SQUAW VENGEANCE, AND SQUAW RAGE.
Mayne Fairfax and his red companion soon gained the immediate
neighborhood of the exciting scene that was being enacted.
On the southern side of the village square, and before the door of
the prison lodge, surged a crowd of women with disheveled tresses,
and hands full of clubs, hatchets, and knives.
Against the door of the hut stood Tecumseh, with flashing eyes
and drawn tomahawk; and confronting the chief were two gaunt
hags--perfect furies in looks and contour--demanding the surrender to
them and their supporters, of the two prisoners.
A short distance from the sachem stood Jim Girty, smiling upon the
vengeful work of his hands.
Tecumseh maintained a firm and dignified bearing, though a close
observer might have noticed sighs of trepidation, as his piercing eye
took in the scene.
The leaders of the mob were the squaws, or Indian wives, of the
chiefs Sagasto and Nethoto, slain by Oonalooska at the hermit’s cave.
The mad women could not bide the time set apart by Tecumseh for the
execution of the prisoners. Their hideous cries for blood, roused the
village from slumber, and at the head of a motley crowd, composed of
warriors, women, and children, they started to the prison-house. But
Tecumseh, having been awakened, met them at the door, and refused
them admittance.
He had recourse to many arguments to induce the rioters to return to
their respective lodges, and wait till the coming day for the death
of their prisoners; but they fell upon deaf ears.
“The squaws of Nethoto and Sagasto love Tecumseh,” spoke Nethoto’s
wife. “They would not harm a hair of his head; but, unless he
gives the pale-face and the red traitor to them, there may be no
Tecumseh--the leader’s lodge may be empty to-morrow.”
Tecumseh saw the angry look that accompanied those threatening words.
Everywhere knives glittered, and he realized that he had bloodthirsty
_women_ to deal with, not men.
“The squaws are very mad,” said Girty, stealing to Tecumseh’s side.
“They will have the prisoners, though they walk over Tecumseh. Why
bid them wait till day, and die? Let Tecumseh glide to his beaded
lodge, if he would not see the prisoners die.”
“Tecumseh will go,” answered the chief. “He would not witness
the work of the mad women. White Wolf, do not let them burn the
prisoners. Tecumseh will have no such work within sound of his lodge.
If they _must_ burn, let them be carried to the wood.”
The chief threw a parting look at the mad squaws, and glided through
the crowd to his lodge. As he left the throng, Jim Girty threw
himself before the door of the hut, and his strong voice rent the air:
“Tecumseh has listened to the words of Amasqua,” he said. “The
pale-face and red traitor must not die in the village. Let them be
borne to the wood.”
His speech was received with yells of satisfaction, and the renegade
tore Tecumseh’s wampum from the door of the hut. Throwing himself
against the barrier, he forced himself into the structure, and a
minute later the hermit and his red companion found themselves in
the hands of the most furious band of humans that ever surrounded a
prisoner.
“To the wood! the dark wood!” was the import of the chorus of
vengeful yells that floated heavenward, and away toward the gloomy
tarn the twain were hurried.
Alaska and Mayne Fairfax followed in the rear of the band. Many a
lowering glance was thrown at the young hunter, and had it not been
for the presence of his strong protector and her guard of brutes, he
would soon have stood at the prisoners’ side.
Mayne Fairfax kept from the sight of Oonalooska and the hermit. He
did not wish them to know that he was a forced witness to their
doom, and a refusal to accompany his mad mother might have proved his
death-warrant.
The wood was soon reached, and two lithe trees selected for the
death-stakes.
Jim Girty was now beside himself with fiendish triumph, and his
stentorian voice rung loud and clear above the yells of the red-skins.
He insulted Hewitt in every way that suggested itself to his devilish
mind. He struck him with his open hand, spit in his face, and plucked
out a handful of his beautiful beard! Hewitt stood his indignities
without a murmur, but a sarcastic smile lurked around his lips.
Failing to draw a groan from the hermit, the renegade turned to
Oonalooska, but was obliged to desist with the same result.
“To the trees!” he said at last, and the hands of the prisoners were
momentarily unbound, that they might be fastened to the saplings.
As the hermit felt his hands spring from the thongs, he darted a look
at Oonalooska, and his lips parted to utter a single word, which drew
a spark of fire from the young brave’s eyes.
The next instant the twain sprung forward, and, before the mob could
recover from its surprise, Oonalooska had snatched the tomahawk
from Amasqua, and Jim Girty staggered to the earth beneath Hewitt’s
clenched hand. Then, having driven the Indians back a goodly space,
by their unexpected movements, the twain turned, and darted through
the forest with the speed of the deer.
To pursue by sight was utterly useless, for the captives had
disappeared in an instant, and Jim Girty, who was the first to
recover his senses, darted to Alaska’s side.
“The white-face and the red traitor who shot Alaska’s wolves have
escaped,” he cried, pointing in the direction of the trail of the
twain. “Let Alaska throw her children upon the trail, that her
enemies may die.”
“Do not, my mother,” cried Fairfax, laying his hand upon Alaska’s
arm, before she had a chance to reply to the renegade. “If the Lone
Man and Oonalooska die, Alaska’s child will not become King of the
Wolves.”
The Wolf-Queen looked down upon the face upturned to her--the face
of, as she believed, her son, and Fairfax discovered that he held an
unbounded influence over that mad-woman.
“Alaska’s wolves shall scent no trail to-night,” she said, addressing
him, and then she turned to Girty, and the mad, clamoring clique
that surrounded him. “The captives may fly,” she said, with teeth
firm-set, as her dark eyes fell upon the renegade, thence wandering
to the bloodthirsty band. “Alaska hears the words of her son, and
the wolves strike not a pale-face trail to-night. If the White Wolf
and Amasqua would catch the lost birds, they must find them without
Alaska’s children. Alaska and her white son, who soon will be a
Shawnee and King of the Wolves, will return to her lodge.”
The queen made a retiring motion, when Girty turned to the band.
“Shall the Shawnees’ captives escape by the words of a white-livered
dog?” he hissed, pointing to young Fairfax. “The weakling rules
Alaska, and he is turning her against her people. Shall the Shawnees
tamely submit to this? If so, let them not touch the white-faced dog!”
His words drew yells from the lips of the baffled band, and, with
glittering blade, Amasqua, Nethoto’s vengeful wife, stepped forward.
“Would Amasqua meet Ogita?” cried the Wolf-Queen, suddenly catching
up one of her wolves, and raising him on high.
The mad widow paused, and, still holding the wolf aloft, Alaska
retrograded toward the village, her eyes shooting defiance at the
mob. Close to her side moved the young Virginian, inwardly rejoicing
at the double escape, but not forgetful of his own imminent danger.
Slowly Alaska retreated, and slowly her enemies followed, afraid to
raise a hand.
Jim Girty quivered with rage, in the spasm of which he would have
shot the mad queen of the wolves; but the hermit had snatched his
rifle from his grip, and not a savage had borne his from the village.
He dared not raise his hand to hurl a hatchet at the lunatic, for
such a movement would bring the wolf to his throat; and the renegade
feared the queen’s wolves as he feared unnatural death.
For Fairfax’s intercession, he would have the man’s blood, and he now
saw that that hour had not arrived.
The mad squaws, too, were afraid to raise a hand against the
passioned queen, and dark were the plots against her and her “son”
that then found birth in their bosoms.
Step by step Alaska retreated, with seven gaunt wolves covering her
track, and, as she and the hunter glided into the double lodge, a
chorus of baffled cries smote the air of night, and fell faintly upon
listening ears far up the moonlit Scioto.