Kitabı oku: «The White Squaw», sayfa 11
Chapter Forty One.
A Treacherous Bridge
There was one among the Indians who viewed their fair captive with no great favour.
It was Maracota.
His devotion to Oluski had been so blindly true that, in his narrow-minded memory of the old chief’s wrongs, he had become bloodthirsty and remorseless. Naturally of a revengeful disposition, he saw, in the leniency of both Wacora and Nelatu towards the pale-faced maiden, too much of forgiveness.
This stirred his evil passions to their depth, and he sought for an opportunity to do her an injury.
With a shrewd guess at the truth, he looked upon Cris Carrol’s escape as another evidence of that toleration which ill consorted with his sanguinary hatred of the white race.
He dared not take open measures, but insidiously strove to turn the people of the tribe against their white captive, as well as Wacora.
His success was not commensurate with his wishes. They admired their chief too much to believe anything to his prejudice, and Maracota became himself looked upon as a restless agitator – a subject more zealous than loyal.
He saw, accordingly, that any injury to the captive must be accomplished by his own agency; the more so, as he had already endeavoured to excite a feeling of jealousy in Nelatu’s mind, of which she and Wacora were the objects. The generous youth not only refused belief, but angrily reproved the slanderer, for daring to couple his cousin’s name with an act so unworthy!
When a person resolves upon mischief it is astonishing how many opportunities present themselves.
Alice, although unsuspicious of the enmity of which she was the object, avoided Maracota. She did so from a different motive. She knew that it was he who had fired the fatal shot at her brother, and could not help regarding the act with abhorrence. His sister, how could she?
And, as his sister, how could she look upon his executioner without repugnance – more than repugnance – with horror?
The exigencies of the war had kept Maracota away from the town, and for long periods; but the same causes that brought Wacora back, also controlled his return.
He felt that now, if ever, was the time to carry out his schemes of malignity.
He accordingly watched her every movement; amongst others, the many lonely visits she paid to the ruined fort.
There was the opportunity he wanted, if he could only find the means to avail himself of it.
In a community of red men, where everything is reduced, even in times of a temporary peace, to dull routine, it was not difficult to devise a plan of revenge. But it must be unnoticed, or go unpunished, for he had a wholesome dread of Wacora’s displeasure, and was not disposed to incur it.
Some days had elapsed since the interview described between the chief and his captive, during which time they had seen nothing of each other.
Wacora, with great delicacy, had avoided her, and she had kept herself within the dwelling assigned to her, afraid to meet him, yet pondering deeply over what he had said.
In spite of a natural prejudice against the Indian race, she was startled and wonder-stricken at the nobility of thought and rare talent he had exhibited. She did not doubt but that a portion, at least, of his argument was based on false reasoning, but she was not subtle enough, or perhaps indisposed, to detect the erroneous argument. We are very apt to acknowledge the truth of what we admire, whilst admitting its errors.
Alice Rody was in this predicament.
She had learned to respect the Indian chief, and her respect was tinged with admiration of his good qualities.
This mental ratiocination had occupied her during the days of her seclusion.
She endeavoured to divert her mind to other subjects, and to this end determined to pay another visit to the old fort. She was prompted to it by a thought of having too long forgotten the Indian maiden who slept within the ruins.
It was a glorious morning as she set forth for a walk to the place.
The way was through a belt of timbered land leading to a creek, spanned by a rude wooden bridge. On the other side lay the ruin.
The wood was passed in safety, and she reached the water’s edge. To her amazement she found the creek greatly swollen; this often happened after heavy rains, though she had never before seen it in that condition.
She proceeded along the causeway leading to the bridge, that seemed to offer a safe means of crossing.
She paused to contemplate the current, bearing upon its bosom the torn trunks of trees caught in its rapid course.
In another moment she was upon the bridge, and had got midway over it, when a tremulous motion of the planks caused her to hesitate. As she stood still the motion ceased, and smiling at her fears she again proceeded.
Not far, however. Ere she had made three steps forward, to her horror the motion re-commenced with greater violence.
She saw it was too late to retreat, and sped onward, the planks swaying fearfully towards the water.
Believing it best to proceed, she took courage for a fresh effort, and kept on towards the other side. It was a fatal resolution.
Just as she had prepared for her last spring the planks gave way with a creaking sound, and she was precipitated into the stream.
