University of Virginia Library

49. CHAPTER XLIX.
ISWATTEE.

The cassique, meanwhile, having alighted from the carriage,
approached the Indian boy, where he stood busy with the fawn,
whispering in her ear, and practising those arts of the woodman
by which he subdues the wild animal to tameness. And, as he
drew nigh, the cassique became suddenly conscious of a great
change which had taken place in the appearance of the youth.
He perceived that he was grown thin, even to meagerness; that
his eyes, though very bright, as ever, seemed to shine forth out of
hollows; and that his cheeks were greatly sunken. Now, this
change had been growing for some time; but the cassique had
been too much busied with his own cares to note those of his forester.
He had been content to believe that the boy had been
well kept and tendered, and that he performed skilfully his sylvan
duties; so that he held it sure that all went well with him. In
sooth, if he thought of him, at any time, it was only to wonder at
the marvellous skill which he displayed in taking, snaring, or
slaughtering, his game. Never once, while he was with the cassique,
was the venison wanting to his employer's table; and sometimes
he brought home great fat turkeys, and ducks of such size
and flavor as might not be equalled in all Europe. He wist not,
indeed, that the young man occasionally got help from his brethren;
for his sire, old Cussoboe, ever and anon, through some runners
of his people, helped him to a buck, or a great turkey, and
to ducks which he had himself shot with his arrows, along the

great bays and estuaries which lie, in this country, everywhere
close beside the sea.

But, now that the eyes of the cassique were suddenly drawn
upon the boy, and he saw truly his condition — how meagre he
was of frame, how sunken of eye and cheek, and what a deep sorrow
seemed to rest upon his visage — he began to fear lest he
had suffered some despite at the hands of his people. So he said
to him:—

“Iswattee, my lad, what ails you? You look not well. Are
you sick? Is there hurt or grievance which I may redress?
Tell me, my good boy; and remember, I must be to you a father,
in the absence of your own.”

So he laid hands upon the boy, and gazed kindlily into his
face; and the tones of his voice were sweet and soothing, even as
his words were kind. But the boy cast his eyes down to the
earth, and did not answer him; only the cassique noted, as if a
little shuddering had suddenly gone through his body. And the
boy stooped to the fawn, and busied himself with the silver collar,
and the bell, which Grace Masterton had put about her neck.
Then the cassique could well conceive that something had gone
wrong with him; and he more earnestly, but with even more tenderness
than before, exhorted him to say wherein he ailed. To
this the boy replied abruptly, in the manner of his people, but not,
as we should deem, with any purpose to be rude.

“What should ail Iswattee? Iswattee says not, `Iswattee is
hurt — Iswattee is sick!'”

Then he stooped and whispered something in the ear of the
little fawn, and at the same moment he pulled her by the forefoot;
whereupon — even as he had devised by the action — the little
beast sprang away from him, and coursed with all its speed over
the meadows. Then the boy as suddenly sprang away after her,
leaving the cassique unanswered and alone.

And the cassique mused upon the strangeness of the proceeding;
for well he surmised that the boy had so trained the doe to
flight, by a trick of whisper, even as the Arab trains his horse.
And he said to himself, musingly:—

“It belongs to the race! There is a nature which the great God
of the universe designs for each several place and people. The wild
for the wild; else would it never be made tame! But when, in

the great forests, the wild beasts shall all be subdued or slaughtered,
will the wild man rise to higher uses? Hath his humanity
a free susceptibility for enlargement and other provinces? Shall
he feel the growth, in his breast and brain, of higher purposes?
Will his thought grow, and provide for newer wants of his soul?
If it may not be thus, then must he perish, even as the forests
perish; he will not survive the one use for which all his instincts
and passions seem to be made! It is, perhaps, his destiny! He
hath a pioneer mission, to prepare the wild for the superior race;
and, this duty done, he departs: and, even as one growth of the
forest, when hewn down, makes way for quite another growth of
trees, so will he give place to another people. Verily, the mysteries
of Providence are passing wonderful!”

