He lay upon the trampled ground,
She knelt beside him there,
While a crimson stream gush'd slowly
'Neath the parting of his hair.
His head was on her bosom thrown--
She sobb'd his Christian name--
He smiled, for still he knew her,
And strove to do the same.--FRANK LEE BENEDICT.
"Oh, Arthur! dear Arthur, I am glad it was you that saved me,"
whispered Martha, about an hour after her rescue, as she lay on the
settle in her father's house, with Arthur Jones bending anxiously over
her.
Jones dropped the hand he had been holding and turned away with
troubled features.
Martha looked at him, and her eyes were brimming with tears. "Jones,"
she said humbly and very affectionately, "Jones, I did wrong the other
night, and I am sorry for it; will you forgive me?"
"I will--but never again--never, as I live," he replied, with a stern
determination in his manner, accompanied by a look that humbled her to
the heart. In after years, when Martha was Arthur Jones' wife, and when
the stirrings of vanity would have led her to trifle with his feelings,
she remembered that look, and dared not brave it a second time.
At sunrise, the next morning, an armed force went into the forest,
composed of all who could be spared from the settlement, amounting to
about thirty fighting-men. The Indians, encamped about "the Straka,"
more than doubled that number, yet the handful of brave whites resolved
to offer them a decisive combat.
The little band was approaching the northeastern extremity of the Pond,
when they halted for a moment to rest. The spot on which they stood was
level, and thinly timbered. Some were sitting on the grass, and others
leaning on their guns, consulting on their future movements, when a
fiendish yell arose like the howl of a thousand wild beasts, and, as if
the very earth had yawned to emit them, a band of warriors sprang up in
appalling numbers, on the front and rear, and approaching them, three
abreast, fired into the group with terrible slaughter.
The whites returned their fire, and the sounds of murderous strife
were indeed horrible. Sternly arose the white man's shout amid the
blazing of guns and the whizzing of tomahawks, as they flashed through
the air on their message of blood. Above all burst out the war-whoop
of the savages, sometimes rising hoarse, and like the growling of a
thousand bears; then, as the barking of as many wolves, and again,
sharpening to the shrill, unearthly cry of a tribe of wildcats. Oh, it
was fearful, that scene of slaughter. Heart to heart, and muzzle to
muzzle, the white and red man battled in horrid strife. The trees above
them drooped under a cloud of smoke, and their trunks were scarred with
gashes, cut by the tomahawks which had missed their more deadly aim.
The ground was burdened with the dead, and yet the strife raged fiercer
and fiercer till the going down of the sun.
In the midst of the fight was William Danforth. Many a dusky form bit
the dust, and many a savage howl followed the discharge of his trusty
gun. But at length it became foul with continued use, and he went to
the brink of the Pond to wash it. He was stooping to the water, when
the dark form of an Indian chief cast its shadow a few feet from him.
He, too, had come down to clean his gun. The moment he had accomplished
his purpose, he turned to the white man, who had been to him as a
son, and drawing his muscular form up to its utmost height, uttered
a defiance in the Indian tongue. Instantly the weapons of both were
loaded and discharged. The tall form of the chief wavered unsteadily
for a moment, and fell forward, half its length, into the Pond. He
strove to rise. His hands dashed wildly on the crimson water, the blows
grew fainter, and the chief was dead.
The setting sun fell brilliantly over the glittering raiment of the
prostrate chief--his long, black hair streamed out upon the water, and
the tiny waves rippled playfully among the gorgeous feathers which had
been his savage crown. A little back, on the green bank, lay Danforth,
wounded unto death. He strove to creep to the battle-field, but the
blood gushed afresh from his wounds, and he fell back upon the earth
faint and in despair.