Her presence of mind was gone, and in an instant she was submerged beneath the seething current of the flood.
She rose again, gave utterance to a shriek, and was again swallowed up, her wail of agony being uttered in the water.
At that moment a face that expressed fiendish delight appeared through the bushes, on the bank; nor did it vanish until assured that all was over, and Alice Rody had sunk below the surface, never more to return to it alive.
Then, and not till then, the form emerged from out the underwood, and scrambling to the rude pier from which the planks had parted, stood surveying the scene.
It was Maracota!
“Good!” cried he. “So perish all who would make the red man forgive the injuries of his race. She was the child of a villain – the sister of a fiend!”
He stooped down and examined the broken fragments of the bridge.
“Maracota’s axe has done the deed well,” said he, continuing his soliloquy, “and he has nothing to fear. Her death will be attributed to accident. It was a great thought, and one that Oluski’s spirit will approve. Maracota was his favourite warrior, and to please his shade has he done this deed, and will do more. Death to the pale-faces – death to their women and children! Death and extermination to the accursed race!”
The vengeful warrior rose from his stooping position, cast one hurried glance upon the turbulent stream, and once more entering the underwood, disappeared from the spot.
Chapter Forty Two.
A Soliloquy
Wacora came from the council chamber, where the warriors had assembled, and passed over to the house where dwelt his white captive.
This was no unusual thing for him when he deemed himself safe from her observation. Upon the day in question, however, he had resolved to see her.
The time had come when active measures were about to be taken by the United States Government in order to “suppress” (such was the term used) the Indians in Florida, and although none could know at that moment how difficult the undertaking would prove, all were alive to the fact that the work was about to commence in earnest.
Information of this had reached the young Seminole chief; and he saw the necessity of removing his tribe from their present residence.
Hence the council – hence, also, his visit to Alice Rody.
He had determined to lay the facts fully before her, in order that she might name the time of return to her own people.
Thus reflecting, he walked on towards the house tenanted by his captive.
On arriving at the place he found she was not there; but some children playing near told him she had gone into the woods, and pointed in the direction she had taken.
The young chief hesitated about following her. He was unwilling to thrust himself into her presence at a time she had, perhaps, devoted to self communion and repose.
Turning in another direction, he wandered for some time purposelessly, taking no note of the locality, until he had reached the belt of the woods which Alice had herself traversed on her road to the old ruin. Wacora, however, entered it at some distance farther off from the skirts of the town.
Once under the shadow of the trees he abated his pace, which, up to this time, had been rapid. Now walking with slow step, and abstracted air, he finally stopped and leant against a huge live oak, his eyes wandering afar over the sylvan scene.
“Here,” he soliloquised in thought, “here, away from men and their doings, alone is there peace! How my heart sickens at the thought that human ambitions and human vanities should so pervert man’s highest mission – peace – turning the world into scenes of strife and bloodshed! I, an Indian savage, as white men call me, would gladly lay down this day and for ever the rifle and the knife; would willingly bury the war hatchet, and abandon this sanguinary contest!
“Could I do so with honour?” he asked, after a pause of reflection. “No! To the end I must now proceed. I see the end with a prophetic eye; but I must go on as I’ve begun, even if my tribe with all our people should be swept from the earth! Fool that I’ve been to covet the leadership of a forlorn hope!”
At the end of this soliloquy he stamped the ground with fury.
Petty dissensions had arisen among the people he deemed worthy of the highest form of liberty. By this his temper had been chafed – his hopes suddenly discouraged. He was but partaking of the enthusiast’s fate, finding the real so unlike the ideal. It is the penalty usually paid by intelligence when it seeks to reform or better the condition of fallen humanity.
“And she,” he continued, in his heart’s bitterness, “she can only think of me as a vain savage; vain of the slight superiority education appears to give me over others of my race. I might as well aspire to make my home among the stars as in her bosom. She is just as distant, or as unlikely to be mine.”
In the mood in which the Indian was at that moment, the whole universe seemed leagued against him.
Bitterly he lamented the fate that had given him grand inspirations, while denying him their enjoyment.
As he stood beneath the spreading branches of the live oak a double shadow seemed to have fallen upon him – that of his own thoughts, and the tree thickly festooned with its mosses. Both were of sombre hue.
He took no heed of the time, and might have stood nursing his bitter thoughts still longer, but for a sound that suddenly startled him from his reverie.