And, so musing, our cassique took his way to the openings of
the barony, where his workmen were all busy in laying off the
grounds — making great avenues, and converting the wild forests
into goodly woods. Meanwhile, the Indian boy had sped
from sight, wild as the deer himself, seemingly in pursuit of the
fawn. But her he soon whistled to him, so soon as he had sped
out of call of the cassique; and he carried her back to the barony
in safety; and housed her in the neat little house which had been
made for her; and, having brought her green food, he closed the
door upon her, and departed — stealing away from sight so that
no one knew how he went — and he hid himself in the deep thickets
where stood the hollow tree which kept the war-arrows from
which “he broke the successive days” daily.

From the hollow he drew forth the sheaf, the arrows of which
had become but few. He counted them, one by one, with a sad
eye and slow hand; withdrew one of them and broke it, and again
he counted them. He had not done this before. He had scarcely
need to do so now; for the arrows were now so few, that he might
easily see, at a glance, that his own term of service was about to
close, and that the first fearful trial of his young life was approaching
fast. Not two weeks remained to him ere that event. And
that event! It was the thought — the dread of its coming — which
had made him thin and wo-begone of aspect; had withered, as it
would seem, his young life; had taken the lightness away from
his heart, and placed there, instead of it, a leaden sorrow. And,
by the sorrows which he shall show us to-night, shall we learn

what were those which have been robbing him of the healthy
vigor of his limbs, and the cheery brightness of his eye!

It has been shown us that he has been consecrated by his sire
to a great purpose of his tribe. For this hath he been assigned
to a menial service in the dwelling of one whom his people secretly
regarded as a public enemy. He is fully conscious of the
duty before him. It contemplates a national revenge. It involves
treachery, havoc, and murder; and he is put in a position
to minister to the terrible object by his keen subtlety and cunning
stratagem.

But his nature revolts at the work before him. He is somewhat
differently constituted from his people. Though the son of
a prince — himself a prince, reared and trained with reference to
this very performance — his soul, of less masculine nature than
that of his people, shrinks as he contemplates the results of his
action. He does not fear death or strife. But his moods are
naturally gentle; his fancies are lively; his susceptibilities large;
his imagination lofty: he would better make the orator or the
poet of his people, than their sanguinary warrior! The red men
make their mistakes, even as the whites, in willing a pursuit for
their sons which is inconsistent with natural endowment. Set
aside, suffered to go free, and work out the problem for himself,
independently of convention, and Iswattee — “the tree put to grow”
— might become something of a philosopher — something higher,
perhaps — a seer, a poet, gifted with prophetic foresight! Arbitrarily
decreed to be a warrior, and to steep his hands in blood,
as a sort of baptism of his opening manhood, he shudders at the
destiny before him; which, as yet, he sees not how to escape.

His ordeal, which we have already described, has shown us
that the spiritual influences which have wrought upon his imagination
were not in accordance with the will of his father. The
images which wooed him in his dreams were not savage, but gentle
and loving. Instead of the raging tiger, the stealthy panther,
the stealing and subtle serpent, the thundering cayman, either of
which would have gratified his sire, there came to him a white
bird, which sweetly stooped to his ear, and whispered him with
love! And anon, when he was first brought to the white cassique,
whom he was to requite with treachery, he beheld a fair
white girl, whom his lips unwittingly called “An-ne-gar!”— whom

his instincts taught him was the very creature which had been
imaged to his dreaming senses as the bird whose totem he should
bear!

And, strange to say, this damsel of the pale-races attached herself
only to him! Poor Grace! she had no alternative. She
had no playmates, no companions of her own age; her mother
scarcely noticed her; and her elder sister, dying by sad degrees,
hardly conscious half the time, had no thought of Grace, unless
when she stood actually beside her!

