Southern Literature From 1579-1895 Part 27

Upon the Poet's soul they flash forever, In evening shades, these glimpses strange and sweet; They fill his heart betimes,--they leave him never, And haunt his steps with sounds of falling feet; He walks beside a mystery night and day; Still wanders where the sacred spring is hidden; Yet, would he take the seal from the forbidden, Then must he work and watch as well as pray!

How work? How watch? Beside him--in his way,-- Springs without check the flow'r by whose choice spell,-- More potent than "herb moly,"--he can tell Where the stream rises, and the waters play!-- Ah! spirits call'd avail not! On his eyes, Sealed up with stubborn clay, the darkness lies.

THE DOOM OF OCCONESTOGA.

(_From Yema.s.see._)

[Occonestoga, the degenerate son of the Yema.s.see chief Sanutee, has been condemned, for befriending the whites, to a fate worse than death. The _totem_ of his tribe, an arrow branded upon the shoulder, is to be cut and burnt out by the executioner, Malatchie, and he is to be declared accursed from his tribe and from their paradise forever, "a slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," the evil spirit.]

Occonestoga's head sank in despair, as he beheld the unchanging look of stern resolve with which the unbending sire regarded him. For a moment he was unmanned; until a loud shout of derision from the crowd as they beheld the show of his weakness, came to the support of his pride. The Indian shrinks from humiliation, where he would not shrink from death; and, as the shout reached his ears, he shouted back his defiance, raised his head loftily in air, and with the most perfect composure, commenced singing his song of death, the song of many victories.

"Wherefore sings he his death-song?" was the cry from many voices,--"he is not to die!"

"Thou art the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," cried Malatchie to the captive, "thou shalt sing no lie of thy victories in the ear of Yema.s.see. The slave of Opitchi-Manneyto has no triumph"--and the words of the song were effectually drowned, if not silenced, in the tremendous clamor which they raised about him. It was then that Malatchie claimed his victim--the doom had been already given, but the ceremony of expatriation and outlawry was yet to follow, and under the direction of the prophet, the various castes and cla.s.ses of the nation prepared to take a final leave of one who could no longer be known among them. First of all came a band of young marriageable women, who, wheeling in a circle three times about him, sang together a wild apostrophe containing a bitter farewell, which nothing in our language could perfectly embody.

"Go,--thou hast no wife in Yema.s.see,--thou hast given no lodge to the daughter of Yema.s.see,--thou hast slain no meat for thy children. Thou hast no name--the women of Yema.s.see know thee no more. They know thee no more."

And the final sentence was reverberated from the entire a.s.sembly, "They know thee no more, they know thee no more."

Then came a number of the ancient men,--the patriarchs of the nation, who surrounded him in circular mazes three several times, singing as they did so a hymn of like import.

"Go--thou sittest not in the council of Yema.s.see--thou shalt not speak wisdom to the boy that comes. Thou hast no name in Yema.s.see--the fathers of Yema.s.see, they know thee no more."

And again the whole a.s.sembly cried out, as with one voice, "They know thee no more, they know thee no more."

These were followed by the young warriors, his old a.s.sociates, who now, in a solemn band, approached him to go through a like performance. His eyes were shut as they came, his blood was chilled in his heart, and the articulated farewell of their wild chant failed seemingly to reach his ear. Nothing but the last sentence he heard--

"Thou that wast a brother, Thou art nothing now, The young warriors of Yema.s.see, They know thee no more."

And the crowd cried with them, "They know thee no more."

"Is no hatchet sharp for Occonestoga?" moaned forth the suffering savage. But his trials were only then begun. Enoree-Mattee now approached him with the words, with which, as the representative of the good Manneyto, he renounced him,--with which he denied him access to the Indian heaven, and left him a slave and an outcast, a miserable wanderer amid the shadows and the swamps, and liable to all the doom and terrors which come with the service of Opitchi-Manneyto.

"Thou wast the child of Manneyto,"

sung the high priest in a solemn chant, and with a deep-toned voice that thrilled strangely amid the silence of the scene,

"Thou wast the child of Manneyto He gave thee arrows and an eye,-- Thou wast the strong son of Manneyto, He gave thee feathers and a wing,-- Thou wast a young brave of Manneyto, He gave thee scalps and a war-song,-- But he knows thee no more--he knows thee no more."

And the cl.u.s.tering mult.i.tude again gave back the last line in wild chorus. The prophet continued his chant:

"That Opitchi-Manneyto!-- He commands thee for his slave-- And the Yema.s.see must hear him, Hear, and give thee for his slave-- They will take from thee the arrow, The broad arrow of thy people,-- Thou shalt see no blessed valley, Where the plum-groves always bloom-- Thou shalt hear no songs of valour, From the ancient Yema.s.see-- Father, mother, name, and people, Thou shalt lose with that broad arrow, Thou art lost to the Manneyto,-- He knows thee no more--he knows thee no more."

The despair of h.e.l.l was in the face of the victim, and he howled forth, in a cry of agony that for a moment silenced the wild chorus of the crowd around, the terrible consciousness in his mind of that privation which the doom entailed upon him. Every feature was convulsed with emotion; and the terrors of Opitchi-Manneyto's dominion seemed already in strong exercise upon the muscles of his heart, when Sanutee, the father, silently approached him, and with a pause of a few moments, stood gazing upon the son from whom he was to be separated eternally-- . . .