It was a shriek that came ringing through the trees as if of one in great distress.
The voice Wacora heard was a woman’s.
Lover-like, he knew it to be that of Alice Rody in peril.
Without hesitating an instant he rushed along the path in the direction from which it appeared to come.
In that direction lay the stream.
His instinct warned him that the danger was from the water. He remembered the rain and storm just past. It would be followed by a freshet. Alice Rody might have been caught by it, and was in danger of drowning.
He made these reflections while rushing through the underwood, careless of the thorns that at every step penetrated his skin, covering his garments with blood.
His demeanour had become suddenly changed. The sombre shadow on his brow had given place to an air of the wildest excitement. His white captive, she who had made him a captive, was in some strange peril.
He listened as he ran. The swishing of the branches, as he broke through them, hindered him from hearing. No sound reached his ears; but he saw what caused him a strange surprise. It was the form of a man, who, like himself, was making his way through the thicket, only in a different direction. Instead of towards the creek the man was going from it, skulking off as if desirous to shun observation.
For all this Wacora recognised him. He saw it was Maracota.
The young chief did not stay to inquire what the warrior was doing there, or why he should be retreating from the stream? He did not even summon the latter to stop. His thoughts were all absorbed by the shriek he had heard, and the danger it denoted. He felt certain it had come from the creek, and if it was the cry of one in the water, there was no time to be lost.
And none was lost – not a moment – for in less than sixty seconds after hearing it he stood upon the bank of the stream.
As he had anticipated, it was swollen to a flood, its turbid waters carrying upon their whirling surface trunks and torn branches of trees, bunches of reeds and grass uprooted by the rush of the current.
He did not stand to gaze idly upon these. The bridge was above him. The cry had come from there. He saw that it was in ruins. All was explained!
But where was she who had given utterance to that fearful shriek?
He hurried along the edge of the stream, scanning its current from bank to bank, hastily examining every branch and bunch borne upon its bosom.
A disc of whitish colour came before his eyes. There was something in the water, carried along rapidly. It was the drapery of a woman’s dress, and a woman’s form was within it!
The young chief stayed not for further scrutiny; but plunging into the flood, and swimming a few strokes, he threw his arms around it.
And he knew that in his arms he held Alice Rody! In a few seconds after her form lay dripping upon the bank, apparently lifeless!
Chapter Forty Three.
Saved! Saved!
Wacora had saved his white captive. She still lived!
The struggle between life and death had been long and doubtful, but life at length triumphed.
Por days had she lingered upon the verge of existence, powerless to move from her couch; scarce able to speak. It was some time before she could shape words to thank her deliverer, though she knew who it was.
She had been told it was Wacora.
The young chief had been unremitting in his attentions, and showed great solicitude for her recovery. He found time, amidst the warlike preparations constantly going on, to make frequent calls at her dwelling, and make anxious inquiry about her progress.
The nurses who attended upon her did not fail to note his anxiety.
Nelatu had been absent and did not return to the town until she was convalescent.
He was grieved to the heart on hearing what had happened.
Wacora, suspecting that Maracota was the guilty one, sought him in every direction, but the vengeful warrior was nowhere to be found.
He had fled from the presence of his indignant chief.
It was not until long after that his fate became known.
He had been captured in his flight by some of the settlers, and shot; thus dying by the hands of the enemies he so hated.
Several weeks elapsed, and no active movement had, as yet, been made by the government troops. Wacora’s tribe still continued to reside in their town undisturbed.
His captive continued to recover, and, along with her restored strength, came a change over the spirit of her existence. She seemed transformed into a different being.
The past had vanished like a dream. Only dimly did she remember her residence at Tampa Bay, her father, the conflict on the hill, the massacre, her brother’s sad fate, all seemed to have faded from her memory, until they appeared as things that had never been, or of which she had no personal knowledge, but had only heard of them long, long ago.
It is true they still had a shadowy existence in her mind, but entirely disassociated with the events of her life, since she had been a captive among the Indians. Nor was there much to regret in this impaired recollection, for both the events and personages had been among the miseries of her life.
Of her present she had a more pleasurable appreciation. She was living a new life, and thinking new thoughts.
Nelatu and Wacora both strove in a thousand kind ways to render her contented and happy.
They had no great luxuries to offer her, but such as they had were bestowed with true delicacy.
Strange to say, that in this common solicitude there was not a spark of jealousy between the two cousins.
