness,
death, and sorrow, and humiliation? Canst thou
leave me—me!—and remember only my people? O, if
thou canst, Harold, thou art, indeed, my chosen one.
I will fall down and worship thee! Speak, thou man of
my idolatry!'

`Yea, all, all!—even to the abandonment of thee!'
As they said this, they stood erect, their arms intertwined,
and hands outstretched to the blue sky, which
broke out upon them, with the unbreathed, unpolluted
light of a new day, all at once! and they resembled, in
their beautiful proportions, and bold, agitated drapery,
two pieces of surpassing statuary, suddenly endowed with
life, and just descended from their pedestals, arm in arm.
They embraced. They looked upward, and heaven shed a
luminous benediction upon the foreheads and eye lids of
both. They sank down again, side by side, overpowered
by the tumultuous sublimity of their feeling.

`Harold! Harold!' whispered Loena, in a tone of delighted
eagerness and intensity, that went thrilling to
his vitals. `I have determined. I too, will do worthily
for my people.'

`How child?' cried Harold, pressing his lips, doubtfully,
to her cheek.

`I will go with thee.'

`Thou! thou!—with me, over the wide water!'

`Yea, Harold, as did she of the Holy Scripture; saying,

`thy God shall be my God; and whither thou goest,
I will go.'

`O, bless thee! bless thee, woman. This is too much.
God, I thank thee! This is religion!—this is inspiration.'

A long, and breathless silence followed. No thought
of means occurred to these enthusiastick, heedless
creatures. Peril they could endure—death, in each
other's arms—but peril and death were less likely to
thwart them, and dishearten them, than the ten thousand
petty, contemptible vexations of real life.

A convulsive sob broke from her. Her cheek lay
against Harold's. `Sit up love,' she said, fondly, twining
her arms around him, and pressing the ligature,
that dripped redly yet, with the blood of his veins,
`Sit up love, and let me tell thee all about thy rival—
what!—breathing quicker at his name only!—and he's
dead!—O, Harold, Harold!'

`He was my father.'

`What! Logan?—he, thy father! merciful heaven!'

`Yes, Loena, he was—my own father.'

A shriek of horrour and surprise burst from her
pale lips.' Thy father! Harold—that man of blood—
the faithless, and terrible. He who slew men as he
would drink their veins dry, and doated on their agony.
He, who stove in the skull of an old man, in full council,
and spattered the brains in the faces of his children?
—He!—O, impossible! it cannot be. And yet, Harold-I
have detected some startling resemblances—the untamaeble
fierceness of thine eye—Nay, I have thought,
at times, that there was a general likeness between you
and that, had he been young, or thou older, and troubled
like him, and tempted like him, thou wouldst have
been another Logan. And yet, never did I shrink from
thy amazing energy, as from his. O, can it be?'

`It is so. Another time, and I will tell thee all. See
the eastern horizon is all a blaze!'

`What a being he was, Harold! My very blood curdles
at the recollection of him. How he stood! His dominion
was darkness. He was shrouded in impenetrability.
His collossal attributes had no fellowship with humanity.

He was sublime, and incomprehensible—walking
the earth, like one born and trained for command.'

`Aye, woman, he was trained for command. His
adamantine heart was unsoftened, unblessed with one
touch of infirmity—so bloody, so terrible:—A magnificent
creature, in eclipse—a planet, which, in rebellion,
broke away from its orbit, whirling and thundering,
darkly, through the region of vacuity; shattering, consuming,
and extinguishing all that it encountered. A
being, alike formidable, living or dead, sleeping or
waking, at all times, and in all seasons. Logan walked
the earth with the intimidating aspect of one too awfully
secure of his power—of one, whom the earth could
not disincumber itself of. His voice was not to be disobeyed.
All acknowledged their allegiance to him,
by their fears, while they denied it with their lips. And
all paid it, reluctantly, and in hatred—it was the tribute
of blood and sweat—paid too, to the uttermost far
thing, and that satisfied him. He cared not with what
disposition it was paid. He wrenched his assessment
from the strong and mighty. He would have wrestled
with archangels for their sceptres and crowns—with
the damned, for their preternatural, and guilty ascendancy,
at the peril of ten thousand lives, with the same
indifference. All was alike to him, so it was power.
His ambition was a vulture; it gorged on offal, but it
was the offal of kings. What a being he was! I tremble
to think of him, even in his grave. My heart quakes
like jelly at his name. Nay—hist!—love—hist! hast
thou ever seen him since his death—whisper it low.
Hast seen him of late?'

`Seen him!—Harold—See a dead man!—'

`A dead man!—true, dearest, true. Dead—dead—
yea, Loena, dead, almost by the hands of his own child
—but still—still'—(his voice became inexpressibly solemn,
and he laid his hand upon her with steadiness)—
Still, he walks the earth.'

`Mercy, Harold! how cold thy hand is; let me
warm it love, in mine. And thou shakest too, like the
red leaf of Autumn, in the mountain blast—O for
shame!'

`Speak! tell me all of him. He wooed thee, thee! my
own, my dearest one: my own father!—O, my brain—
Speak Loena, I cannot bear this, another moment: cannot,
will not, brook the trial longer.'

`Well then, it were a long story, Harold; and I cannot
tell thee all the terrifick deeds he did; deeds of terrour
and blood—achievements of a nature, so heroick
and sublime, and dreadful, that these rocks would fall
at their repetition. He faced the battle. He trampled
the breath out of the wild beast. He met, and tore asunder,
the jaws of the bear, and the catamount. He swam
torrents, forded rivers, galloped the inaccessible mountain,
played his archery above the clouds, bathed himself,
over and over again, to drunkenness and delirium,
in the blood of the white men—nay, of the red men,
too, in the unsparing bitterness of his wrath—a creature,
born and baptized in hot gore—whose baby fingers
dabbled in the reeking vitals of slain children—
all this he did—merely—oh how little he knew of woman's
nature! the nature, even of an Indian woman—
merely to win Loena!'

