University of Virginia Library

44. CHAPTER XLIV.

Meanwhile, the Spanish army pursued its progress into the
rich, wild provinces of the Alabamous. They were now approaching
the territories of the great Indian Cassique, called Tuscaluza,
or the Black Warrior,—a ruler at once remarkable for
the extent of his sway, his haughty valor, and his gigantic stature.
He had heard of the approaching Spaniards, of their power, their
wonderful arms and armor, their strange appearance, and the
mystery which seemed to envelop their origin. He was naturally
curious to see the strangers, and was too great a potentate
himself, and too valiant a chief to entertain any apprehension of
their power. Of their treatment of his kinswoman, Coçalla, he
had up to this period heard nothing, and his invitation, accordingly,
through his inferior cassiques, was cordially extended to
the Spanish commander to visit him in the recesses of his wild
domain. His chief settlements were along the banks of the river
which still bears his name—his territories stretched away indefinitely,
even beyond the waters of the Mississippi. As the strangers
drew nigh to his royal precincts, he despatched his son to give
them special welcome—a youth of eighteen, but tall like himself,
his stature far overtopping that of the tallest soldiers in the
Spanish army. His bold and noble carriage contributed, with
his stature, to compel the respect and admiration of the Adelantado
and his cavaliers.

But ere the arrival of this youth, as an ambassador, there was
some stir in the Spanish camp, in consequence of the treatment
which Philip de Vasconselos had received. The return of Nuno
de Tobar, and Andres de Vasconselos, led to warm words, angry
passion, and finally to a re-examination of the affair. If Andres
felt coldly towards his brother—and no doubt his conscience had
long since rebuked him severely for his conduct, for which his boyish
pride would suffer him to make no atonement—his feelings of
kindred were by no means subdued. Now that his brother was
dishonored, and had probably perished in consequence of the

exile and exposure which followed his sentence, the better nature
of the young man obtained the ascendant, and he felt his error to
its full extent, and bitterly lamented the little sympathy which
he had shown to a brother to whom he was indebted for the best
training and affection of his early years. Nor was Nuno de
Tobar less eagerly aroused than Andres to the necessity of vindicating
the fame of Philip, and, if possible, of recovering and restoring
him to the army. To this end their earnest efforts were
directed. The woods were scoured where the victim had been
left to perish, but in vain. He was already in the close keeping
of the Princess of Copachiqui—not so far, indeed, from the camp
of the Spaniards—not so much beyond their reach—but that, had
he himself been willing, he might have been found. But in what
way could it be conveyed to him that he was not pursued with
malice, and that justice should be done to his worth at last? He
might well question the motives for the search on the part of
those from whom he had never yet experienced sympathy or
confidence.

Coçalla and her followers were all well aware of the neighborhood
of the Spanish parties sent out in search of Philip—nay, he
himself was not ignorant, and he might possibly have suspected
their better motives, knowing as he did that his brother and
Nuno de Tobar were at the head of these detachments; but he
now no longer cared to resume a connection with the associates
who had abandoned him, and with an expedition whose daily progresses
revolted all his human and chivalrous sentiments. Besides,
he had been inexpiably disgraced according to all the laws
of chivalry, and there was no adequate power to do him justice,
and to restore his honors. A savage scorn of all social relations
took the place in his bosom of the gentler sympathies he had once
so loved to cherish. A fierce mood preyed like a vulture upon his
thoughts, and he brooded only upon revenge. This was now the
atoning, the compensative sentiment which he encouraged, and his
thought was wholly addressed to the modes by which he should
wreak the full measure of his vengeance upon the two whom he
regarded as the principals in his great disgrace, and the bitter
defeat of all his hopes and honor. His thought by day, his dream
by night, found him ever engaged in the hot struggle of the gladiator
with Don Balthazar de Alvaro and the haughty Adelantado;
and he sat or wandered with his savage associates, grim
and silent, following the progress of the Spaniards with eye and
mind; a Fate, himself, threatening but too truly the melancholy
doom which attended upon their footsteps.

It was with a gloomy feeling of bitterness and self-reproach that

Andres de Vasconselos and Nuno de Tobar gave up the search
after the fugitive. They naturally concluded that he had perished—the
victim of the red men. But they addressed themselves
to the business of the inquiry touching the charges brought
against him, and, in particular, as concerned the agency of Don
Balthazar in the affair. In respect to this person, Nuno de Tobar
could give considerable evidence. The conviction that Don
Balthazar had been the vindictive pursuer of his brother to destruction,
prompted Andres de Vasconselos to hurry to the village
of Chiaha, where the former had been left in command, resolved
to disgrace him by blows, and force him to single combat. He
was met on his arrival by the intelligence, already known to us,
of the murder of the knight, and of the flight of the page Juan—
the latter being supposed by some the assassin; by others, the
red men were credited with the achievement, the boy being
thought their captive.

