 | FALL OF THE PEQUOD. Myrtis |  |
FALL OF THE PEQUOD.
Are the rightful lords no more;
Like the silver mist we fail,
Like the red leaves in the gale,
Fail like shadows when the dawning,
Waves the bright flag of the morning.”
M'Lellan.
The infancy of Connecticut was replete with peril.
The dangers that surrounded its cradle, seem sufficient
to have extinguished any common germ of colonial
existence.
The pilgrim-fathers at Plymouth possessed some
advantages over the other settlers of New England.
They held the right of primogeniture, a prescriptive
claim to the regard of posterity. They came first to
its solitary shores. They first breathed amid its unbroken
forests the name of Jehovah. Their footsteps
have been traced with somewhat of that enthusiasm
which hovers like the white-wing'd sea-bird
around the voyage of Columbus, the world-finder.
There was a severe, yet simple, majesty in their attitude,
which history has preserved and mankind
venerated. Their privations have been recorded and
remembered. If they have not monopolized our sympathies,
they have put in a prior claim to them. They
have made the Rock of Plymouth a Mecca to the
patriot, and it is right that it should be so.
Still it is questionable whether their sufferings surpassed
those of the little band who, in the year 1635,
took leave of their friends in the Massachusetts, and
came as pioneers to the banks of the Connecticut. A
and the stars of heaven were their guides. Mountains,
and thickets, and morasses, and unfordable
streams were among the obstacles of their path.
The shortening days of autumn interrupted their
progress; and for the chill and dreary nights their
shelter was the forest, and the earth their bed.
Among the sharers in this adventurous enterprise
were delicate women, inured to affluence in the soft
British clime, and young infants, who must have perished
had it been possible for the heart of the mother
ever to grow cold. The season was inauspicious,
and marked by violent storms. So protracted had
been their journey, that, ere they could make preparations
for safety and comfort, Winter, coming before
his time, surprised them. Connecticut River,
so long the object of their hope, presented, on their
arrival, a broad surface of ice. It is recorded as almost
an unparalleled circumstance, that it was that
year frozen entirely over on the 15th of November.
There was no welcome from Nature to the toil-worn
strangers. The trees were leafless and silent.
The birds had migrated, and the provident animals
hidden themselves from the cold. The snow came
deep and drifted, and wild winds swept through their
insufficient habitations. To crown all, the vessels
which contained their provisions and articles for
household comfort, were wrecked in a tempest; so
that the sufferings of famine were added to their list
of hardships.
The red men of the forest, then numerous and
powerful, looked with pity on the pale, perishing
race. They saw them feeding upon acorns, and
brought them corn, and covered them with the skins
of the beaver from the terrible cold. They discovered,
and lent them aid in their perils through the
wilderness. Taking the sick and feeble in their
arms, they bare them through morasses and rivulets.
“They did make of their bodies bridges and
boats unto our people,” said a historian of the early
times.
But where now are the vestiges of that race whose
friendship preserved our ancestors? They who, to
the number of 20,000, spread themselves by the fair
streams and along the sea-coast of Connecticut, where
are they? Is a single one of their arbor-like dwellings
to be found? Does a solitary canoe break the
surface of any of our streams? And who among us
remember the race who gave bread to our perishing
fathers, or repay the deed of gratitude to their
wandering and degraded children?
The clergymen Hooker and Stone, who, with their
congregations, traversed, in 1637, the same intervening
wilderness, to commence the settlement of Hartford,
wisely chose summer as the season of their expedition.
Hooker, to whose learning and eloquence the noble
and the pious in his own native land had borne
high testimony, took part in every hardship with the
most cheerful courage. Sometimes bowing his shoulder
then raising in his arms some child of the party whose
little weary feet lingered behind; then comforting
the faint-hearted; and again, with inspiring smile,
recounting the joy of Israel, drawing near the promised
land, until his flock fancied that in their own
path was the same guiding “pillar of cloud by day,
and of fire by night.”
A fortnight was spent in their journey, and, like
their predecessors, they slept without shelter. Yet
faith, continually sustained by the zeal and patience
of their guides, communicated vigor to their bodies,
and they endured without murmuring. The forests
through which they passed, and whose echoes had
hitherto replied only to the wolf, or the panther, or
the hunter's cry, became familiar with other sounds.
For, as the Christians proceeded,
With their hymns of lofty cheer.”
Not a year had transpired since their choice of a
locality on the banks of the beautiful river which was
to give name to a state. May morning smiled on
them for the first time in their new abode. Rich
verdure quickened beneath their feet, and Nature
seemed anxious to efface the memory of winter's
unkindness. But deep care was on the brow of those
who watched over the welfare of the young colony.
The fathers of Connecticut met on that first day of
May in solemn council. A delegation from the senior
settlements of Windsor, and Wethersfield, were
of high import.
The Pequods, a fierce and powerful tribe of natives,
had discovered a spirit of aggression. Inroads
upon property and destruction of life were charged
against them. The expediency of a war was immediately
decided upon, the number of soldiers determined,
and preparations commenced without delay.
To meet these requisitions, every family drew upon
the resources of its strength, or put in jeopardy the
springs of its existence.
It was on Wednesday, the tenth of May, that ninety
soldiers, with military equipments, stood on the
banks of the broad river. True and faithful to their
need, their red-browed allies were ranged by their
side.
The Mohegan king, with seventy warriors, waited
the signal of his pilgrim friends.