`He sought some creature of sublimity—some bosom,
upon which Ambition himself, might lay his throbbing
head, wearied and aching with royalty: but he sought
her in smoke and flame.'

`He spoke in council. The oldest and wisest were
mute before the authority of his presence. The great
men, the old and mighty were subdued by his bearing.
They stood before him, awe-struck. He was their
champion, their leader, ready to vindicate their wrongs,
and bear down, in thunder and lightning, upon their
foes, wherever they lay, and drive them to the four
corners of the earth. Could they resist him? He dictated
his terms of perpetual alliance—the love of their
princess! Half of the dagger handles, and one half of the
tomahawks were grappled at the word. Did he shrink?
No. He mocked and scorned, and derided, and dared
them them, all. `Go,' he said, `go! and leave your
princess unwived, unwed; yourselves, the sport and
derision of all men; the curse and bye-word of Indian
and white. Ye! ye! the children of Logan—of him,

who went forth, in battle and in blood, like the great
sun of heaven, in one untiring course, till he was avenged.
And ye! what are ye? How have ye submitted to wrong,
and insult, and encroachment? And why? Shame on
your dastard councils! Who am I? An adopted child.
Be it so. Mate me among yourselves, if you can. Let
him come forth—here! here!—and put his life and limb
in the jeopardy that I have, ten thousand times for you.
And would ye refuse him?'

`My offer is made. I never repeat it. You have one
hour to think of it. I came in faith to you. If I depart,
remember!—it is I, I! Logan, that pronounce the malediction.
Accursed be your race! unsparing war, and
shame, and desolation, be, and abide upon you, forever,
and ever! My hand shall wage it to the last, and after
me, shall arise others, more terrible, more unappeasable.'

`I was sent for. Logan stood erect, in the smoke of
the council fire: his huge limbs darkened and revealed,
alternately, in their barbarick nakedness, like bronze
statuary, in the shining light of the consecrated ewer,
and the rolling of the golden vapour that issued from it,
with an offensive odour. Not a nerve trembled. The
orator repeated his speech. Logan extended his hand.
I put it from me. He advanced. I planted my foot, and
menaced him with my countenance. But he was not
to be intimidated. He smiled fiercely, laid his hand
upon my shoulder, and would have embraced me. I,
maddened to desperation, at the indignity, smote him,
and he fell. My knife was buried in his side.'

`He staggered, and fell. The light became suddenly
extinct, as he rolled over the sacred vessels. We were
in darkness; and I retreated. We heard a shriek! It
was from my woman. The young men sprang from
their seats. The cry passed rapidly away through the
forest. They pursued. But it was too late. Their own
noise prevented them from distinguishing the route of
Logan. We soon discovered the truth. Wounded as
he was, Logan had borne off my attendant, with the
speed and strength of a wild beast. Was not mine a
most providential escape?'

`Our young men continued the pursuit, with torches
and rifles. The moon suddenly shone out, and we
caught a glimpse of him, ascending that hill, by the
lake. Twenty rifles were instantly levelled at his head.
But, confident that they would not shoot at him, while
he held her in his arms, he laughed their threats to
scorn. He hugged the poor creature to his heart, and
was ascending just over the precipitous cliff of the blue
lake—when suddenly—oh God! I never shall forget
that look, and gesture!—He stopped—we held our
breath in terrour. He appeared, for the first time, to
have discovered his mistake. The moon shone directly
upon me. He dropped her, and she clung to his knees.
He stood still for a moment, gazing upon me, and her,
alternately, with his hands clenched, and advanced.
The next, he stooped down—tore her hands from her
face—she shrieked—and he caught her up, as if she
were an infant; rushed to the very brink of the crumbling
precipice, from which the earth and stones, loosened
by his heedless footstep, fell and rattled, in the
wave below. The sound appeared to revive the terrified
girl, for I could perceive her shiver all over, convulsively,
in the moonlight, and reach out her arms, as
to clasp him round the neck—She caught his garment
—but in vain—in vain!—he tore it away, and held
her out at arm's length, over the terrible abyss, for a
moment, as if enjoying her distraction—and then—
O, merciful Heaven! Harold—my heart grows sick at
the thought—my head swims—I can see her now!—
hear her now!—the monster hurled her, headlong, from
the height! We saw her clothes fluttering, and shut our
eyes, with one universal shriek of horrour and dismay.
We heard his horrible mockery above—and the next
moment, as nearer, a faint, desperate cry. Blinded and
giddy as I was, I opened my eyes involuntarily—the
body appeared suspended in the air—it wheeled, swang,
turned, and appeared to touch a projecting crag. I
thought that I should have dropped dead upon the spot,
in the agony of my hope. I saw the dear creature put
out her hands, and grasp at the shubbery, and then, at
the matted tissue of green tendons, that overhung the

rock—But O, God! O, God! I saw it gradually yield;
and the loose earth, roots, and ivy, all falling together!
Another faint cry followed: and the next moment, a
loud splash, below us, accompanied with the rattling of
innumerable pebbles. O, that cry, Harold! So helpless!
so thrilling!—Gracious God! I have heard it every
night since, in my sleep. It is eternally ringing in my
ears. Let me lean on thee—I am giddy, and sick, Harold,
with the recollection.'

A long silence followed. `From that hour, we never
met—Logan and I. Now, Harold, canst thou doubt
me?'

`I cannot answer thee,' he replied, straining her to
his heart.