Andres de Vasconselos was disarmed by this intelligence, which
had the further effect of relieving Hernan de Soto of much of the
responsibilities of his situation. Though bold and haughty enough,
it was yet quite too important to the safety, not less than the
success, of the Adelantado, to venture to defy the complaints and
indignation of some of his bravest knights. He now began to
feel that he should need the very meanest of his force to carry
through the objects of his expedition, and in propitiating the captains
who had interested themselves in the case of Philip, the
death of Don Balthazar afforded a ready agency. He was, in
fact, the chief criminal, and De Soto was really but his creature.
Facts were exposed by Tobar, showing the bitter malice of Don
Balthazar; and the very creatures whom he had suborned against
the knight of Portugal, were now not unwilling to expose the
influences which were brought to bear for his destruction. De
Soto, after the farce of a solemn reconsideration of the case, was
brought to revoke his judgment; but it was too late! Philip de
Vasconselos had undergone a fearful change of character. He
was now the vulture of revenge, hovering in the rear of the devoted
cavalcade, waiting his moment when to swoop down in
blood upon the quarry.

Close and ominous watch, indeed, did he keep upon the movements
of the Spaniards through the agency of the red men of Cofachiqui.
They were gathering daily in numbers, well armed,
and eager for revenge. They were joined by the warriors of
Chiaha, and tacitly, as it seemed, did they refer the whole conduct
of their people to the direction of Philip de Vasconselos. In this
they naturally obeyed the wishes of the Princess; but this influence

might not have sufficed to confer upon him this authority,
were it not that they were instinctively impressed by himself, by
the great injuries which had made him the incarnation of that
wild revenge which the red men so much love and honor, and
by his unquestionable ability as a commander. He, himself,
seemed to take their lead as a matter of course. He neither
asked them nor himself in respect to the matter. He willed, and
they submitted. He pointed with his finger hither or thither, and
they sped. They saw his purpose in his look. They took their
directions from his eye and hand; and there was that of the terribly
savage in his fearful glance, and so much of the sublimely
fearful in the embodied woe which seemed to speak in every silent
look and gesture, that to submit and obey was the voluntary impulse
of all who looked upon the noble outlaw.

The one purpose which occupied his mind, sufficed to concentrate
all his faculties. The Spaniards now began daily to experience
the influence of a will and a power which threatened them
with the greatest dangers, the more formidable, as it was still impossible
to conjecture what shape the danger was to take, or when
and where the blow was to fall. An ominous gloom seemed to
hang upon their hearts. Superstitious apprehensions haunted
their souls—a cloud seemed to hang upon their pathway, in no
degree relieved by the courteous invitations of the great cassique,
Tuscaluza. Weariness, exhaustion, daily toil and march, and
continued disappointments, no doubt combined to render them
especially sensible to such fears and doubts. But there were
external evidences daily offered them which had their effect, also,
in compelling and arousing their superstitious fears. The red
men seemed to have altered their whole policy. They hovered
about the advancing army, but without coming to blows. They
no longer rushed out boldly from beneath the forest trees, in
groups, or single men, challenging the invader to the crossing of
the spears. But if they did not fight, they did not fly. There, in
front, and flank, and rear, they might be seen to hover like so
many threatening clouds, retiring into safety when approached,—
not to be overtaken,—but still giving proofs that they were unrelaxing
in that haunting watch and pursuit which they had begun
from the moment when Vasconselos took command. It may be
that De Soto and others suspected his presence and authority
among the red men, and that a gloomy prescience, and vague
terrors, were the result of this suspicion. To these feelings, each
day added large increase. The Spaniards now longed for the
strife; they felt how much easier and more grateful it would be
to bring this annoyance to prompt and desperate issue, which vexed