And so Grace and the Indian boy went together in the forests,
until she grew almost as wild as he; and he brought her the
young fawn; and he taught her his sylvan arts — how to snare
the game and trap the bird; and, in return, she sang for him, and
gave him the only lessons which he had, by which to articulate in
the speech of the foreign people.

And daily, if he grew not wiser in this strange speech, his heart
grew softer, his moods more gentle; and then he began to feel,
more and more, how terrible was the duty which had been set
him by his sire! And nightly as he came, as now, to do his task
— to break the arrow, and mark the day which was spent; as he
came to see how rapidly approaching was the period when he
should be required to open the doors of the dwelling to the midnight
murderer — to steep his own knife and hatchet in the blood
of the people who belonged to An-ne-gar, his white bird: nay,
when the terrible picture rose before his imagination, of that fair
creature herself reft of those beautiful tresses; her white skin dabbled
in blood; her bright, laughing eyes quenched in death —
then the wretched boy threw himself, in his agony, down upon
the brown heather; and, though he broke the arrow, he wailed
and bemoaned the destiny to which Indian boy had never before
proved himself untrue!

That there should be one, unknown, who should supply, for a
time, the broken arrows, and thus compel him to mistake the appointed
time, he, of course, knew not; but these substituted arrows
covered but a week of time: and now, as he looked upon the
sheaf, he groaned in despair; for he discovered that, by his count,
but thirteen arrows remained of all the sheaf which his sire had
given him — but thirteen days of respite — and then the wild cry
at midnight; the whoop of death; the sharp arrow; the griding

knife; the cleaving hatchet; the wholesale massacre of those
whose bread he ate, whose care he felt, whose love he desired
most; the murder of the very bird of whiteness and ineffable
beauty, which the Great Spirit had commissioned him to take to
his heart as its tutelary genius!

But thirteen nights, and then all these crowding horrors! How
much more terrible would have been his anguish, had he dreamed
that even this respite was not allowed him — that he had not half
this time; that his strategy had been baffled by superior cunning;
that half of the arrows remaining in his serpent-quiver were false
substitutes for others which he had already broken!

But, even with his imperfect knowledge, his misery could
scarcely have suffered increase. Having broken the one arrow,
and restored the sheaf to the hollow tree, he cast himself down
upon the earth, face prone in the dust, and moaned audibly. He
could moan — the red man can weep, moan, and laugh, like the
men of another race, if he be alone. But his self-esteem, which
is always nursed by solitude, will never suffer a witness of his
tears; hardly of his laughter. He is not adamant, though he
hides from the sight of the white man — whom his instincts describe
to him as a mocking superior — his passionate emotions,
his agonies, his fears and tears.

And hot and scalding were the tears which gushed from the
young eyes of Iswattee, and deep and sad enough were the great
sobs that shook his bosom and burst from his parted lips — as,
throwing himself upon the earth, with face buried in the dust, he
prayed to the Great Spirit, the Almighty and Eternal Father,
whom he so ignorantly knew, to find him some way of escape from
the task set him — from the sire of his people! — prayed him to
open a path, at least, by which to save the little White Bird and
her people! And, might we now translate the language of his
prayer, it would be seen that nothing more fervent and full of
earnest passion ever flowed from the lips of Christian priest or
sinner!

But he did not limit himself to prayer. The poor savage, with
heart thus growing white, had still a perfect faith in the superstitions
of his own people. His faith required penance, an ordeal,
as well as prayer; and, with the hope to receive a saving and
teaching inspiration, he imposed upon himself a renewal of that

