THE CHIEF’S BURIAL
For a full half-hour Queen Esther sat motionless in the chill of that
appalling silence, her eyes fixed upon the weapons of death at her feet
with a dull glare, more terrible than the fiercest rage of passion.
She rose slowly, at length, laid the rifle and scalping-knife carefully
aside, and clutching the tomahawk of her dead son in her hand, passed
noiselessly out of the tent. At the entrance she met the chief,
Gi-en-gwa-tah, motioned him to follow with a stern gesture of command,
and moved on towards the roused encampment, issuing her brief orders in
a voice hard as iron.
From the seclusion of her own tent, Catharine Montour watched the hasty
preparations for departure, and her heart sank at the sight of those
rigid faces, as the old queen and her son went out, for she understood
only too well what their calmness portended.
She dared utter no word of remonstrance; the bravest heart would have
shrunk from offering consolation to that grim woman. It was still dark
as midnight, and the smouldering fires cast a lurid glare around,
lighting up the stern visages flitting like shadows among the tents,
while the waning moon trembled like a crescent of blood on the verge of
the western horizon, a sign of approaching carnage and warfare.
At length a detachment of warriors, armed with rifles and tomahawks, and
hideous with war-paint, broke out from the great mass, and mounting
their horses, remained stationary on the outskirts of the camp. Queen
Esther’s horse was led out, flowing with gems torn from the persons of
former victims; her tomahawk glittered at the saddle-bow, and the head
of her steed was decorated with raven’s plumes, that waved slowly to and
fro with every motion of his proud neck. Catharine saw the old Queen
come forth again from her tent, grasping in her hand the weapon which
her son had wielded in his last battle. Passing with stern composure
through the group of Indians, she planted one hand upon the saddle, and
with a single effort of her sinewy arm lifted herself to the seat. With
no sound but the muffled tread of their horses on the short turf, the
band swept on, with that silent woman leading them on, and were lost in
the darkness beyond.
The great body of Indians and the army of whites encamped at a little
distance still kept their position, though preparations for departure
were evident among them—carried on by the Indians in sullen quiet, far
more terrible than the shouts and oaths which came up from the Tory
tents.
Catharine Montour watched all, heard all, but still she did not move.
The chief did not at once approach her tent, and though a sickness like
that of death was on her, she knew that the slightest remonstrance would
only increase the Shawnee’s thirst for vengeance. She did not stir from
the spot until everything was ready for their departure and her horse
was led up to the entrance of her tent.
Swiftly the detachment, with Queen Esther for their leader, swept down
the rocky path which led towards the Susquehanna. After a ride of about
twenty miles, they came out upon the river, opposite the foot of
Campbell’s Ledge, and, crossing the stream there, continued their course
into the valley, only pausing while Esther dispatched a scout in
advance, to see that their way to the fort would be unobstructed.
She had halted just where the Falling Spring came leaping down the steep
precipice, white and spectral in the gathering day. Beyond loomed up the
giant masses of the Ledge, and at her feet the river flowed in its
pleasant quietness, bearing no warning of ill to the doomed inhabitants
of the valley.
During the absence of their scout the silence was unbroken; the warriors
were banded together in portentous impassibility; and Queen Esther, with
her horse drawn a little distance apart, the reins falling loosely upon
his neck, sat with her eyes fixed upon the tomahawk still grasped in her
hand. The Indian returned, and at his signal the party swept down the
war-trail, which ran in nearly the same course that the roadway of the
present day takes, following the river in its sinuous windings.
Just above Pittston the Susquehanna and Lackawanna meet, and at their
point of union a little island, picturesque even now, rests on the bosom
of the waters. The band paused on the shore of the Susquehanna, in sight
of this island. A scow, used by the inhabitants of the region as a
common means of transportation across the stream, was unmoored, and the
whole band were rowed over to the opposite shore. Again they paused, and
waited until the main force of Tories and savages came up, with
Gi-en-gwa-tah at their head, and Catharine Montour in their midst.