It was an hour of stirring emotion. None spoke
or moved. It was felt that but one man could break
that silence, and that his words must be to God.
Hooker came forward. At his right hand were his
brethren, his flock, who had crossed with him a tempestuous
ocean, exiles from the land of their fathers.
Which of these should return no more? Who should
fall in blood, and see his home no more? Mingled
with these was a more helpless group: the wife, the
mother, the sister, and the babe. They had come
down to the waters to bid farewell.
The holy man felt that he “bare their griefs and
midst. His prayer was to the God of battles, the
“God of the spirits of all flesh;” and it lifted up the
souls of those who were to go, and of those who remained
behind, till there seemed to them neither
danger nor sorrow in this brief world worthy to appall
the heirs of immortality.
The voice of supplication ceased. There was a
brief pause. Then, stretching forth his arms, he
blessed the people in the name of the God of the
armies of Israel. In that high faith they parted.
Tender ones restrained the tear, lest it might weaken
the heart of some loved protector. Children imitated
the dignity of their parents.
The barques received their freight; the sails were
unfurled. One man lingered yet a moment behind
the rest. It was the Rev. Mr. Stone, the chaplain
of the expedition. He stayed to press the hand of
his colleague in the Church, and his friend in the
Gospel.
“Go forth,” said Hooker, “blessed and holy brother,
bearing the armor of the Gospel. When the waters
of strife abate, give heed to pluck the first leaf
of olive, for so it becometh a servant of the Prince of
peace.”
The little fleet moved slowly and gracefully from
the shore. The fair river sparkled in the sunbeam,
and gave back the tint of the deep blue sky. The
foliage upon its banks was of surpassing beauty.
The towering oak lifted its unshorn head, and the
Amid the interstices of the forest, the sassafras and
dog-wood thrust forth their pale flowers, the wild
cherry hung out its feathery banner, and the fragrant
breath of the indigenous apple blossom was detected
in every breeze. Animal life, in its unresting forms
of pursuit or enjoyment, roved amid the luxuriant
vegetation. The squirrel threw itself from bough to
bough, as if ambitious to belong to the winged tenantry;
the fox ventured fearlessly from his covert;
and the otter, from some sloping declivity, plunged
suddenly into the deep waters, or, fearlessly emerging,
resumed his amphibious pastime. The thrush
poured forth from her newly-built habitation wild
strains of the richest melody; the azure plumage of
the jay gleamed in strong contrast with the garb of
the black-bird, whose keen eye was ever searching
for some planted maize-field; the partridge rose up
heavily on whirring wing; the shy quail sent forth her
clear, shrill whistle; and throngs of pigeons darkened
the bending branches.
“This is truly a land,” said Mason, the commander
of the troops, “for which a warrior might be willing
to fight.”
“God hath given us a goodly heritage,” replied
the chaplain. “Would it were his will that we might
keep it for our sons, without this shedding of blood.”
And there they stood together on the prow of the
leading vessel; the bold, strong man who had made
war his trade when the banner of England was borne
unswerving servant of the cross, who deemed war
among the heaviest judgments of the Almighty. Not
inaptly did they personify their different professions,
like Gerizzim and Ebal, amid the mountains of Israel,
uttering the blessings or the penal thunders of
Jehovah.
As twilight drew her curtain, the banks between
which they glided, became more bold and steep.
Rocks reared castellated summits, till their frowning
shadows mingled on the bosom of the river, which
became compressed, and flowed on complainingly,
like an unsubdued spirit, chastened by adversity. It
seemed faintly to imitate the majesty with which the
more imposing Hudson wins the pass of the Highlands;
and then expanding in freedom and beauty,
embellished the romantic scenery where Middletown
was to choose her seat.
Yet the Connecticut gave but a tardy passage to
her first naval armament. On the third day of the
voyage, the Indian king demanded to be put on
board the vessel of the commander.
“Chief of the white men, my warriors are not
content. They say your tall, white-winged birds
tread not the waters like their own light canoes.
They see the salmon leap up, and there is none to
take it. They see the horns of the deer glancing
through the forest, and their bows are hot in their
hands.”
“The waters and the winds are in the hands of
and not us. King of the red men, what shall be done
to satisfy your people?”
“Put our feet upon the green earth. Let these
great water-birds go on without us. We will meet
you at your fort, where the river weds the sea.”
The Indians, according to their request, were set
on shore. They were seen pressing through the
closest thickets, and ascending the steepest rocks with
fleet foot and unbending form. In a few minutes
they disappeared amid the deep green of the forest.
But their shouts of wild delight were longer heard,
as they traversed their native soil, inhaling, with free
spirit, the pure, elastic atmosphere.
Five days these three vessels toiled on their tedious
voyage. Unskilled in the navigation of the river,
the mariners repeatedly ran aground, or laboriously
ploughed their way in the teeth of opposing winds.
Before their eyes was no vision of that stupendous
power which was yet to arise, binding both blasts
and billows in strange obedience. The plodding and
patient people of that age were cheered by no pageant
of steam-propelled palace, instinct as with a
living soul, and treading down in the pride of its own
strength all elemental opposition. They would not
have believed, that on the very tide they buffeted so
wearily, an agent should come forth, resistless as the
planet in its orb, yet fashioned by the weakness of
human hands. They would have marveled at the
assertion that the mightiest effort of man, since he
wall of China, or to erect the Cathedral at Rome,
but to render the potent and tremendous power of
steam the vassal of his will, to “play with him as
with a bird, and to bind him for his maidens.”