exhausting novitiate from which he had only just emerged, when
first brought to our knowledge. He had gathered a supply of the
bitter roots of the forest, emetic and narcotic, which the Indian
pharmacy had already taught him how to prepare; and there, nightly,
in the secrecy of the thicket, he built his fires, and in his little
pots of clay he boiled his nauseous decoctions. Nightly did he
drink of the liquors, black and crimson alternately, purging his
blood and stimulating his brain; and swallowing daily only such
small portions of the simplest food as should sustain life. Then,
retiring into still deeper thickets, he threw himself down in the
solitude and darkness, to sleep, and dream, and win from Heaven
the much-desired inspiration. Let us not mock at the simple
superstition, in consideration of his simpler and much-confiding
faith. Alas, for the poor boy! his visions now brought him only
to a bewildering confusion of the senses. The images that visited
his dreaming fancies were mingled wildly, and taught him nothing.
Ever the white bird was present, conspicuous over all, but
it was amid the storm of a conflict, in which his sire and the bird
and himself strove at once together. There were raging wolves;
there were lurking serpents; the great black bear sometimes
would trample on his bosom, and the stealthy panther scream beside
his ear; but the white bird would come, even then, between
him and his fate, and in the flutter of her perfect plumage his
aching spirit would be lulled to sleep. But, from all his visions
he won no counsel; and the morning found him, at every dawning,
as doubtful of his future, as unsteady of his purpose, as when
he had surrendered himself to sleep the night before. No wonder
the cassique was confounded at the wo-stricken aspect of the boy!

Alas! fearful as was the trial before him, he was not the only
sufferer under the bloody sweat of the spirit, struggling with the
fleshly destiny. The cassique must go through a like ordeal, though
under the guidance of a superior nature. He, too, must appeal to
the Great Spirit, and through secret prayer, and in the patient endurance
of a wo that knows no remedy — that can not save — that
feels how certain is the doom that crushes the beloved one out of
life, and denies that any arm shall save! He knows that Olive,
his wife, is doomed. He deceives himself in nothing. He knows
that, without knowledge or evil purpose, he himself hath doomed
her; his very love, which would have saved and nourished, and

crowned her, as his queen of love, of beauty, of song, and of truth
and purity, hath been the bane of her life, and the blast which
hath mildewed her beauty. He hath built, and hoped, and prayed,
and loved, in vain; and not merely in vain, but mischievously.
And now he feels no more the heart to build, or the hope to save,
or the taste for the beautiful. His occupation is at an end. The
very being for whose blessing he had decreed that the wilderness
should blossom as the rose, can see no more, can feel no more, of
the charm that dwelleth in sky, or wood, or tree, or flower. The
blossoms have perished from her cheeks, and a premature autumn
is blowing its blight across her heart.

Yet, though he sees and feels all this, and though his own heart
is full of its own agonies, he must come before her with a brow
serene, if sad. She sits in a cushioned chair in her chamber
when he comes, clad in white, her hands clasped upon her lap,
her face wan as the moon upon a wintry night, yet her eyes shining
with a supernatural brightness. Her lips are bloodless —
whiter than her cheeks. Her long hair falls upon her shoulders,
escaping from beneath the white cap, and rests altogether lifeless,
that was once all glow and sparkling beauty. And thus she sits
for hours, until, in her exhaustion, she will say, “Mother;” and
when the miserable mother comes to her, she will only point to
the couch, and whisper, “Sleep — sleep! I must sleep, mother.”

But now, as the cassique returns, he conducts Zulieme to his
wife's chamber, and finds her sitting up as we have described.
He has met her mother in the hall, who has much wondered to
see him bring the stranger, and one so beautiful and young. He
is brief in his introduction of Zulieme; and the mother is suddenly
haughty.

“I see not,” she said, in a half whisper, “how we are to entertain
a stranger now.”

“You are not required to overcome this difficulty, Mrs. Masterton.
I beg you not to attempt it. I will instruct Mrs. Pond —
my housekeeper — as to what is to be done. I have considered
the whole matter.”

“But you will not trouble Olive, in her present state, with this
woman's presence,” she replied, in still subdued tones, seeing that
the cassique was actually about to do this very thing.

“It will hardly trouble her; it may soothe. This lady is a

married woman, though very young, and she will be my guest for
awhile; and, while my guest, it is fitting that she should see my
wife. I can not think that it will hurt Olive; it must rather interest
her. She may arouse and divert her thoughts.”