At the chief’s command, the body of Indians swam their horses over to
the little island, their leader guiding the steed on which Catharine
rode, and commenced immediate preparations for the rearing of her tent.
On swept the Tories, headed by Queen Esther and her band, over the
smooth plains, then green with rustling forests, and keeping within
sight of the river. When the dawn broke, grey and chill, Wintermoot’s
Fort, the stronghold of the Tories, loomed before them, surrounded by
bristling stockades and fortified outworks.
At their approach the gates were thrown open, and the whole army swept
into the inclosure. Those within the fort crowded around, in eager
curiosity, to gaze upon the old queen, but she seemed unconscious of
their glances, dismounting at once from her horse, and following the
commander of the fort into the room where the body of her son had been
carried.
Tahmeroo was sitting on the floor by the corpse, but she did not raise
her head when the door opened, and Queen Esther moved towards the bench
where the body lay, without paying any heed to the presence of her
grandchild. She stood over the dead chief without any sign of emotion;
her frame never once relaxed—not a muscle moved, not an eyelash
quivered; her motionless right hand fell at her side, with the gleaming
tomahawk still clutched between her clasped fingers.
The Indians entered the room, took up the body and bore it forth, with a
low death-wail that sounded ominously drear in the solemn stillness
which came over all within the fort.
Among that group of awe-struck gazers stood Grenville Murray. He had
come into the fort a few hours before, and had vainly attempted to
instill some idea of mercy into the ferocity of the Indians and Tories,
but the pacific measures which he pleaded were as much unheeded as if
they had been made to wolves in the forest.
The train bearing the dead chief passed through the inclosure, and Queen
Esther followed, erect and still, looking neither to the right nor the
left, while Tahmeroo crouched behind—horror-stricken and pale.
“Will she take him away?” Murray whispered to the commander.
“Yes; for burial.”
“But she is partly a white woman; surely she will not allow him to be
buried in this heathenish fashion.”
“Do you think Queen Esther a saint?” sneered the leader; “the
scalping-knife is her religion!”
Murray stepped forward and stood before the queen. She looked up,
neither in anger nor surprise, when he ventured thus to confront her:
“Madam,” he said, in a low tone, “I am informed that there is a
clergyman in the neighborhood—will you not wait here until he can be
summoned? At least, let your son be buried with the rites of your
country’s faith.”
“The wilderness is my country,” she replied, in a voice the more
startling from its iciness; “my son was an Indian brave; no mummeries of
the pale faces shall desecrate his grave.”
She passed on without giving him an opportunity to reply, and the
procession moved out of the fort, down to the bank of the river, where
several canoes had been procured for the removal of the corpse.
Into the bark with the dead man stepped Tahmeroo and the old queen. The
rowers bent to their task, and the canoe swept up the current. The
Indian girl sat down by the body of her relative, but the old queen
stood upright in the stern of the boat, the rising sun gilding the faded
dun of her robes, and gleaming balefully over the murderous weapon in
her hand.
A tent had been erected on the lower part of the beautiful island, and
in the doorway stood Catharine Montour, watching the approach of the
three canoes. The Indians, with their chief, were grouped about the
shore, and as the canoes came in sight they struck up a death-song, in
answer to the chant from the boats, prolonged by the women into a
mournful wail which, accustomed as she was to such scenes, made
Catharine’s blood run cold.
The boats came up, the old queen remained standing on the shore, while
Tahmeroo sprang forward and was silently clasped to her mother’s bosom.
It was the first time they had met since the girl’s flight in search of
her husband, but there was no time given for joy, and, without a word,
they stood side by side while the mournful ceremonies proceeded.
At the lower extremity of the island may be seen, to this day, a group
of four willow trees, with their trunks distorted and bent, and when the
wind is low the long branches sway to the ground with a sorrowful music,
which sounds like a requiem prolonged from that funeral wail.
Under the shadow of those trees they dug the young chief’s grave and
laid him therein, his face covered with war-paint and his most precious
possessions by his side. Rifle and scalping-knife were placed reverently
down, but when they searched for the tomahawk Queen Esther took her own
decorated weapon from an Indian near by and flung it beside the body,
standing erect as ever while the earth was thrown in and the grave
filled quickly up.