In a loud and bitter voice he exclaimed, "Thy father knows thee no more,"--and once more came to the ears of the victim the melancholy chorus of the mult.i.tude--"He knows thee no more, he knows thee no more." Sanutee turned quickly away as he had spoken; and as if he suffered more than he was willing to show, the old man rapidly hastened to the little mound where he had been previously sitting, his eyes averted from the further spectacle. Occonestoga, goaded to madness by these several incidents, shrieked forth the bitterest execrations, until Enoree-Mattee, preceding Malatchie, again approached. Having given some directions in an under-tone to the latter, he retired, leaving the executioner alone with his victim.

Malatchie, then, while all was silence in the crowd,--a thick silence, in which even respiration seemed to be suspended,--proceeded to his duty; and, lifting the feet of Occonestoga carefully from the ground, he placed a log under them--then addressing him, as he again bared his knife which he stuck in the tree above his head, he sung--

"I take from thee the earth of Yema.s.see-- I take from thee the water of Yema.s.see-- I take from thee the arrow of Yema.s.see-- Thou art no longer a Yema.s.see-- The Yema.s.see knows thee no more."

"The Yema.s.see knows thee no more," cried the mult.i.tude, and their universal shout was deafening upon the ear. Occonestoga said no word now--he could offer no resistance to the unnerving hands of Malatchie, who now bared the arm more completely of its covering. But his limbs were convulsed with the spasms of that dreadful terror of the future which was racking and raging in every pulse of his heart. He had full faith in the superst.i.tions of his people. His terrors acknowledged the full horrors of their doom. A despairing agony which no language could describe had possession of his soul.

Meanwhile, the silence of all indicated the general anxiety; and Malatchie prepared to seize the knife and perform the operation, when a confused murmur arose from the crowd around; the ma.s.s gave way and parted, and, rushing wildly into the area, came Matiwan, his mother, the long black hair streaming, the features, an astonishing likeness to his own, convulsed like his; and her action that of one reckless of all things in the way of the forward progress she was making to the person of her child. She cried aloud as she came, with a voice that rang like a sudden death-bell through the ring.

"Would you keep a mother from her boy, and he to be lost to her for ever? Shall she have no parting with the young brave she bore in her bosom? Away, keep me not back--I will look upon him, I will love him.

He shall have the blessing of Matiwan, though the Yema.s.see and the Manneyto curse."

The victim heard, and a momentary renovation of mental life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out in the simple exclamation which fell from his lips:

"Oh, Matiwan--oh, mother!"

She rushed towards the spot where she heard his appeal, and thrusting the executioner aside, threw her arms desperately about his neck.

"Touch him not, Matiwan," was the general cry from the crowd; "touch him not, Matiwan,--Manneyto knows him no more."

"But Matiwan knows him--the mother knows her child, though Manneyto denies him. Oh, boy--oh, boy, boy, boy." And she sobbed like an infant on his neck.

"Thou art come, Matiwan--thou art come, but wherefore? To curse, like the father--to curse, like the Manneyto?" mournfully said the captive.

"No, no, no! Not to curse, not to curse. When did mother curse the child she bore? Not to curse, but to bless thee. To bless thee and forgive."

"Tear her away," cried the prophet; "let Opitchi-Manneyto have his slave."

"Tear her away, Malatchie," cried the crowd, now impatient for the execution. Malatchie approached.

"Not yet, not yet," appealed the woman. "Shall not the mother say farewell to the child she shall see no more?" and she waved Malatchie back, and in the next instant drew hastily from the drapery of her dress a small hatchet, which she had there carefully concealed.

"What wouldst thou do, Matiwan?" asked Occonestoga, as his eye caught the glare of the weapon.

"Save thee, my boy--save thee for thy mother, Occonestoga--save thee for the happy valley."

"Wouldst thou slay me, mother, wouldst strike the heart of thy son?"

he asked, with a something of reluctance to receive death from the hands of a parent.

"I strike thee but to save thee, my son; since they cannot take the totem from thee after the life is gone. Turn away from me thy head--let me not look upon thine eyes as I strike, lest my hands grow weak and tremble. Turn thine eyes away; I will not lose thee."

His eyes closed, and the fatal instrument, lifted above her head, was now visible in the sight of all. The executioner rushed forward to interpose, but he came too late. The tomahawk was driven deep into the skull, and but a single sentence from his lips preceded the final insensibility of the victim.

"It is good, Matiwan, it is good; thou hast saved me; the death is in my heart." And back he sank as he spoke, while a shriek of mingled joy and horror from the lips of the mother announced the success of her effort to defeat the doom, the most dreadful in the imagination of the Yema.s.see.

"He is not lost, he is not lost. They may not take the child from his mother. They may not keep him from the valley of Manneyto. He is free--he is free." And she fell back in a deep swoon into the arms of Sanutee, who by this time had approached. She had defrauded Opitchi-Manneyto of his victim, for they may not remove the badge of the nation from any but the living victim.

MARION.

"_The Swamp Fox._"