The savages retreated; the sounds of strife became more distant, and
the poor youth was left alone with the body of the slain warrior. He
made one more desperate effort, and secured the gun which had belonged
to the chief; though faint with loss of blood, he loaded that as well
as his own, and placing them beside him, resolved to defend the remnant
of life, yet quivering at his heart, to the last moment. The sun went
slowly down; the darkness fell like a vail over the like, and there he
lay, wounded and alone, in the solitude of the wilderness. Solemn and
regretful were the thoughts of the forsaken man as that night of agony
went by. Now his heart lingered with strange and terrible dread around
the shadowy portals of eternity which were opening before him; again it
turned with a strong feeling of self-condemnation to his Indian wife
and the infant pledge of the great love, which had made him almost
forsake kindred and people for their sakes.
The moon arose, and the dense shadow of a hemlock, beneath which he
had fallen, lay within a few feet of him like the wing of a great bird,
swayed slowly forward with an imperceptible and yet certain progress.
The eyes of the dying man were fixed on the margin of the shadow with
a keen, intense gaze. There was something terrible in its stealthy
creeping and silent advance, and he strove to elude it as if it had
been a living thing; but with every motion the blood gushed afresh from
his heart, and he fell back upon the sod, his white teeth clenched with
pain, and his hands clutched deep into the damp moss. Still his keen
eyes glittered in the moonlight with the fevered workings of pain and
imagination. The shadow on which they turned was to him no shadow, but
now a nest of serpents, creeping with their insidious coils toward him;
and again, a pall--a black funereal pall, dragged forward by invisible
spirits, and about to shut him out from the light forever. Slowly and
surely it crept across his damp forehead and over his glowing eyes.
His teeth unclenched, his hands relaxed, and a gentle smile broke over
his pale lips, when he felt with what a cool and spirit-like touch it
visited him. Just then a human shadow mingled with that of the tree,
and the wail of a child broke on the still night air. The dying hunter
struggled and strove to cry out,--"Malaeska--Ma--Ma--Mala--"
The poor Indian girl heard the voice, and with a cry, half of frenzied
joy and half of fear, sprang to his side. She flung her child on the
grass and lifted her dying husband to her heart, and kissed his damp
forehead in a wild, eager agony of sorrow.
"Malaeska," said the young man, striving to wind his arms about her,
"my poor girl, what will become of you? O God! who will take care of my
boy?"
The Indian girl pushed back the damp hair from his forehead, and looked
wildly down into his face. A shiver ran through her frame when she saw
the cold, gray shadows of death gathering there; then her black eyes
kindled, her beautiful lip curved to an expression more lofty than a
smile, her small hand pointed to the West, and the wild religion of her
race gushed up from her heart, a stream of living poetry.
"The hunting-ground of the Indian is yonder, among the purple clouds
of the evening. The stars are very thick there, and the red light
is heaped together like mountains in the heart of a forest. The
sugar-maple gives its waters all the year round, and the breath of
the deer is sweet, for it feeds on the golden spire-bush and the ripe
berries. A lake of bright waters is there. The Indian's canoe flies
over it like a bird high up in the morning. The West has rolled back
its clouds, and a great chief has passed through. He will hold back the
clouds that his white son may go up to the face of the Great Spirit.
Malaeska and her boy will follow. The blood of the red man is high in
her heart, and the way is open. The lake is deep, and the arrow sharp;
death will come when Malaeska calls him. Love will make her voice sweet
in the land of the Great Spirit; the white man will hear it, and call
her to his bosom again!"
A faint, sad smile flitted over the dying hunter's face, and her voice
was choked with pain which was not death. "My poor girl," he said,
feebly drawing her kindling face to his lips, "there is no great
hunting-ground as you dream. The whites have another faith, and--O God!
I have taken away her trust, and have none to give in return!"
The Indian's face drooped forward, the light of her wild, poetic
faith had departed with the hunter's last words, and a feeling of
cold desolation settled on her heart. He was dying on her bosom, and
she knew not where he was going, nor that their parting might not be
eternal.