When all was over, obeying her imperious motion, the tribe withdrew to a
little distance, and she stood alone by the head of the grave, with her
right hand stretched over it—once her lips moved faintly, then shut and
locked themselves closer than before; but in that moment of fearful
self-communion Queen Esther had registered a terrible vow.
As the groups broke up, Butler landed in his canoe and came towards
them. Passing Catharine and Tahmeroo with a hasty nod, he approached
Queen Esther and whispered in her ear:
“The man I told you of is at the fort; they tell me he spoke with
you—the missionary also is near. Queen Esther need not go beyond her own
camp-fires to discover the instigator of this deed.”
The queen returned no answer, but a slight shiver of the tomahawk proved
that his fiendish whisper had produced its effect, and Butler moved
away. Though their conference lasted scarce a second, and their glances
never once wandered towards the place where she stood, Catharine Montour
felt that the first threads of some plot against her safety and life had
been formed above the grave of the young warrior.
She laid her hand on Tahmaroo’s arm and entered the lodge, trembling so
violently from weakness and nervous agitation that she was unable to
stand. The girl sat down, chilled by her husband’s coldness, and
awaiting his entrance with impatience, the more harassing from a
mournful consciousness that she occupied no place in that reckless man’s
heart.
After a little, Queen Esther collected her own band of warriors and left
the island, retracing the path towards Wintermoot’s Fort. Butler and the
chief, Gi-en-gwa-tah, held a conversation together upon the shore,
during which the gloomy brow of the Indian grew constantly darker, and
the fire in his eyes kindled into new ferocity. At length he turned away
from the young man, and entering his wife’s tent sat down in sullen
quiet.
Catharine Montour sat apart, with her eyes fixed in painful apprehension
on the wrathful face of the chief. There was nothing of the fierce
courage in her demeanor that had formerly characterized it; a most
astonishing change had been gradually wrought in her mind and person
since the day which witnessed her interview with the missionary, and
more visibly after Butler’s return from Johnson Hall, with intelligence
of Murray’s presence in America. The healthful roundness of her person
had fallen away, and her features had sharpened and grown of a cold
paleness, till they seemed as if chiselled from marble. Her cheeks were
hollow, her high forehead was changed in its lofty and daring
expression, a calm sadness had settled upon it, and her eyes, formerly
fierce and keen almost as a wild eagle’s, were full of gentle endurance,
at that moment disturbed by apprehension and fear, but by no sterner
emotion.
Never in the days of her loftiest pride had Catharine Montour appeared
so touchingly lovely, so gentle and so woman-like, as on that evening.
She had been pleading for her people with the fierce chief—pleading that
vengeance should not fall on the inhabitants of the neighboring valley
in retribution for the death of a single brave. But the Shawnee had
taken other counsellors to his bosom within the year. Since the fierce
pride of Catharine’s character had passed away, her influence over him
had decreased; while that of Butler was more thoroughly established, and
Queen Esther had regained all the supremacy which for a season had
yielded to the influence of his wife.
When almost as stern and unyielding as himself, Catharine might
command—now she could but supplicate. The higher and better portion of
her nature was, like her history, a sealed book to him; he could
understand and respect strong physical courage, but the hidden springs
which form the fearful machinery of a highly cultivated woman, making
weakness in some things a virtue, and even fear itself lovely, he could
not comprehend. A terrible suspicion had been instilled in his proud
nature, and he mistook her utterly; his nobility of character, which was
lifted above either savage or civilized cunning, had made him the dupe
of a bad man. When moral goodness began to predominate in Catharine’s
character, he mistook its meek and gentle manifestations for cowardice,
and she became to him almost an object of contempt. There was no longer
any power in her patient perseverance and persuasive voice to win his
nature to mercy; the daring spirit which had formerly awed and
controlled his had departed forever beneath the gradual deepening of
repentance in her heart.
