Nick of the Woods Part 26

"Hah!" cried Nathan, as, at the same instant, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the wigwam, "thee speaks the truth, and the accursed villains is upon us! Away with thee, dog--thee shall finish thee work by and by!"

Faithful to his master's orders, or perhaps to his own sense of what was fitting and proper in such a case, little Peter leaped hastily among the skins and other litter that covered half the floor and the sleeping-berths of the lodge, and was immediately out of sight, having left the apartment, or concealed himself in its darkest corner. The steps approached; they reached the door: Nathan threw himself back, reclining against his pile of furs, and fixed his eye upon the mats at the entrance. They were presently parted; and the old chief Wenonga came halting into the apartment,--halting, yet with a step that was designed to indicate all the pride and dignity of a warrior. And this attempt at state was the more natural and proper, as he was armed and painted as if for war, his grim-countenance hideously bedaubed on one side with vermillion, and the other with black; a long scalping-knife, without sheath or cover, swinging from his wampum belt; while a hatchet, the blade and handle both of steel, was grasped in his hand. In this guise, and with a wild and demoniacal glitter of eye, that seemed the result of mingled drunkenness and insanity, the old chief stalked and limped up to the prisoner, looking as if bent upon his instant destruction. That his pa.s.sions were up in arms, that he was ripe for mischief and blood, was, indeed, plain and undeniable; but he soon made it apparent that his rage was only conditional and alternative, as regarded the prisoner. Pausing within three or four feet of him, and giving him a look that seemed designed to freeze his blood, it was so desperately hostile and savage, he extended his arm and hatchet,--not, however, to strike, as it appeared, but to do what might be judged almost equally agreeable to nine-tenths of his race,--that is, to deliver a speech.

"I am Wenonga!" he cried, in his own tongue, being perhaps too much enraged to think of any other, "I am Wenonga, a great Shawnee chief. I have fought the Longknives, and drunk their blood: when they hear my voice they are afraid; they run howling away, like dogs when the squaws beat them from the fire--who ever stood before Wenonga? I have fought my enemies, and killed them. I never feared a white man: why should I fear a white man's devil? Where is the Jibbenainosay, the curse of my tribe?--the Shawneewannaween, the howl of my people? He kills them in the dark, he creeps upon them while they sleep; but he fears to stand before the face of a warrior! Am I a dog? or a woman? The squaws and the children curse me, as I go by: they say _I_ am the killer of their husbands and fathers; they tell me it was the deed of Wenonga, that brought the white man's devil to kill them; 'if Wenonga is a chief, let him kill the killer of his people!' I am Wenonga; I am a man; I fear nothing: I have sought the Jibbenainosay. But the Jibbenainosay is a coward; he walks in the dark, he kills in the time of sleep, he fears to fight a warrior! My brother is a great medicine-man; he is a white man, and he knows how to find the white man's devils. Let my brother speak for me; let him show me where to find the Jibbenainosay; and he shall be a great chief, and the son of a chief: Wenonga will make him his son, and he shall be a Shawnee!"

"Does Wenonga, at last, feel he has brought a devil upon his people?"

said Nathan, speaking for the first time since his capture, and speaking in a way well suited to strike the interrogator with surprise. A sneer, as it seemed, of gratified malice crept over his face, and was visible even through the coat of paint that still invested his features; and to crown all, his words were delivered in the Shawnee tongue, correctly and unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced; which was itself, or so Wenonga appeared to hold it, a proof of his superhuman acquirements.

The old chief started, as the words fell upon his ear, and looked around him in awe, as if the prisoner had already summoned a spirit to his elbow.

"I have heard the voice of the dead!" he cried. "My brother is a great Medicine! But I am a chief;--I am not afraid."

"The chief tells me lies," rejoined Nathan, who, having once unlocked his lips, seemed but little disposed to resume his former silence;--"the chief tells me lies: there is no white-devil hurts his people!"

"I am an old man, and a warrior,--I speak the truth!" said the chief, with dignity; and then added, with sudden feeling,--"I am an old man: I had sons and grandsons--young warriors, and boys that would soon have blacked their faces for battle[12]--where are they? The Jibbenainosay has been in my village, he has been in my wigwam--there are none left--the Jibbenainosay killed them!"

[Footnote 12: The young warriors of many tribes are obliged to confine themselves to black paint, during their probationary campaigns.]

