University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

The battle was renewed. The enemy poured down the
narrow ravine into the broader valley, led by Brandt, who
called aloud upon White Eagle to come forward and decide
the contest by single combat.

And when the Senecas, Mohawks, and Tories returned
to the cliff in such overwhelming numbers that Charles was
forced to retire over the stream under cover of the intertwining
thicket, the old hag, Queen Esther, stood upon
the desolate apex of the knoll at the summit, waving to
and fro a staff she termed her sceptre, and mumbling one of
her incantations which had great influence over the superstitious
minds of the savages. She had a book, in which
were kept the names of her victims. The number was
then two hundred and ninety-eight, and she declared the
White Eagle and his father would make an even three
hundred.

It was when Charles was retiring before the impetuous
charge of Brandt, that Julia, seized with inexpressible terror,
swooned in the arms of Kate. She was borne to the
couch where she had slept during the night; but restoratives
administered by the old man soon revived her.

“I am not ill,” said she, smiling faintly, though still as
pallid as ever. “It was a picture of the imagination, perhaps,

which flitted athwart my vision. I thought I beheld
the bleeding form of Charles borne in the arms of Brandt,
who seemed to mourn rather than exult over his fall! Oh,
it was terrible! And why should such a scene rise before
me in the light of day and in my waking hours? It may
be a premonition of the reality! Oh, go, and assist him!
He is borne down by superior numbers! Go, Paddy, and
fight bravely, for my sake!”

“I will!” said Paddy, bustling about. “Be me sowl,
I'll kill ivery divil of 'em that comes within me range.
Give me all the pisthols! Paddy'll show 'em fates of
valour this blissed day!” And, saying this, he withdrew,
but did not join the combatants.

Brandt led the way over the stream, being some twenty
paces in advance of his party; and, although several of
them fell, victims of the deadly aim of the concealed remnant
of patriots, the great chief himself sustained no injury.
And Charles, although exposed more than any of
his party, likewise remained untouched. Brandt had ordered
his men to spare him, not that his life might be
saved, but that he might be reserved for his own hand.

And soon they met face to face in a small opening in the
forest. Brandt was pursuing his intended victim, who,
perceiving it, had purposely separated himself from his
party.

“Three times have I spared my brother's life,” said
Charles, lowering his rifle, and stepping boldly out from
behind a holly-tree.

“And you did so because you had already shed enough
of the blood of Thayendanegea!” was Brandt's reply, as
he paused abruptly, frowning fiercely, his tomahawk brandished
in his right hand.

“No, my brother, it was not so. It was because I desired
to convince you that never a drop of my poor sister's
blood was shed by me.”

“And can you do so? Does the White Eagle say he did
not shed the blood of the Brown Thrush?”

“Listen, Thayendanegea. We were boys together. We
bathed in the same streams by sunlight and by moonlight,
or when naught but the feeble rays of the distant
stars twinkled upon us through the broad leaves of the
sycamore. Then we clung to each other in confidence, and

the Kacha Manito smiled upon our affection. I have not
changed.”

“Not changed! We bathed in the limpid Wyalusing,
beside the wigwam of my people. The smoke of the council-fire
ascended the blue sky. The tassels of the corn bent
under the weight of the bees, whose hum filled all the air
with music. All was peace and happiness. Not changed!
Who has made the home of my people desolate? The
corn is trodden under foot, the wigwam is in ashes, and the
Wyalusing encrimsoned with blood! And who wrought
this destruction? Why, the army of Sullivan, sent thither
by the great village-burner, Washington, whom you serve!
Not changed!”

“My brother cannot have forgotten who were the first
aggressors. But I speak not of war. I say my heart has
not changed!”

“But you have not said you did not slay my sister,—she
who loved you and sang by your couch when you slept.”

“I do say it.”

“White Eagle once was incapable of lying. If he had
not changed, I could not avoid believing him. But the
white man has the ingenuity to prove the guilty innocent
and the innocent guilty,—to make solemn oaths to dire
falsehoods, the word meaning one thing, the act another.
False! false! Not changed!”

“No; not changed. I make no solemn oath. I merely
tell thee that I am innocent of thy sister's blood. If I lie,
strike me dead, and send me with the falsehood on my
tongue before the Great Spirit who judges all things.
Strike! There is my rifle on the ground. Thy brother
will make no resistance, nor shrink from the blow!”

“Oh, my brother!” exclaimed Thayendanegea, dashing
his tomahawk to the earth, “I see the truth in thy tears.
Let us clasp hands. Though separated, we shall be brothers
still. They made me believe thee guilty. And who
lied to me? Esther! she, more cruel than the Senecas,
and a pale-face! Oh, my brother, she hath written thy
name in her roll of victims! I may not save you. But this
hand shall be guiltless of my brother's blood, and I will do
all in my power to shield you.”