The Honorable Mrs. Masterton lifted her eyebrows, and her
hands slightly, as the cassique turned away from her to Zulieme;
and finally left the hall hurriedly, and proceeded with all haste to
Olive's chamber. Here she had no sooner entered, but the malicious
fool-woman exclaimed —

“What do you think? — he has gone and brought home a
strange woman — a strange woman — and a young one, too — and
you, my poor Olive, so feeble — so—”

“Oh, I pray you, hush, mother!” was the plaintive appeal of
Olive; which might not have availed to stop the beldame's tongue,
but that the cassique was so quick in following her footsteps. He
gave her but a look as he entered, and Olive saw that look, if
nothing else. The mother left the room. The cassique approached
his wife tenderly, and with a strange, sad humility of
deportment, as if he felt a fear. The look of authority, which had
awed the mother, was changed to one of the meekest and most
submissive gentleness and timidity.

“Olive,” he said, “I have ventured to bring you a young lady-companion
for awhile. You will make her welcome. She is
young and artless.”

A sweet smile passed over the lips of the dying woman — so
sweet, so soliciting, so bland and blessing, that it won Zulieme in a
moment to her side, where she suddenly knelt down and kissed the
wan, thin hands of the sufferer. Her quick eye caught instantly
the fearful intelligence of death in that strangely-sweet aspect.
She saw that the lady was fast escaping from earth, and that her
spirit was already sublimed for heaven by its own perfect consciousness
of the truth. She saw, too, that the heart of the sufferer
was desolate; but that, in its desolation, it had grown to tenderness!
And the lady was named “Olive.” How that name
haunted our little Spanish wife! but, in this case, it was not with
any fear. Surely, this could not be the “Olive” that Harry used
to love! And yet, how strange that the cassique should so greatly
resemble Harry! Zulieme was bewildered, but not forgetful.
Olive suffered her to keep possession of her thin, wan fingers, and

smiled upon her the gentle welcome that her lips did not speak;
and with this welcome the wife of our rover was content.

Olive Berkeley had fully recovered her senses. She had
passed through a fearful paroxysm; but it left her brain free. In
degree as her infirmities increased, her mind had become clearer.
She had no more visions of Harry Berkeley. Once assured that
he was living — once assured of his actual presence — it would
seem that all the mists that had clouded her mental vision had
passed away, and the evening promised a sweet, mild, gentle sunset.
The skies were growing brighter as the earth grew dim.
Life had nothing to bestow, and all the love of which she was now
capable was perfectly free. Her spirit was at one with that joy
of peace which reposes on assured hopes and the purest affections,
and harmonizes every doubt in faith.

Zulieme was soon at home at the barony of Kiawah. She was
often with Olive, and talked with her, and grew fond of serving
her. She played with Grace, and became a child as she played with
the child. But she shrank from the stately mother, whose smile
of mixed scorn and vexation usually drove her to the chamber of
Olive, or to the playground of Grace, with whom she frequently
found the Indian boy Iswattee. But she somehow disliked this
boy. He was solemn without cause. She could forgive the gravity
of the dying Olive; but such gravity as that of Iswattee she
held to be an impertinence. What right had such a boy to look
so sorrowfully grand? Alas for the poor Indian! she knew not
where his torture lay!

Grace suddenly discovered, only the day after Zulieme's arrival,
that something ailed Iswattee; and she said to him, abruptly:

“Iswattee, ar'n't you sick? You look so! You must have
physic! You must get well. You must go to brother, and get
some of that physic he gives to me. It always makes me well.
But, O boy! how it will make you tie up your face, it 's so horrid
nasty! What!” — as the Indian shook his head — “you won't
go? But I will myself. I 'll tell brother; and he 'll mix the
physic; and I 'll bring it; and I 'll make you drink it, you foolish
fellow, and laugh to see the face you 'll make! But 't will make
you well, Iswattee.”

Having now temporarily disposed of the cassique's household,
let us look to our rover on the sea.