their pride and perpetually troubled their securities. But they
strove for this in vain. Many were the efforts which they made
to beguile the savages to battle,—to ensnare them in ambush,—
to run them down with their mounted men; but the vigilant
generalship of the Portuguese cavalier held them in close hands,
and they hung about the wearied Spaniards like clouds of voracious
birds, sufficiently nigh to seize their prey when occasion
offered, but at a safe distance from any danger. Daily they succeeded
in picking up some victim from the ranks of the invader.
Not a loiterer escaped the bow-shaft or the macana. The
straggler invariably perished—pierced with sharp arrows, or
brained with the heavy hatchet of stone. It was death to turn
aside into the covert; it was fatal to charge beyond the ranks
which offered immediate support. One newly adopted policy
of the red men seemed particularly ominous to the Spaniards.
They now addressed their shafts to the breasts of the horses,
rather than the cavaliers, and every now and then some fine
steed fell a victim under the unexpected arrow, despatched from
unsuspected coverts where the assailants found impenetrable
shelter.

Thus haunted, thus troubled with evil omens, the Spanish army
made its way into the thickly settled countries of the Alabamous.
This people, under the sway of Tuscaluza, were probably composed
of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and the remnants of other
tribes. They were numerous, in comparison with the other
nations of the red men, and were as fearless and practised in
warfare as they were numerous. De Soto, in entering their
great towns and villages, did so with unusual precaution. His
mind was impressed evidently with a far greater sense of the responsibilities
and difficulties of his situation than had ever been the
case before. His apprehensions and disquiet were greatly increased
at this period by a new evil; an epidemic appeared
among his troops, which was fatal to many. They were seized
with a low fever, which seemed to prostrate them instantly. At
the end of a very few days they perished; the skin, even before
death, becoming of a discolored and greenish hue, and their bodies
emitting a fetid odor. A terrible fear possessed the army, that
they were poisoned—that the subtle savages had mixed their
maize, or the waters of the streams, with some vegetable poison
of great potency. We may imagine the terror that seized upon
all hearts from a conjecture so full of horror. Some of their
Tamenes, however, suggested a native remedy for the disease,
which was probably due rather to exhaustion and unsatisfactory
food. A ley, made from the ashes of a certain herb, and

mingled with their food instead of salt—of which they had none
—was found to afford security against attack. But many of
them perished of the disorder before the remedy was made
known.

Tuscaluza met De Soto at one of his villages, at some distance
from his capital city. He probably did not design that the
Spaniards should penetrate to that place. But he did not know
the character of the invaders. The haughty chieftain welcomed the
Adelantado in a truly royal manner, with great show of forest
state, and a dignity which might have furnished a model to the
noblest sovereign of Christendom. His immense stature, erect
carriage, haughty demeanor, perfect composure, insensibility to
surprise of any kind, had the effect of awing the Spaniards into
something like reverence, for a season. The Adelantado presented
him with a dress of scarlet, and with a flowing mantle of
the same material. These he wore with a natural grace which
showed him superior to the efforts of the artist. With his own
towering plumes, he became the crowning and central figure, of
right, amid the grand assemblage of native chieftains and steelclad
warriors by whom he was surrounded. The Adelantado
added to his gifts that of a horse also; though it was with great
difficulty that a beast was found sufficiently powerful to endure
the weight of so colossal a warrior.

The courtesy of De Soto, his gifts and attentions were not
unpleasing to the haughty Cassique, and he cheerfully accompanied
them in a march of three days, to one of his first-class
villages, called after himself, Tuscaluza. This village stood upon
a peninsula of the Alabama River. The river was crossed without
difficulty, and the army encamped for the night in a beautiful
valley, about a league beyond the place of passage. There was
feasting and great state for some hours in the Spanish camp, and
Tuscaluza was a guest at supper with the Adelantado. But
when he retired, it was without the precincts of the camp, and
the Spaniards, though on the watch to discover his place of retreat
for the night, failed to trace his progress through the wild
forests through which, with his attendants, he made his easy
way. But there were other watchers more successful, and when
Tuscaluza entered his sylvan lodge, but two miles from the
Spanish camp, he found the beautiful Princess Coçalla, his
own niece, awaiting him in the lodge; and seated upon a pile of
bearskins, a stern, silent, savage-looking man, one of the pale-faced
warriors, in whose grim aspect we recognize the once
gentle, graceful, and courtly knight of Portugal.

Coçalla threw herself upon the neck of Tuscaluza, and was

welcomed with such a degree of fondness as was consistent with
the pride and power of so haughty a monarch. He received her
with tenderness even, and she wept sweet tears upon the breast
of him who had been the well-beloved brother of her mother.
What fool was it who first taught that the red men lacked the
sensibilities of humanity?

But we must defer our further report to another chapter.