"Ay!" exclaimed the prisoner, and his eyes shot fire as he spoke, "they fell under his hand, man and boy--there was not one of them spared--they were of the blood of Wenonga!"

"Wenonga is a great chief!" cried the Indian: "he is childless; but childless he has made the Long-knife."

"The Long-knife, and the son of Onas!" said Nathan.

The chief staggered back, as if struck by a blow, and stared wildly upon the prisoner.

"My brother is a medicine-man,--he knows all things!" he exclaimed. "He speaks the truth: I am a great warrior; I took the scalp of the Quakel[13]--"

[Footnote 13: _Quakels_--a corruption of Quakers, whom the Indians of Pennsylvania originally designated as the sons of _Onos_, that being one of the names they bestowed upon Penn.]

"And of his wife and children--you left not one alive!--Ay!" continued Nathan, fastening his looks upon the amazed chief, "you slew them all!

And he that was the husband and father was the Shawnees' friend, the friend even of Wenonga!"

"The white-men are dogs and robbers!" said the chief: "the Quakel was my brother; but I killed him. I am an Indian--I love white-man's blood. My people have soft hearts; they cried for the Quakel: but I am a warrior with no heart. I killed them: their scalps are hanging to my fire-post!

I am not sorry; I am not afraid."

The eyes of the prisoner followed the Indian's hand, as he pointed, with savage triumph, to the shrivelled scalps that had once crowned the heads of childhood and innocence, and then sank to the floor, while his whole frame shivered as with an ague-fit.

"My brother is a great medicine-man," iterated the chief: "he shall show me the Jibbenainosay, or he shall die."

"The chief lies!" cried Nathan, with a sudden and taunting laugh: "he can talk big things to a prisoner, but he fears the Jibbenainosay!"

"I am a chief and warrior. I will fight the white-man's devil!"

"The warrior shall see him then," said the captive, with extraordinary fire. "Cut me loose from my bonds, and I will bring him before the chief."

And as he spoke, he thrust out his legs, inviting the stroke of the axe upon the thongs that bound his ankles.

But this was a favour, which, stupid or mad as he was, Wenonga hesitated to grant.

"The chief," cried Nathan, with a laugh of scorn, "would stand face to face with the Jibbenainosay, and yet fears to loose a naked prisoner!"

The taunt produced its effect. The axe fell upon tho thong, and Nathan leaped to his feet. He extended his wrists. The Indian hesitated again.

"The chief shall see the Jibbenainosay!" cried Nathan; and the cord was cut.

The prisoner turned quickly round; and while his eyes fastened with a wild but joyous glare upon his jailer's, a laugh that would have become the jaws of a hyena lighted up his visage, and sounded from his lips.

"Look!" he cried, "thee has thee wish! Thee sees the destroyer of thee race,--ay, murdering villain, the destroyer of thee people, and theeself!"

And with that, leaping upon the astounded chief with rather the rancorous ferocity of a wolf than the enmity of a human being, and clutching him by the throat with one hand, while with the other he tore the iron tomahawk from his grasp, he bore him to the earth, clinging to him as he fell, and using the wrested weapon with such furious haste and skill that, before they had yet reached the ground, he had buried it in the Indian's brain. Another stroke, and another, he gave with the same murderous activity and force; and Wenonga trode the path to the spiritland, bearing the same gory evidences of the unrelenting and successful vengeance of the white-man that his children and grand-children had borne before him.

"Ay, dog, thee dies at last! at last I have caught thee!"

With these words, Nathan, leaving the shattered skull, dashed the tomahawk into the Indian's chest, s.n.a.t.c.hed the scalping-knife from the belt, and with one grinding sweep of the blade, and one fierce jerk of his arm, the gray scalp-lock of the warrior was torn from the dishonoured head. The last proof of the slayer's ferocity was not given until he had twice, with his utmost strength, drawn the knife over the dead man's breast, dividing skin, cartilage, and even bone, before it, so sharp was the blade and so powerful the hand that urged it.

Then, leaping to his feet, and s.n.a.t.c.hing from the post the bundle of withered scalps--the locks and ringlets of his own murdered family,--which he spread a moment before his eyes with one hand, while the other extended, as if to contrast the two prizes together, the reeking scalp-lock of the murderer, he sprang through the door of the lodge, and fled from the village; but not until he had, in the insane fury of the moment, given forth a wild, ear-piercing yell, that spoke the triumph, the exulting transport, of long-baffled but never-dying revenge.