The arrival of the fleet at the fort of Saybrook was
an occurrence of no slight moment. The tossing
pinnaces were moored, and the junction of the slender
marine and land forces effected, where the Connecticut,
with her dower of mountain-rills and quiet
streamlets, meets her imperious lord, and loses her
sky-born tint in his fathomless wave.
The welcome of Captain Underhill, with his garrison
of twenty men, notwithstanding the simplicity of
the times, was not wholly devoid of “pomp and circumstance.”
A broad banner floated, and a rude
flourish of martial music sounded from the shore as
the troops disembarked; and the two commanders
tendered each other the salutes which military courtesy
prescribes.
“We can spread for you no field of the cloth of
gold,” said Underhill, “nor even bid you to a palace,
notwithstanding we chance to be the highest representatives
of England's sovereign majesty in this
corner of the New World.”
“Yet our meeting,” replied Mason, “involves
higher consequences than the boasted interview of
Henry VIII. and Francis I. No point of kingly
etiquette is here to be settled, but the life or death
of a nation. Here, too, are truer friends than are
allies, and cordially taking the hand of Uncas.
“Indian friendship,” said the chaplain, “shows itself
by deeds more than words. It does not think
first of its own safety, or stop to calculate expediency,
when its object is in danger.”
The hospitality of the fort was as ample as the resources
which could be commanded in a primitive
state of society. The game furnished by the Mohegan
hunters at their arrival was an important and
acceptable addition. In that stage of the colony
hospitality was not, like the careful sister of Bethany,
“cumbered with much serving.” Her aim was
not to consult variety or to indulge cost, or to display
competition, but simply to satisfy appetite. The
climax of her ambition was to hear her guest say, it
is enough.
During detention by a storm, the leaders conversed
freely on the plan of their projected expedition.
“The instructions of the court,” said Mason, “are
precise, to land at Pequod harbor and proceed directly
to their fort. But the moment our sails are discerned
we shall be watched with Indian vigilance, and
the attempt to disembark may cost the lives of half
our men. Even should a landing be safely effected,
we may be entrapped in some ambuscade, ignorant
as we are of their country; so that it is possible for
us to fall without a battle, leaving none to bear tidings
of our fate. My advice is, therefore, to come upon
and attack them by surprise.”
“I am averse,” said Underhill, “to a departure
from the injunctions of the honorable court. Neither
do I like that resort to stratagem which we blame
so much in the Indians. Our men would dread a
march through the wilderness. By detaining them
longer from their homes, the agriculture on which
their subsistence depends must be impeded. Who
can say, also, that their families, by this protracted
absence, may not be exposed to savage massacre?”
“Delay,” said Mason, “is a lighter evil than extermination.
You will not, I trust, doubt my courage;
yet prudence is an essential ingredient of a
well-balanced courage. With all our devotion to
our country, we are not a match for twenty times
our number. By passing through the territory of
the king of the Narragansetts, we may obtain his
aid. Uncas, what is your counsel in this matter?”
The red-browed chieftain had been a silent, but
deeply attentive listener. Now, though summoned
to give his opinion, he answered reluctantly.
“Miantonimoh looks one way and rows another.”
“What does he mean?” said Mason.
“That the Narragansett king is double-minded,
and not to be trusted,” replied Underhill.
“Uncas has somewhat of the wily policy of Ulysses,”
said Mason. “He fears to commit himself.
His suffrage goes for nothing.”
Neither commander was disposed to recede from
his ground. Their officers were also divided in opinion.
In this dilemma, they agreed to submit to the
decision of the chaplain. In those days, veneration
for the sacerdotal character was exemplified by men
of the highest rank, and an essential element of education.
The chaplain, fully aware of the importance
of this arbitration, would, perhaps, willingly have
avoided its responsibility. But his creed taught him
not to shrink from duty. That night no slumber visited
his eyes. In deep solitude he viewed the contested
point in all its bearings. He weighed every
argument that had been adduced. He pondered their
probable results. He spread the cause before Him
who heareth prayer, and implored the guidance of
his wisdom.
With the early light of morning, he communicated
to the council his opinion in favor of the route
through the Narragansett country. That day the
Captains Mason and Underhill sailed with their
forces for Narragansett Bay, leaving twenty men behind
for the defence of the colony. On Saturday,
May 20th, they landed, and marched to the plantation
of the sachem, Canonicus. From thence they
sent an embassy to Miantonimoh, asking permission
to pass through his territory, and soliciting his aid
against the common enemy. He came to meet them
with a large body of warriors. He was tall, slightly
Mohegan king. The plan of thus assaulting the Pequods
surprised him by its boldness. Still he maintained
that unmoved manner and countenance, beneath
which the pride of the Indian is accustomed to
conceal emotion. He received the confidence of
the colonial commanders in silence, and requested
an interview with Uncas.
“Does Mohegan go with the pale faces?” was his
first question.
“The chain of our friendship is bright,” replied
Uncas. “One end of it is in the hand of the Great
Spirit, and the other in the grave of my nation. Until
it sleeps there, the chain must not rust or be broken.”
“Sassacus can bring as many arrows as the spring
puts forth green leaves in the forest.”
“We shall steal upon Sassacus as the snake winds
through the sleeping grass. He shall see blood ere
he knows what hand hath drawn it.”
“Sassacus hath a quick ear and a long arm.
Twenty-six chiefs obey him. Whom he will, he
slayeth. He is among them as a god.” And a
gleam of superstitious awe passed over the brow of
Narragansett's king at the thought of that fierce monarch,
who struck terror into every foe.