Nelatu’s nature was generosity itself; and self-sacrifice appeared to him as if it was his duty or fate!
Still, while he basked in the sunshine of the young girl’s beauty, he had not the courage to imagine to himself that she could ever belong to another. Not to him might her love be given, but surely not to another! He could not think of that.
True that at times he fancied he could perceive a look bestowed on Wacora such as she never vouchsafed to him – a tremor in her voice when speaking to his cousin, which had never betrayed itself in her discourse with himself.
But he might be mistaken. Might? He was certain of it. If she did not love him, at any rate he could not think that she loved Wacora.
Thus did the Indian youth beguile himself!
Innocent as a child, he knew little of the heart of woman.
That look – that tremor of the voice – should have told him that she loved Wacora.
Yes; the end had come, and love had conquered.
The white maiden was in love with the young Indian chief!
Wacora and his captive – now more than ever his captive – were seated within the ruined fort near Sansuta’s grave.
“You are pleased once more to be here?” he asked.
“I am. During my illness I promised myself if ever I recovered that my first visit should be to this spot.”
“And yet it was in paying such a visit that you nearly lost your life.”
“The life you saved.”
“’Twas a happy chance. I cannot tell what led me to the forest on that occasion.”
“What were you doing there?” she asked.
“Like the blind mortal that I am, I was blaming myself, and my fate, too, when I should have been blessing my fortune.”
“For what?”
“For conducting me to the spot where I heard you cry.”
“What fortune were you blaming?”
“That which made me unworthy.”
“Unworthy of what?”
He did not immediately answer her, but the look he gave her caused her to turn her eyes to the ground.
“Do you really wish to know of what I think myself unworthy?”
She smiled as she replied, “If you betray no confidence in telling me.”
“None; none but my own.”
“Then, tell me if you like.”
Was it the faint tremor in her voice that emboldened him to speak?
“Unworthy of you!” was his answer.
“Of me?” she said, her face averted from his.
“Of you, and you only. But why should I withhold further confidence? You have given me courage to speak; have I also your leave?”
She made no answer to the last question, but her look was eloquent of assent.
“I thought on that day,” he continued, “that I was accursed by man and heaven – that I, an Indian savage, was not accounted worthy to indulge in thoughts of love that had sprung up within my heart, like a pure flower, only to be blighted by the prejudices of race; that all my adoration for the fair and excellent, must be kept down by the accident of birth; and that whilst nurturing a holy passion, I must crush it out and stifle it for ever.”
“But now?” Her voice was low and tremulous.
“Now – all rests upon one word. Upon that word depends my happiness or misery now and for ever.”
“And what is it?”
“Do not ask it from me. It must come from your eyes – from your lips – from your heart!”
There was an eloquence that spoke the answer without a word being uttered.
It was the eloquence of love!
In another instant the lips of the white maiden touched those of her Indian lover.
From their rapturous embrace they were startled by a sound. It was a groan!
It came from the other side of Sansuta’s grave, behind which there was a clump of bushes.
Wacora rushed towards the spot, while Alice kept her place, transfixed to it by a terrible presentiment.
The young chief uttered an exclamation of horror, as he looked in among the bushes.
His cousin was lying beneath them, stretched out – dead! a dagger, which his right hand still clutched, sheathed in his heart!
With his last groan, and his heart’s blood, the generous youth had yielded up his love with his life.
L’Envoi
The Seminole war continued for eight years.
Eight years of bloodshed and horror, in which the white man and the Indian struggled for the supremacy.
The whites fought for conquest, the Indians to retain possession of their own.
On both sides were acts of cruelty – terrible episodes illustrating the lex talionis.
As in all such contests, the pale-faces were the victors, and the red men were in time subdued.
Such of the Seminoles as survived the war were allotted lands beyond the Mississippi; and, far distant from their native home, were commanded to be content and happy.
They had no alternative but to submit to their adverse fate, and in several detachments they were transported to their new homes.
In one of the migrating bands, who passed through New Orleans, bound west of the Mississippi river, was a young chief who attracted great notice by his commanding presence no less than by a companion seen constantly by his side – a white woman!
She was of great beauty, and those who saw her naturally made enquiry about her name, parentage, and station, as also the name of the young chief.
The Indians who were asked simply made answer that the chief was Wacora, and that she by his side was his wife, known among them as —
“The White Squaw.”