Tahmeroo joined earnestly with her mother’s pleading; but he answered
only with abrupt monosyllables, and even with their voices in his ear
his sinewy fingers worked eagerly about the haft of his knife, conveying
an answer more appalling than the fiercest words could have given. There
had been silence for some time. Catharine Montour sat with one hand
shading her troubled brow, pondering on some means of preventing the
bloodshed which she had so much cause to apprehend, and sorely repenting
that she had ever instigated the Indians to take up arms in the dispute
waged between England and her colonies. Tahmeroo stole away to a corner
of the tent, and resting her cheek on the palm of her hand, listened for
the footstep of her husband, hoping with all the faith of affection that
he would second her mother’s plea for mercy; and nestling closer and
closer down, as she thought of the mother and infants whom her father’s
warriors had already murdered, and whose scalps hung with their long and
sunny hair streaming over the door of the lodge.
“Oh, if Butler would but come in!” she murmured, while tears started to
her eyes, brought there by her mother’s sorrow and the pain which his
absence during the whole night had produced, increased by the lonely
vigil which she had kept over the body of her relative—“He can do
anything with the tribe.”
As she spoke, the mat was flung aside, and her husband stood before her.
Tahmeroo sprang joyfully to his bosom, and kissed his cheek, and lips,
and brow, in all the abandonment of a happy and most affectionate heart;
nor did she mark the stern and malignant expression of the face she had
been covering with kisses, till he hastily released himself from her
arms, and without returning her greeting, advanced to the chief, to whom
he whispered again.
A fiendish light broke to the Shawnee’s eye; he arose, thrust a tomahawk
into his belt, and taking up his rifle, went out. Butler was about to
follow, but Tahmeroo again stood before him, extending her arms with an
imploring gesture.
“You will not go away yet,” she said. “You have scarcely spoken to me
since we reached Wyoming—don’t go yet!”
“Stand out of the way, foolish child!” he exclaimed, rudely pushing her
aside. “I have other matters to think of!”
The Indian blood flashed up to Tahmeroo’s cheek, her eye kindled, her
form was drawn to its proudest height as she stood aside and allowed her
husband to pass out.
Catharine had started to her feet when the Shawnee went out, and now
stood pale as death; so much agitated by her apprehensions that the
rudeness offered to her daughter escaped her notice. But as Butler was
hurrying through the doorway she stepped forward and grasped his arm
with an energy that caused him to turn with something like an oath at
what he supposed the importunity of his wife. Catharine took no heed of
his impatience.
“Butler,” she said, “I fear there will be more bloodshed; for sweet
mercy’s sake, appease the chief. You have the power; oh, do not lose the
opportunity. I think it would kill us all were another scalp to be
brought in——”
She broke off suddenly, and shrunk back with a sick shudder, for a gust
of wind swept the long hair which streamed from a female scalp over the
entrance, directly across her face. Butler took advantage of her emotion
to make his escape.
“Have no fear, madam,” he said, freeing his arm from her grasp, and
brushing the scalp carelessly back with his hand, as he went out; “you
shall have no cause. I must hasten to the council at the fort.”
Catharine Montour comprehended him; but, too sick for reply, drew back
to her daughter’s couch, and sat down, faint and quite overcome. There
had been something horrible in the feeling of that long, fair hair as it
swept over her face; her nerves still quivered with the thought of it.
“Mother,” said Tahmeroo, rising from the ground, where she had cast
herself, and winding her arms around Catharine, “oh, mother, comfort
me—do comfort me, or my heart will break!”
Catharine pressed her lips upon the forehead of the young wife, and
murmured:
“What troubles you, my child?”
She looked fondly and affectionately on the grieved face which lay upon
her bosom as she spoke, and her heart ached when she saw how
disappointments, regrets, and checked tenderness had worn upon its
former rich beauty. The wrung heart had spread a sadness over those
features, as the worm in the bosom of a flower withers all its
surrounding leaves.
Tahmeroo burst into a passion of tears at her mother’s question.