“Miantonimoh, go with us! You are a brave
man. If we can shake the Pequods from their strong
holds, you may sit down upon the sea-coast, and be
as great as Sassacus.”
This double appeal to ambition and cupidity, was
not in vain. The king of the Narragansetts paused,
as if balancing the probabilities of profit and loss.
He then suddenly exclaimed,
“But what are these English, for whom you are so
ready to raise the tomahawk? Before the Pequod
warriors, will they not be as old women?”
“Come and see,” was the laconic and somewhat indignant
reply.
“I will go with you,” said Miantonimoh, proudly.
“Five hundred bows shall accompany me.”
Uncas imparted the result of his negotiation to the
commanders, who greatly rejoiced, and viewed it as
a divine interposition in their favor. Leaving their
vessels, they commenced the march through the wilderness.
Tangled forests, thorny thickets, and protracted
swamps of coarse grass, which sometimes attained
a height of three or four feet, opposed their
progress. Added to these obstructions were the oppressive
warmth of the weather, and a scarcity of
provisions. The new corn having been but recently
planted, and that of the previous year expended, they
had scarcely a better substitute for bread than the
roots dug at random in their march. A small quantity
of parched corn from their Indian friends, was
esteemed a luxury.
Almost exhausted with their toilsome march
through this trackless country, they arrived, at the
close of a sultry day, within two miles of Fort Mystic,
and made their humble encampment in a valley
to our wearied ancestors. Little did they imagine
that they rested so near the spot where Groton monument
should arise, to tell the traveler of battle
between the land of their birth and that of their
adoption. Had their slumbers been visited by visions
of such warfare, would they not have accounted it as
the strife of the brothers in Eden, and grieved like
our first parent, when it was shown him by the archangel?
The sentinels, who were placed considerably in
advance of the army, heard repeated echoes of wild
laughter and savage mirth, breaking upon the stillness
of midnight. They came from the fort where
the Pequod warriors held a festival, their last on
earth; ominous as the revelry of the armies of France
on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. At length,
deep silence settled on the fortress of the red men.
The moon came up clear in the heavens. Mason
and Underhill roused their soldiers. Quickly arraying
themselves, the chaplain, in few and solemn
words, commended them to God. They mused in
their hearts on those deep, low tones, which linked
their hopes with the name of the Highest, while pursuing
their way without a whispered sound, guarding
even their lightest footfall. In the heart of every
man was a picture of his home, where wife, or children,
or aged parents lay in the arms of sleep, and
whose helplessness he felt himself commissioned to
defend. The valor that springs from such guardianship
image of His might, who protects a slumbering
world, and believes even its severity to be holy.
They reached the hill which was crowned by the
rude, yet formidable fortress of the Pequods. As
they began to ascend, their allies, the Narragansetts,
were perceived hanging back, like a dark cloud
around its base. Mason commanded them to advance.
They still lingered.
“Is it perfidy or terror that detains them?” he demanded
of the Mohegan king.
“They fear Sassacus,” he replied, calmly, “more
than the Spirit of Evil. Miantonimoh's heart is now
like water at the sight of yonder fort.”
“Give them orders not to fly,” said Mason, “but
to stand still, and see how brave men fight.”
He then divided the little band of seventy-seven
soldiers, between himself and Underhill, for the attack.
So silent were their movements, that they
stood under the very walls of the fort without discovery.
Just at that moment a dog barked. Like
the winged sentinel of Rome, he alarmed the beleaguered
citadel, but might not save it.
Starting from the deep sleep which succeeded
their revel, the Indians evinced a lion-like courage.
They rushed unarmed upon drawn swords; they
grasped the bayonets in their hands; they wrested
the weapons from their foes; they grappled with
desperate strength; and yielded only when they
were cut in pieces. While blood was pouring in
fort, and the village that was sleeping beneath its
wing. Columns of fire sprang up from seventy conelike
roofs of combustible material, spreading a red
glare over the darkened heavens. The affrighted
inmates, whose dream was broken by the flames
that were to destroy them, rushed forth. Mothers
with babes in their arms, little ones shrieking in vain
for protection, flitted like shadows and vanished.
Death was ready for them. Scarce one escaped.
Some, at the sight of their enemies, fled back to
their flaming dwellings to die there, like the miserable
Jews, preferring the burning coals of their beloved
temple, to the mercy of the Romans.
Scarcely in the records of history, has war done
her work with greater dispatch or more entire desolation.
The hour opened upon a slumbering village
and a fortress quietly crowning the wooded hill-top.
It closed, and six hundred souls had taken their
flight: every dwelling was ashes, and every family
extinct. Where the tower of their strength frowned
was a mound of blackened cinders, smoldering
in the blood of their bravest hearts.
The victorious army commenced their returning
march. They had not escaped unscathed, though
few were left among the slain. A fourth part of
their number were disabled by wounds. In this
emergency the friendship of their Mohegan allies
was invaluable. Constructing litters of the woven
branches of trees, they bore the sufferers on their
healing virtues of plants, assuaged their sufferings.