The wild whoop, thus rising in the depth and stillness of the night, startled many a wakeful warrior and timorous mother from their repose.

But such sounds in a disorderly hamlet of barbarians were too common to create alarm or uneasiness; and the wary and the timid again betook themselves to their dreams, leaving the corse of their chief to stiffen on the floor of his own wigwam.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

From an uneasy slumber, into which, notwithstanding his sufferings of mind and body, he had at last fallen, Roland was roused at the break of day by a horrible clamour, that suddenly arose in the village. A shrill scream, that seemed to come from a female voice, was first heard; then a wild yell from the lungs of a warrior, which was caught up and repeated by other voices; and, in a few moments, the whole town resounded with shrieks dismal and thrilling, and expressing astonishment mingled with fear and horror.

The prisoner, incapable of comprehending the cause of such a commotion, looked to his guards, who had started up at the first cry, grasped their arms, and stood gazing upon one another with perturbed looks of inquiry.

The shriek was repeated, by one,--twenty,--a hundred throats; and the two warriors, with hurried exclamations of alarm, rushed from the wigwam, leaving the prisoner to solve the riddle as he might. But he tasked his faculties in vain. His first idea--and it sent the blood leaping to his heart--that the village was suddenly attacked by an army of white men,--perhaps by the gallant Bruce, the commander of the Station where his misfortunes had begun,--was but momentary; no l.u.s.ty hurrahs were heard mingling with the shrieks of the savages, and no explosions of fire-arms denoted the existence of conflict. And yet he perceived that the cries were not all of surprise and dismay. Some voices were uplifted in rage, which was evidently spreading among the agitated barbarians, and displacing the other pa.s.sions in their minds.

In the midst of the tumult, and while he was yet lost in wonder and speculation, the renegade Doe suddenly rushed into the wigwam, pale with affright and agitation.

"They'll murder you, captain!" he cried, "there's no time for holding back now--Take the gal, and I'll save you. The village is up--they'll have your blood, they're crying for it already--squaws, warriors and all--ay, d----n 'em, there's no stopping 'em now!"

"What in Heaven's name is the matter?" demanded the soldier.

"All etarnity's the matter!" replied Doe, with vehement utterance: "the Jibbenainosay has been in the village, and killed the chief--ay, d----n him,--struck him in his own house, marked him at his own fire! he lies, dead and scalped--ay, and crossed too--on the floor of his own wigwam;--the conjuror gone, snapped up by his devil, and Wenonga stiff and gory! Don't you hear 'em yelling? The Jibbenainosay, I tell you--he has killed the chief; we found him dead in his cabin; and the Injuns are bawling for revenge--they are, d----n 'em, and they'll murder you, burn you, tear you to pieces;--they will, there's no two ways about it: they're singing out to murder the white men, and they'll be on you in no time!"

"And there is no escape!" cried Roland, whose blood curdled, as he listened to the thrilling yells that were increased in number and loudness, as if the enraged barbarians, rushing madly through the village, were gathering arms to destroy the prisoners,--"there is no escape?"

"Take the gal! jist say the word, and I'll save you, or die with you, I will, d----n me!" exclaimed Doe, with fierce energy. "There's hosses grazing in the pastures; there's halters swinging above us: I'll mount you and save you. Say the word, captain, and I'll cut you loose and save you--say it, and be quick; your life depends on it--Hark! the dogs is coming! Hold out your arms till I cut the tug--"

"Anything for my life!" cried the Virginian; "but if it can be only bought at the price of marrying the girl, it is lost."

And the soldier would have resisted the effort Doe was making for his deliverance.

"You'll be murdered, I tell you!" re-echoed Doe, with increased vehemence, holding the knife ready in his hand: "they're coming on us: I don't want to see you butchered like an ox. One word, captain!--I'll take your word; you're an honest fellow, and I'll believe in you;--jist one word, captain; I'll help you; I'll fight the dogs for you; I'll give you weapons. The gal, captain! life and the fortun, captain!--The gal! the gal!"

"Never, I tell you, never!" cried Roland, who, faithful to the honour and integrity of spirit which conducted the men of that day, the mighty fathers of the republic, through the vicissitudes of revolution to the rewards of liberty, would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood and deception even in that moment of peril and fear;--"anything but that--but that, never!"