“And, Thayendanegea,” said Charles, “I here declare
that, if I survive, my voice shall be heard in behalf of my

forest brothers and sisters. Go back to your people, my
brother,—to the nations which acknowledge you as their
king,—and tell them they have been deceived. America
will be free. To Washington they must look for protection.
The British armies will be beaten, and who then will be
their friends?”

“Friends? And who are the friends of the Indians?—
those who pay them for the scalps of the enemy, or those
who take the land which the Great Spirit bestowed upon
them?”

“You will be paid for the land.”

“Paid? And when we must sell our inheritance against
our will, who is it that shall name the price? Alas! it must
be so. I see it. The Indian is doomed. But, in the land
of spirits, in the great hunting-grounds beyond the grave,
he will be at peace. Then those who despoiled him of his
fair country will rend each other. The lords of the forest
must give way to the corrupt hordes of civilized criminals.
They vanish like shadows into the land of spirits, to be
at peace forever. But behold their successors, religious,
virtuous, with written laws. See their destiny prefigured
in the more than savage cruelty of Esther, the white woman.
Yes, they will slay one another,—their religion a
source of incessant hatred and contention, their virtues
mocked at by scaffolds and prisons, and the law but the
sword of the majority wrought for the destruction of the
rest. Farewell, my brother. I will return to the last
abiding-place of the deer and the wolf.”

“Hark! what sound was that?” exclaimed Charles,
turning his face toward the cliff, whose summit alone he
could see from his position, and where he beheld the frantic
gesticulations of the old fury—who likewise heard the
sound—summoning the Senecas around her.

“It is the drum and fife of the white man,” said Brandt.
“They are coming to drive back the poor Indian from the
last of his beautiful valleys. They will hurl us hence as
the storm-wind rolls the foaming serf on the burning sands;
but they cannot restore the dead to life. And it was necessary
to appease the Malcha Manito by offering a certain
number of victims. But enough has been done. I see a
white flag approaching, and I will assemble my followers
around me.”

He then uttered the rallying-halloo, and commanded a
cessation of hostilities; and, that his brother might not be
mistaken for a doomed prisoner, he laid his arm on his
shoulder, and they advanced together to the sparkling
stream, where friend and foe were soon mingling in conscious
security, and Charles was hailed with joy by the inmates
of the excavated rock.

A company of Wayne's men had arrived from the glorious
field of Monmouth. The British had retired beaten
from the bloody plains of New Jersey, and detachments
were sent from the American army to repel the aggressions
of the Tories and Indians on the borders.

The first one recognised by Charles was the Rev. David
Jones, at whose solicitation the company from Wayne's
brigade had been marched in that direction. He was welcomed,
likewise, by Julia, whose voice he heard and knew,
although he could scarcely see her through the clustering
foliage; and the aged exile would not permit the girls to
join their friends below until the last of his treacherous
foes led by Moody should depart.

“What have you to propose?” demanded Brandt, still
encircling the neck of Charles with his arm, as if he feared
the doomed victim of Esther might fall in his presence.
“What do you demand of us?” he continued, addressing
the captain of the company of Continentals. “You are
about fifty in number. We can count ninety.”

“Including the Tories,” observed the officer.

“No matter who is included, so they are well armed
and ready for action. I am Brandt, of whom you may
have heard much, and probably much that is untrue. But
he is your enemy. Yet he did not come hither to wage
war, but to slay the supposed murderer of his sister. He
was innocent. He is still my brother. For the last time
my arm is round the neck of my brother, and we shall
soon part to meet no more. I will return to that remnant
of the broad country which was once all our own. Shall
I go in peace, or must I fight my way thither?”

“Go in peace. We shall not be the first to break it,”
said the officer.

Brandt then spoke in a loud voice to Esther and Moody,
who were on the summit of the cliff, surrounded by their
followers. He told them that his brother was innocent of

his sister's blood, and that the one who injured him would
be the foe of Thayendanegea. And he said he had agreed
to a suspension of hostilities on the eastern side of the
Delaware. Then, by the authority vested in him as Grand
Sachem of the Six Nations, he commanded the Indians to
return to the Delaware.

“And now, my brother,” said he, embracing Charles,
“we are reconciled, but we part. Let us never be foes
again. Believe not the extravagant stories told of the
Mohawk chief, and no one shall slander the White Eagle.
Farewell!”

And then, averting his face, Brandt strode away toward
the dense forest. But he had only proceeded a few steps
when the report of a rifle rang in his ear. His first glance
was toward the crest of the cliff, where the small cloud of
smoke still lingered. His next was at Charles, who staggered
forward, and would have fallen, if the great chief
had not caught him in his arms.