Neither was the retreat without danger. The uproar
of conflict had been heard afar, startling the ear
of night. Throngs of enraged Pequods hung upon
their rear, taking deadly aim from the height of
rocks or the covert of trees. Mason found himself
called upon, like Xenophon, to the difficult task
of conducting a retreat through an enemy's country;
imitating him, also, in becoming the historian of his
own expedition. A distance of six miles was to be
achieved, with the foe in their footsteps. But for the
aid of their red brethren, they would probably have
been intercepted and cut off. They protected the
harassed army, often forming a circle, and literally
receiving the exhausted veterans in their friendly and
faithful bosoms. At length, the white sails of the
waiting vessels were seen, expanded by a favoring
breeze, the harbor attained, and the wasted and
wearied, yet triumphant band embarked on their
homeward voyage.
During the tumult of battle, the chaplain retired
to a deep-woven thicket, and lifted up his prayer to
the Father and Judge of all. He besought the preservation
of his brethren, and that the needless effusion
of blood might be restrained. While Faith
maintained a painful struggle with the emotions of
his gentler nature, there was a rushing toward the
thicket, as of a deer pursued by the hunters. Ere
he could rise from the humble posture of devotion, a
his feet. It was with difficulty that he disengaged
himself. Her grasp was like the rigor of death.
Fixing her wild eyes for a moment on his countenance,
she shrieked fearfully and long, and closed
them, as he thought, forever. There was blood on
her forehead and bosom. He believed that, in the
torture of a mortal wound, she had fled, not knowing
whither.
“The Savior, of whom thou hast never heard,
have mercy upon thy poor soul,” said the man of
peace. Bending over her with pity, as she lay at
his feet, like a beautiful bronze statue, he thought,
“Surely my people might have spared to take the
life of the child.”
She seemed at that period when childhood and
youth mingle, in doubtful yet pleasing union. At
length her respiration became distinct—a succession
of deep sighs. Life stirred in her deadened cheek.
The trance of fear was broken. She partially raised
herself; but when she beheld the face of a white
man, covered her eyes with a shrill, shuddering cry.
It was not her own blood that was upon her breast,
but the blood of her mother and of her little sisters,
to whom she had clung through the flame and under
the sword. The holy man laid his hand upon her
throbbing forehead, and strove to assure her spirit
by the smile and tone of kindness, that universal language,
intelligible to the heart of the savage, and
which even the eye of the brute deciphers.
“Poor bird; God hath sent thee unto me, perhaps,
to save a soul alive;” and he threw his mantle around
the shivering child. When the battle was done, and
the shouting victors sought him in their joy, he led
her through ranks of scowling soldiers and wondering
red men.
“God hath given her to me,” said he, and they
were silent. He protected her through the perilous
retreat and upon the waters, and brought her home
to his wife and to his daughters; so at their family
altar, morn and even, was a petition that the soul of
the red-browed orphan might be dear to their Father
in heaven.
Gentle treatment and Christian culture were as
the dew and sunbeam, to this broken forest flower.
Her feelings expanded in gratitude, and confirmed
into the most affectionate trust. Every service within
the measure of her power was cheerfully rendered
to her benefactors. She learned to love the God of
Christians, and early sought permission to enrol herself
among the followers of the Redeemer.
Seven years passed away, and brought to this
gentle creature the ripeness of youth. There was
about her a flexibility of form and movement approaching
to grace, and that peculiar sweetness of
voice which distinguishes our aboriginal females.
Her raven locks, profuse and glossy, twined in thick
braids around her head, and gave strong relief to a
complexion whose dark hue did not prevent the eloquent
blood from revealing its frequent rush to
development indicated exquisite sensibility, over
which pure religion diffused a serenity which made
her interesting to the most careless beholder.
I have said that seven years had elapsed since the
destruction of Fort Mystic. Connecticut had, in
that interval, rapidly gathered strength and importance.
Already had she stretched forth her hand to
aid the incipient efforts of her elder sister, Massachusetts,
in the cause of education. Her simple offerings,
though of only a few bushels of corn or
strings of wampum, came up with acceptance to ancient
Harvard's mite-replenished treasury.
Hartford had also assumed an aspect of comparative
comeliness and vigor. One of its beautiful
heights was adorned with a spacious mansion, far
exceeding in elegance the other structures of that
newly-planted colony. It was the seat of the Wyllys
family, whose founder was not less conspicuous for
wealth than for saintly piety, and adorned by a lawn
and garden, in imitation of his own fair estate in
Warwickshire. Among the ornaments of his domain
was an oak, the monarch of the forest, honored afterward
in annal and song as the refuge, not of his
“sacred majesty,” but of the charter which his sacred
majesty's brother would fain have rifled. Still
revered, and introduced to strangers as the “Charter
Oak,” it flourishes in green old age, though generation
after generation have withered beneath its
shade.
At the period of which we speak, the year 1644,
a funeral train passed forth from that stately dwelling.
The head of that ancient house was no more.
Not slightly mourned, did he part from a colony,
which had conferred on him the highest office in its
power to bestow. Hartford and the vicinity poured
forth their inhabitants, from the child, to him of hoary
hairs, to attend those obsequies. There Hooker
lifted up his voice, and with fervid eloquence blessed
the dust of him who “for righteousness' sake had
preferred a wilderness to the palaces of Mammon,
and, like the prophet borne on angels' wings from
Pisgah, esteemed the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt.”
“Behold,” exclaimed he, “in what manner Death
despoileth man. He doth not uproot the groves which
he planted or the gardens that he adorned, but he
chaineth the foot that walked there. He taketh not
away the pleasant pictures from the walls, but he
taketh light from the eye that looked upon them.
The desirable children, the loving wife are left, but
the head, and husband, is cut down with a stroke.