The dying man's lips moved as if in prayer. "Forgive me, O Father of
mercies! forgive me that I have left this poor girl in her heathen
ignorance," he murmured, faintly, and his lips continued to move though
there was no perceptible sound. After a few moments of exhaustion, he
fixed his eyes on the Indian girl's face with a look of solemn and
touching earnestness.
"Malaeska," he said, "talk not of putting yourself and the boy to
death. That would be a sin, and God would punish it. To meet me in
another world, Malaeska, you must learn to love the white man's God,
and wait patiently till he shall send you to me. Go not back to your
tribe when I am dead. Down at the mouth of the great river are many
whites; among them are my father and mother. Find your way to them,
tell them how their son died, and beseech them to cherish you and the
boy for his sake. Tell them how much he loved you, my poor girl. Tell
them--I can not talk more. There is a girl at the settlement, one
Martha Fellows; go to her. She knows of you, and has papers--a letter
to my father. I did not expect this, but had prepared for it. Go to
her--you will do this--promise, while I can understand."
Malaeska had not wept till now, but her voice was choked, and tears
fell like rain over the dying man's face as she made the promise.
He tried to thank her, but the effort died away in a faint smile and a
tremulous motion of the white lips--"Kiss me, Malaeska."
The request was faint as a breath of air, but Malaeska heard it. She
flung herself on his bosom with a passionate burst of grief, and her
lips clung to his as if they would have drawn him back from the very
grave. She felt the cold lips moving beneath the despairing pressure of
hers, and lifted her head.
"The boy, Malaeska; let me look on my son."
The child had crept to his mother's side, and crouching on his hands
and knees, sat with his large black eyes filled with a strange awe,
gazing on the white face of his father. Malaeska drew him closer,
and with instinctive feelings he wound his arms round the neck, and
nestled his face close to the ashy cheek of the dying man. There was
a faint motion of the hands as if the father would have embraced his
child, and then all was still. After a time, the child felt the cheek
beneath his waxing hard and cold. He lifted his head and pored with
breathless wonder over the face of his father's corpse. He looked up
at his mother. She, too, was bending intently over the face of the
dead, and her eyes were full of a wild, melancholy light. The child was
bewildered. He passed his tiny hand once more over the cold face, and
then crept away, buried his head in the folds of his mother's dress,
and began to cry.
Morning dawned upon the little lake, quietly and still, as if nothing
but the dews of heaven and the flowers of earth had ever tasted its
freshness; yet all under the trees, the tender grass and the white
blossoms, were crushed to the ground, stained and trampled in human
blood. The delicious light broke, like a smile from heaven, over the
still bosom of the waters, and flickered cheeringly through the dewy
branches of the hemlock which shadowed the prostrate hunter. Bright
dew-drops lay thickly on his dress, and gleamed, like a shower of seed
pearls, in his rich, brown hair. The green moss on either side was
soaked with a crimson stain, and the pale, leaden hue of dissolution
had settled on his features. He was not alone; for on the same mossy
couch lay the body of the slaughtered chief; the limbs were composed,
as if on a bier--the hair wiped smooth, and the crescent of feathers,
broken and wet, were arranged with care around his bronzed temples.
A little way off, on a hillock, purple with flowers, lay a beautiful
child, beckoning to the birds as they fluttered by--plucking up the
flowers, and uttering his tiny shout of gladness, as if death and
sorrow were not all around him. There, by the side of the dead hunter,
sat Malaeska, the widow, her hands dropping nervously by her side, her
long hair sweeping the moss, and her face bowed on her bosom, stupefied
with the overwhelming poignancy of her grief. Thus she remained,
motionless and lost in sorrow, till the day was at its noon. Her
child, hungry and tired with play, had cried itself to sleep among the
flowers; but the mother knew it not--her heart and all her faculties
seemed closed as with a portal of ice.
That night when the moon was up, the Indian widow dug a grave, with her
own hands, on the green margin of the lake. She laid her husband and
her father side by side, and piled sods upon them. Then she lifted the
wretched and hungry babe from the earth, and, with a heavy heart, bent
her way to "the Straka."