“Did you not see him, mother?—how he pushed his own wife aside, as if
she had been a wild animal—did you not see him thrust her away without a
kiss, or one kind word? Oh, mother, my heart is growing hard. I shall
hate him, mother.”
Catharine laid her hand on the throbbing forehead of her daughter, and
remained in a solemn and serious thought. At length she spoke in a deep
and impressive voice.
“No, my child, I did not see this rudeness, for my thoughts were on
other things—but listen to me, Tahmeroo. Since the day that you were
first laid in my bosom, like a young bird in the nest of its mother, my
heart has hovered over yours, as that mother-bird guards its youngling.
I have watched every new faculty as it has sprung up and blossomed in
your mind. I have striven to guide each strong passion as it dawned in
your heart; your nature has been to me as a garden, which I could enter
and cultivate and beautify, when disgusted with the weedy and poisonous
growth of human nature as I have found it in the world; as I have found
it in my own heart; but there is one thing which I have not done. I have
laid no foundation of religion and principle in this young soul; I had
become an unbeliever in the faith of my fathers. I acknowledged no God,
and resolutely turned my thoughts from a future. My spirit had erected
to itself one idol—an idol which it was sin to love, and double sin to
worship as I worshipped.
“I will not show to you, my child, the progress of a life—a wretched
destiny which was regulated by one sin; a foible most men would call it,
for human judgment fixes on acts, not on that more subtle sin, a train
of unlawful thoughts; I will not show to you the working of that sin; it
is the curse of evil that its consequences never cease; that thought is
interlinked with thought, event with event, and that the effects of one
wrong creep like serpents through the whole chain of a human life,
following the perpetrator even in the grave.
“My own destiny would be a painful illustration of this truth—might be
the salvation of many in its moral, but when did example save? When did
the fall of one human being prevent the fall of another? Why should I
expose my own errors, in hopes to preserve you, my child, from similar
wrong? What you have just said startles and pains me; I know your
nature, and know that you will never cease to love the man whom you have
married; indifferent you will never be—a sense of wrong indignation, if
indulged in, may make the love of your heart a pain—may sap away the
good within you, engender all those regrets that poison the joy of
affection.
“Tahmeroo, struggle against this feeling; you little dream of the
terrible misery which it will bring to you. Bear everything, abuse,
insult, neglect—everything, but cast not yourself loose from your only
hope. Your safety lies in the very love which, though it make the
bitterness of your life, is its safeguard, too. In your own heart is the
strength you must look for, not in his. If he wrongs you, forget it, if
you can—excuse it, if you cannot forget it. Think not of your own rights
too much; where struggling is sure to bring misery, it is better to
forbear. I could say much more, for my heart is full of anxiety and
sorrow. I know not why, but my spirit droops, as if your head were on my
bosom, and your arms about me for the last time forever.”
Catharine stooped down and kissed the tremulous lips of her child. She
was answered back with a gush of gentle tears.
“Weep on, my daughter; I love to see you shed such tears, for there is
no passion in them. I cannot tell you how dearly I love and have ever
loved you, for deep feeling has no words; but we shall part soon; there
is something in my heart which tells me so—the grave will come between
us, and you will be left with no stronger guide than your own warm
impulses.
“Kiss me once more, and listen. Should we be parted by death, or should
Butler claim my promise to send you to England, go first to the
missionary, and convey to him the little ebony box at the head of your
couch; tell him all that I have said to you, and ask him to become a
protector and a friend to Catharine Granby’s child. Tell him that since
the night of her daughter’s marriage she has been a changed woman—that
the voice of his prayer that night awoke memories which will never sleep
again—awoke answering prayer in a bosom which had almost forgotten its
faith. He will listen to you, my child, and when I am gone you will find
a safe and wise protector in him. He will teach you how to regulate your
too enthusiastic feelings. Promise that you will seek this good man when
I am taken away—do you promise, Tahmeroo?”
“I will promise anything—everything, mother; but do not talk so
sadly—your voice sounds mournful as the night wind among the pines.”
Tahmeroo said no more, for her heart was full; but she laid her cheek
against her mother’s, and remained in her embrace silent and sorrowful.