He burneth not the fair and goodly mansion, but he
taketh the master out of it. He doth not destroy his
honors, but he summoneth him away from them.
`This night! this night!' is the cry, and immediately
he giveth up the ghost.”
His eulogium upon the departed was minute, and
according to the quaint taste of the age. He spoke
of his doctrines and of his deeds; of his genealogy,
in wealth and honor, and throughout the
stormy feuds of the houses of York and Lancaster,
maintaining a consistent valor. Yet his aim was not
to magnify adventitious distinction, but the grace of
God, and to show that the “glory of man, at his best
estate, is altogether vanity.” Impressed with these
sentiments, the weeping multitude followed in solemn
order the corpse to its last narrow habitation.
The long procession moved slowly down the hill,
and extended itself toward the cemetery. Scarce
one remained behind, save the Indian maiden, who,
pensive and alone, wandered to the brow of the
eastern declivity, which commanded a noble view
of the valley of the Connecticut. She fixed her
eye upon its line of blue, seen in sparkling snatches
through the foliage of embowering trees. Her
revery was broken by a muffled form springing toward
her from a copse, just beneath the height where
she stood. She would have started away like the
bounding fawn, but the complexion, the gesture of
her own people, the murmured tones of her native
language, arrested her. With a consciousness as
rapid as the memory of the heart, she recognized the
young warrior Ontologon, of the ancient line of her
nation's royalty. Anxious to avoid discovery, and
more by gestures than words, he signified that he
had tidings of importance to communicate, and requested
an interview in the grove that skirted her
residence. Scarcely had she assented ere he vanished
recollection of a phantom visitant. Twilight
had faintly taken the hue of evening when she repaired
to the grove in which the garden of her protector
terminated.
“Orramel,” said a voice, whose deep inflections
thrilled through every nerve, and the lofty young
chieftain of her people stood before her. For a moment
he regarded her in silence with the keen glance
of the eagle, who, balanced on the cloud, gazes into
her nest to see if aught evil hath befallen her nurslings
in her absence, and to exult in their beauty.
“Orramel, thou rememberest me. I saw it in the
flash of thy wondering eye, when on the hill-top I
stood suddenly before thee. I knew it from the
blood in thy cheek, which spoke its message ere thy
lips parted.”
“Ontologon, thy tones open all the cells of memory.
They call back the dead. I see my mother
fondling her babe. I sit by her side with my little
sisters. Again our home seems peaceful and happy,
as when thou didst bring to my childish hand birds
of bright plumage, which thy young bow had taken.”
“Where are that mother and those little ones, playful
and timid as the fawns? Where is thy home, so
softly visited by the sea-breeze? Where are thy
people? Black ruins, and the grass that grows so
rankly where blood is spilt, answer thee. Thou
canst tell me of the flame and the battle when our
fortress fell. I saw them not. I was far away with
have died when my people died, or cut in pieces
their oppressors.”
The maiden replied only with deep sobs, and the
warrior continued.
“Where are all our nation? Parceled out as
slaves, or covered in the grave. The grave, did I
say? That were too blessed a refuge. They cast
us out from thence. The ploughshare turneth up
the bones of our fathers for the dogs of white men.
They hunt down the Pequod like the wolf. How
long have I lurked among these hated dwellings that I
might thus look upon thee? Were it known that my
feet rested upon this earth, what, suppose ye, would
be my doom? The tender mercies of the honorable
court, the tomahawk of Uncas, or the friendship of
the Narragansetts? the torture, or the flame?”
Orramel bent on him her humid eyes, through
which the soul of tender pity looked forth.
“Lonely maiden! are we not the last of our race?
I have braved every peril to find and to save thee.
I seek to bear thee to the far west, where the eye of
the pale race dare not follow. I will build our cabin
where are many warriors, and thou shalt be their
queen. My voice shall control them, as the blast
the swelling waves. We will sweep down like the
mountain torrent, and destroy those accursed whites.
We will quench our thirst in their blood till not a
drop remains.”
“Ontologon, the desolation of my race, the destruction
when I lie down and when I rise up. Henceforth
there will be another burden there, the thought of
thy sorrows. Yet curse not the people who have
given me bread and a shelter, and taught me of Jesus
Christ and the hope of a heavenly home.”
“And so thou art at peace with the white man's
God!” exclaimed the chieftain, with an eye that
flashed through the darkness like kindled flame.
“They have spoken soft words to thee, till thou hast
forgotten the wrongs of thy people and thy mother's
blood. Art thou the daughter of the red man, and
content to crouch at the feet of his murderers? and
to take bread from hands stained with his blood, and
rusted with the chains that have eaten into his soul?
Wert thou not dearer to me than heaven's light, I
should have cleft thy brow when thou didst speak
of loving Him whom white men worship.”
“Ontologon, I have told thee truth. The God of
Christians is my God. I have sworn it at His altar.
I may not turn back from following Him. I have
said to thee that no music like thy voice hath met my
ear since I sat on my mother's knee. And I could
find it in my heart to dwell with thee in the deep forest,
as the dove dwelleth with her mate; but I can
not forsake the Savior, to whose keeping I have committed
my soul.”
The stately form of the chief was shaken with violent
and contending emotions, as the oak reels in the
storm.
“Meet me yet once more, Orramel, only once
more. For thy sake, I will endure to hide yet another
day amid the haunts of those I hate. When
again the sun sleeps, and the stars begin their watch,
come to me where the rivers mingle. My boat shall
be moored there. If thou wilt go with me, we will
seek a happier clime. If thou wilt not, thou shalt be
free to return, as the forest bird to her nest.”
