We were seated near the edge of the little opening where we had
encamped, a pretty parterre, fragrant with the perfume of a thousand
flowers. The moon was shedding down a flood of silvery light, and
objects around appeared almost as distinct as by day. The leaves of the
tall palms--the waxen flowers of the magnolias--the yellow blossoms of
the zanthoxylon trees could all be distinguished in the clear moonbeams.
The four of us were seated together, brothers and sisters, conversing
freely, as in the olden times, and the scene vividly recalled those
times to all of us. But the memory now produced only sad reflections,
as it suggested thoughts of the future. Perhaps we four should never
thus meet again. Gazing upon the doomed form before me, I had no heart
for reminiscences of joy.
We had passed Fort King in safety--had encountered no white face--
strange I should fear to meet men of my own race--and no longer had we
any apprehension of danger, either from ambush or open attack.
The Indian guards, with black Jake in their midst, were near the centre
of the glade, grouped by a fire, and cooking their suppers. So secure
did the chieftain feel that he had not even placed a sentinel on the
path. He appeared indifferent to danger.
The night was waning late, and we were about retiring to the tents,
which the men had pitched for us, when a singular noise reach us from
the woods. To my ears it sounded like the surging of water--as of heavy
rain, or the sough of distant rapids.
Osceola interpreted it otherwise. It was the continuous "whistling" of
leaves, caused by numerous bodies passing through the bushes, either of
men, or animals.
We instantly rose to our feet, and stood listening.
The noise continued, but now we could hear the snapping of dead
branches, and the metallic clink of weapons.
It was too late to retreat. The noise came from every ride. A circle
of armed men were closing around the glade.
I looked towards Osceola. I expected to see him rush to his rifle that
lay near. To my surprise he did not stir.
His few followers were already on the alert, and had hastened to his
side to receive his orders. Their words and gestures declared their
determination to die in his defence.
In reply to their hurried speeches, the chieftain made a sign that
appeared to astonish them. The butts of their guns suddenly dropped to
the ground, and the warriors stood in listless attitudes, as if they had
given up the intention of using them.
"It is too late," said Osceola in a calm voice, "too late! we are
completely surrounded. Innocent blood might be spilled, and mine is the
only life they are in search of. Let them come on--they are welcome to
it now. Farewell, sister! Randolph, farewell!--farewell, Virg--."
The plaintive screams of Maumee--of Virginia--my own bursting, and no
longer silent grief, drowned the voice that was uttering those wild
adieus.
Clustered around the chief, we knew not what was passing, until the
shouts of men, and the loud words of command proceeding from their
officers, warned us that we were in the midst of a battalion of
soldiers. On looking up we saw that we were hemmed in by a circle of
men in blue uniform, whose glancing barrels and bayonets formed a
_chevaux de frise_ around us.
As no resistance was offered, not a shot had been fired; and save the
shouting of men, and the ringing of steel, no other sounds were heard.
Shots were fired afterwards, but not to kill. It was a _feu-de-joie_ to
celebrate the success of this important capture.
The capture was soon complete--Osceola, held by two men, stood in the
midst of his pale-faced foes a prisoner. His followers were also
secured, and the soldiers fell back into more extended line--the
prisoners still remaining in their midst.
At this moment a mail appeared in front of the ranks, and near to where
the captives were standing. He was in conversation with the officer who
commanded. His dress bespoke him an Indian; but his yellow face
contradicted the supposition. His head was turbaned, and three black
plumes drooped over his brow. There was no mistaking the man. The
sight was maddening. It restored all his fierce energy to the captive
chief; and flinging aside the soldiers, as if they had been tools, he
sprang forth from their grasp, and bounded towards the yellow man.
Fortunate for the latter, Osceola was unarmed. He had no weapon left
him--neither pistol nor knife--and while wringing a bayonet from the gun
of a soldier, the traitor found time to escape.
The chief uttered a groan as he saw the mulatto pass through the serried
line, and stand secure beyond the reach of his vengeance.
It was but a fancied security on the part of the mulatto. The death of
the renegade was decreed, though it reached him from an unexpected
quarter.
As he stood outside, bantering the captives, a dark form was seen
gliding up behind him. The form was that of a woman--a majestic woman--
whose grand beauty was apparent even in the moonlight. But few saw
either her or her beauty. The prisoners alone were facing towards her,
and witnessed her approach.
It was a scene of only a few seconds' duration. The woman stole close
up to the mulatto, and for a moment her arms appeared entwined around
his neck. There was the sheen of some object that in the moonlight
gleamed like metal. It was a living weapon--it was the dread
_crotalus_!
Its rattle could be heard distinctly, and close following came a wild
cry of terror, as its victim felt the cold contact of the reptile around
his neck, and its sharp fangs entering his flesh.
The woman was seen suddenly to withdraw the serpent, and holding its
glistening body over her head, she cried out:
"Grieve not, Osceola! thou art avenged!--the chitta mico has avenged
you!"
Saying this, she glided rapidly away, and before the astonished
listeners could intercept her retreat, she had entered among the bushes
and disappeared.
The horror-struck wretch tottered over the ground, pale and terrified,
his eyes almost starting from their sockets.
Men gathered around and endeavoured to administer remedies. Gunpowder
and tobacco were tried, but no one knew the simples that would cure him.
It proved his death-stroke; and before another sun went down, he had
ceased to live.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
With Osceola's capture the war did not cease--though I bore no further
part in it. Neither did it end with his death, which followed a few
weeks after--not by court-martial execution, for he was no rebel, and
could claim the privilege of a prisoner of war, but of that disease
which he knew had long doomed him. Captivity may have hastened the
event. His proud spirit sank under confinement, and with it the noble
frame that contained it.
Friends and enemies stood around him in his last hour, and listened to
his dying words. Both alike wept. In that chamber there was not a
tearless cheek--and many a soldier's eye was moist as he listened to the
muffled dram that made music over the grave of the _noble Osceola_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After all, it proved to be the jovial captain who had won the heart of
my capricious sister. It was long before I discovered their secret--
which let light in upon a maze of mysteries--and I was so spited about
their having concealed it from me, that I almost refused to share the
plantation with them.
When I did so at length, under threat of Virginia--not her solicitor--I
kept what I considered the better half for myself and Maumee. The old
homestead remained ours, and a new house soon appeared upon it--a
fitting casket for the jewel it was destined to contain.
I had still an out-plantation to spare--the fine old Spanish clearing on
the Tupelo Greek. I wanted a man to manage it--or rather a "man and
wife of good character without incumbrances."
And for the purpose, who could have been better than black Jake and
Viola, since they completely answered the above conditions?
I had another freehold at my disposal--a very small one. It was
situated by the edge of the swamp, and consisted of a log cabin, with
the most circumscribed of all "clearings" around it. But this was
already in possession of a tenant whom, although he paid no rent, I
would not have ejected for the world. He was an old alligator-hunter of
the name of Hickman.
Another of like "kidney"--Weatherford by name--lived near on an
adjoining plantation; but the two were oftener together than apart.
Both had suffered a good deal of rough handling in their time, from the
claws of "bars," the jaws and tails of alligators, and the tomahawk of
Indians. When together or among friends, they were delighted to narrate
their hair-breadth escapes, and both were often heard to declare that
the "toughest scrape they ever come clar out o', wor when they wor on a
jury-trial, surrounded by a burnin' forest o' dog-goned broom pines, an'
about ten thousand red Indyuns."
They did come clear out of it, however, and lived long after to tell the
tale with many a fanciful exaggeration.