A prolonged, thrilling shriek was heard at the cliff.
Then the heavy door was swung back upon the blackened
fireplace of the consumed hut, and Julia sprang forth and
glided frantically toward her beloved. Neither rocks nor
streams nor armed men impeded her course. Her white
robe streaming in the air, her hair hanging down dishevelled,
she rushed forward and threw her arms around her wounded
lover's neck. Brandt relinquished his burden, and, hastily
uttering a few words to the astounded officer, leaped across
the stream like an enraged tiger after his prey. Before a
gun was raised by the astonished soldiers, the great chief
was seen again upon the dizzy height, with his hand grasping
the throat of the murderer.

“He confesses the deed!” cried Brandt. “And he it
was who killed my sister. Behold the vengeance of Thayendanegea!”

He plunged his knife into the breast of the guilty savage,
who sank down at his feet without a struggle. And before
the eyes of the spectators could be turned again in the
direction of the fallen youth, the gigantic chief dragged the
murderer forward and hurled him over the precipice!

“Cold! cold!” said Julia, sitting on the ground, with
the head of the speechless and dying Charles resting
against her bosom. “Cold! cold!” she continued, kissing

his lips, “and very, very pale!” But the youth was no
paler than herself as she gazed with unmoistened eyes upon
his face. “No! no!” said she, when the white-headed father
of Charles came forward, weeping bitterly, and would
have snatched him from her arms. “He's mine!” said she.
“You shall not tear him away! But the damp earth must
receive him! I will bury him, and I will remain bending
over his grave, like the willow. But I do not weep. I
cannot weep. Why is it so, Kate?” she continued, seeing
the tears of her companion. “You know I loved him,
Kate. Then why do not the tears gush forth? Mr. Jones,
cannot you tell me? Oh, you need not feel his pulse, my
friend. He smiled sweetly—it was for me alone, and I
understood it—and then like the sighing zephyr his spirit
passed away. And, Kate, he died in my arms. And I
do not weep. If I cannot shed tears, I will sing—sing the
rest of my days. Singing is better than weeping. And
yet every one around is shedding tears! Am I not a
very strange girl, Kate? Do not despise me; I cannot
help it.”

“Skippie,” cried the poor old man to his faithful servant,
sobbing at his side, “we will go to France. Make
all the arrangements. And when I, too, am dead, take
my body to Scotland. Then come hither, and convey
thence to the same grave the bones of my son.”

“No! They are mine!” cried Julia. “Although I do
not weep like the rest, we were plighted lovers. I was his
and he was mine—mine forever. We were one. Before
God and man our hearts were joined together. No throb
in his but vibrated in mine. He weeps not now, and I do
not weep. He is dead, and I, too, am dead to the world.
But I will love you still, Kate. And you will help me to
plant flowers over his grave. I cannot dew them with my
tears; but my Maker will send refreshing showers, will he
not, Mr. Jones?”

“Come, my poor child!” said the sighing Baptist,
gently removing her from the body. “This is no place
for you. Come with me to the house of your guardian.”

“Will they bear him thither?” asked Julia, in a low
whisper, clinging to the preacher's arm.

“Yes, if you desire it.”

“Desire it?” said she, her brilliant orbs fixed upon the

soldiers and others surrounding the body. “I COMMAND
it!” she cried, in a loud voice. “There is a willow,” she
added, “with a million drooping boughs, near the council-tree
beside the brook, where our vows were plighted. There
they shall bury him. Come, Kate; they will follow us.
You must not leave me to-day. I know your father has
sent for you, and for me too, but we will linger a while,
won't we? What would he think of me if I appeared before
him with no tear in my eye? But, Kate,” she continued,
in a sweet, sad voice, as her arm encircled the waist
of her sobbing companion, “my heart is broken. There
is a cold spot upon it. It can never be warm again. Pity
me, Kate. I am very miserable. And see his poor father—
an exile in a strange land, bending over his murdered son!
It was the work of the cruel Esther. O God! vengeance
belongs to thee! I would not crush the smallest
worm in my path. Enough of that! I alone am talking,
while the rest do nothing but weep; and I feel as one
standing on some dreary rock between the living and the
dead; and death has no terrors, for he smiled in death.
Come! But Solo remains. See!” she continued, glancing
back, “my poor Solo lies beside the body. Stay there,
Solo, and see that they bring him to thy mistress.”

Pale and tearless, the poor maiden was led away. The
body was soon after borne along the same path, and the
next day it was placed under the willow. But Julia never
wept. She only chanted the incoherent ballad which her
disordered mind seemed to be ever composing.

Lochiel, bowed with grief and the weight of years, departed
soon after in one of the French ships, and died in
Paris.

After lingering a few days over the grave of the murdered
youth, Julia and Kate were conducted, by the Rev.
Mr. Jones, to the residence of Governor Livingston, near
which were again established the head-quarters of Washington.