He plunged into the thicket, and in a moment was
lost to her view. The meditations of that sleepless
night, and of the day that ensued, were trying and
tumultuous to the red-browed maiden. He who had
prepared her innocent childhood for the germ of love,
had suddenly come like the husbandman to claim the
fruits of the vineyard, when she supposed him buried
with her fellow-kindred. To her kind benefactors
she dared not resort for counsel, since a knowledge
of the proximity of her lover would endanger both
his liberty and life. Often during this period of agitation
was she on her knees in her solitary chamber,
imploring His aid who confirmeth the doubting heart
and “giveth discretion to the simple.”
Evening tardily spread her curtain over the spot
appointed for their meeting. It was at the junction
of the Connecticut with a considerable tributary.
The Dutch, who exhibit the same shrewdness in the
choice of sites favorable to commerce, which the
monks of England anciently discovered in selecting
warm and sheltered nooks for their convents and
cloisters, had originally erected here a fortress, or
Hope.” Though their occupancy was transient, the
locality still retains the designation of “Dutch Point,”
and was long distinguished by its gentle and graceful
undulations, and the velvet richness of its shaven lawn.
The rising moon, whose full disk silvered the tree
tops, revealed the slight form of the maiden resting
against the trunk of an elm, while the stately warrior,
seated at her feet, bowed his head on his hand
in melancholy thought.
“Orramel, I spake strong and stormy words to
thee when last we parted. My heat burned within
me, to see thee in the coil of the serpent. Thou art
as the moon to my midnight path. Without thee,
what would be my life but a rootless weed! I was
then maddened with the fear of losing thee. But
now I read other language in thy gentle eyes. I
know that thou wilt go with me. I will make thine
home in the heart of the green forest, where the
thrush and the wood-robin sing; and thou shalt be
more to me than the song of birds, or the spring to
the ice-bound stream.”
The maiden replied not. There was in the tones
of his deep and tender voice something, that, even
when it ceased, made her heart a listener.
“Our race have vanished away,” he added, mournfully,
“like the dew when the sun ariseth. From
these waters, and from the shores of the broad sea
where our kings held dominion, our power hath departed.
Our council fires are quenched. Upon the
dares not set his feet. As for me, who of all
my kindred are left? Is there one to take Ontologon
by the hand, and call him brother? When he is
sick, has he a mother or a sister to spread the blanket
over him? When he dies, who shall bury him
with his fathers? There is none left to remember
him, or to shed the tear over his grave.”
“Ontologon, I can not bear to hear thee say that
our whole race have perished. My heart is sad at
the thought that thou hast neither brother, nor sister,
nor mother. I will go with thee, that thou mayest no
more lament in loneliness, or be sick, and find no
comforter. For thee I will forsake those who have
been to me as parents. But thou wilt not refuse
that I should remember their God and my God, that
I should speak to Him when the light fadeth and
when the morning ariseth in the east, and that I
should keep His Sabbaths in my soul.”
“Orramel, I may not deceive thee. The white
man would promise thee, with the oath on his lips,
whatsoever thou desiredst. When thou wert in his
power, his vows would be lighter than the summer
wind. He would mock thee, that thou hadst
trusted them. The red man dares not thus to sin.
He knows that the Great Spirit hath an ear which
the lightest breath of falsehood reaches. I will not
consent that thou shouldst love the Christian's God.
I could not rest if the plague-spot of our foes was
upon thy bosom.”
“Ontologon, is not my request small? Doth the
water-lily offend the flower of the sun when it bendeth
beneath the waters? Doth the stream dishonor
its fountain when it findeth rest in the sea? Would
it wrong thee that my hope was in Him who made
heaven and earth? that my prayer went up for thee
while thou didst bend thy bow in the forest?”
“Maiden of the dark and tender eye, the path in
which we walk upon earth is short. Hoary-headed
men say it is to them as a dream. When thou diest,
could I see thee go to the white man's heaven?
Could I go there with thee? Could I remain in that
heaven if his soul dwelt there? No, no! Our home
after death must be the same. Could I bear to miss
thee forever in those fields of light, where our fathers
dwell, above the roll of the thunder? Orramel,
it shall not be so. I will lead thy footsteps
back to the Great Spirit. He will forgive that thou
hast wandered. He knoweth that the heart of woman
is weak. When thy hand is in mine, thou shalt
fall no more.”
“Ontologon, thou art more noble than the kings
from whom thou art descended. Thou hast not hidden
the truth from me. Now could I lay down my
life for thy sake. But I dare not lay down my faith.
While I live, the Book of God must be my guide;
when I die, may my soul go unto the Redeemer.”
“Is it, then, for this,” said the warrior, “that I
have borne long years of darkness, whose only light
was thy childish smile, which memory held forth to
grew hateful, and I was about to cast it away, I
walked onward with a strong step and a lifted brow
at the sound, `Orramel liveth?' Is it for this that
I have bowed my pride to grovel as a snake in the
thicket, that I might again breathe the same air that
thou didst breathe, and once more look upon thee?
All troubles were forgotten when the sound of thy
voice fell upon my ear. At the words, `I will go
with thee,' a new existence entered into my soul.
And now, have I found this treasure only to lay it
down? Have we met but to part forever? Must I
walk alone under the cloud of midnight, till I sink in
the grave, the last of all my race?”
“Let me be to thee, Ontologon, the light which
thou hast sought. When thou art weary and sad,
let me teach thee how to smile. We will walk together
till that dark angel divide us who cometh but
once to all. Yet let me speak to thee of my story.
Long after my abode was with white men, I was
sorrowful and without hope. He who saved me
from destruction was as a father, and his wife as a
mother, and their children spake kind words to me.
But I found no comfort. Every night my pillow
was as a fountain of tears. Thus it was, till their
sweet religion entered into my soul. It set the seal
of peace on my eyes when I lay down to slumber,
and when I awoke it talked with me. All day long,
it put meek and happy thoughts into my heart, and
it promised to pluck for me the sting from death, and
of its holiest rite, and bound my soul by an everlasting
covenant, and took that holy Book to my heart
which teaches of its precepts. Gladly would I read
to thee from those blessed pages of a clime without
sorrow or injustice, where none shall be forced from
his inheritance, and where all the righteous shine
forth as the `Sun in the kingdom of their Father.'
Yet, if it troubleth thee, I will not speak of my faith.
I will shut it close in my soul. Thou shalt see it
only by the smile that beams from it, and the courage
it giveth at the gate of death.”
The lofty chieftain threw himself upon the earth.
Groans burst from his laboring bosom, and his whole
form was convulsed. Let none believe that he has
seen anguish till he witnesses the agony of the strong,
proud man. He may have beheld the lightning and
the tempest, but not the earthquake rending the rock
in pieces.
At length the strife of passion yielded. He rose,
in heightened majesty. His voice was firm and awful,
as he extended his hand toward the maiden.
“If thou wilt be mine, wholly and forever, put thy
hand into my hand, and not even death shall part us.
But if thou choosest the faith of the murderers of thy
people, and to dwell in their heaven rather than in
the heaven of our fathers, say so, and let me see thy
face no more.”
The answer was distinct, though the heart's tears
gushed with it, “I may not renounce my Redeemer.”
With a rush that seemed superhuman, the chieftain
threw himself from the high bank into his boat.
A few strokes of the oar, as from a giant's arm,
drove it from the deep shadow where it lay, out upon
the broad, bright waters. Then it seemed to drift
onward at its will. In that despairing reaction
which succeeds passionate excitement, he lay prostrate
with a powerless arm, submitting to the guidance
of the tide, and reckless of life or death.
Orramel stood upon the point of the promontory
where the rivers mingle. She watched the boat of
her lover, until the sinuous and projecting shore shut
it from her view. But he raised not his head, nor
waved his hand. He gave no farewell signal to soften
that bitter parting. She listened for some echo
of his voice. Nothing was heard save the rush of
the waters, and the sigh of the gale through the
boughs of the drooping willows.
A strong burst of feeling swept over her. She
returned to the place where they had parted. She
seated herself on the earth where he had sat. She
strove to recall every word that he had spoken. She
wove every tone into the tissues of memory. It was
late ere she roused herself from her grief, and recovered
strength to retrace her homeward way.
She still continued faithful in all her duties, full
of gratitude to her benefactors, and humble as the
weaned child. It was evident to a close observer
that some sorrow had passed over her, but a sorrow
in which remorse had no part. A pure conscience so
that the world can not give made her brow its tablet.
Thus she lived till youth faded, respected by the
race among whom she had found refuge. Yet the
soul of her lover was ever upon her prayers, and
when the last pale messenger came to summon her,
and her eye brightened at the welcome of that Savior
in whom she had believed, the ear that approached
nearest to her dying lips perceived that their faint,
parting whisper was “mercy for Ontologon.”
In reviewing the circumstances which have given
to this sketch a subject and a name, we are struck
with the prominence and discordance of some of the
features in the character of our ancestors: the boldness
with which, in the very birth of their colonial
existence, they hazarded this formidable enterprise,
the cruelty with which it was consummated, and the
piety to which they turned for a sanction, even when
deed and motive seemed at variance. The unresting
vigilance with which they blotted out the very name
of Pequod, partitioning the last remnant of that race
in vassalage between the Mohegans, the Narragansetts,
and themselves, was not less arbitrary than the
dismemberment of Poland, and savored more of the
policy of heathen Rome than of Christ.
Mason, in common with the historians of that age,
bitterly blamed the Indians for stratagem in war,
but chose to adopt the creed that he had denounced,
and to prove himself an adept in the theory that he
condemned.
Still, we would contemplate with filial respect the
memory of our ancestors. We venerate their lofty
virtues, and view their errors with regret. Many
of their most prominent faults sprang from the peculiarity
of their position. The light that visits our
advancing age had not beamed on them. Luminous
minds had not then arisen to present the war spirit
in its true aspect, or to strip it of that false glory
with which antiquity had invested it. No divine
had then eloquently pointed out that “universal ballet
by which mankind might cast from its seat of
power the bloody idol of a long-infatuated world.”
The consciousness that they were the sole guardians
of the “vine planted in the wilderness,” and the
dread of its extermination, forced them into conflict,
which in this instance was most stern and sanguinary,
kindling the flame over the heads of slumbering households,
and smiting the infant in its mother's arms.
The young student of American history, in recording
the date of May 20th, 1637, will remember it as
the era when a once-powerful aboriginal tribe ceased
to exist. It perished without a hand to write its
epitaph: an emblem of the fate of that vanishing
race to whom the brotherhood of the white man
hath hitherto been as the kiss of Judas.
| FALL OF THE PEQUOD. Myrtis | |