Rigid was the watch maintained that night in the camp of our Frenchmen. Fortunately, they had obtained that day a fresh supply of food while passing through a miserable hamlet, from which the occupants had fled at their approach. Their supper was eaten in silence and anxiety. The watches throughout the night were two, Le Genré taking the first, while D’Erlach, from twelve till daylight, maintained the last. There were no alarms. The Indians had retired, as was conjectured, to place themselves in some favorite place of ambush against the coming of the Frenchmen the next day. One of the two men who had been most severely wounded among the Frenchmen, died that night in great agony. The arrow of the savage had penetrated to his lungs. He had imprudently thrown off his coat of escaupil, in consequence of the great heat of the noonday, and a skirmish took place before he could reclothe himself, in which he received his hurt. D’Erlach had the body laid in the deepest portion of the bay, its only covering being a forest of canes, which were cut down and thrown over the corpse.
With the first rosy blush of the dawn, the little troop was in motion. At setting off D’Erlach gave ample directions for the anticipated conflict. His command was divided into three companies. From the first of these, three men were commissionedto deliver the fire of their pieces on the appearance of the Indians. The rest were to discharge one of the two loaded sections of cane attached to the matchlocks. The second and third were to do likewise. The effect of this arrangement would be to leave ten out of nineteen pieces undischarged, and ready for fatal use on the more daring approach of the savages. Their preparations, and the proposedrusewere soon put to proof. It was about nine o’clock in the morning, when the company was about to enter a defile which led to an extensive tract of pines. At the entrance, on each hand, stretched a morass that seemed interminable. The opening to the pine forest seemed a narrow gorge, the jaws of which were densely occupied with a tangled thicket that seemed to baffle approach. D’Erlach saw the dangers which awaited him in such a defile. His three bands were made to march separately as they approached it, and very slowly. A moderate interval lay between them, which would enable them, while an enemy could only attack them singly, in turn to support each other. The judgment of our young lieutenant did not deceive him. On each side of this gorge, Oolenoe had posted his warriors. They occupied the shelter of the thicket on both hands. Their eagerness and impatience, increased by the slow progress of the Frenchmen, whom they regarded as only marching to the slaughter, lost them some of the advantages of this position. They showed themselves too soon. With a horrid howl the young warriors discharged their arrows from the covert, and then boldly dashed out among the pines. The Frenchmen were nerved for the struggle. Forewarned, they had been forearmed. There was no surprise. Coolly, the three select men delivered the fire of their pieces, and each with fatal effect. In the same moment the charged barrels of the cane were ignited andtorn asunder by an explosion which was sufficiently gun-like to deceive the unpractised ear of the Indian. The savages answered this fire by a cloud of arrows, and began to advance. It was now that the remaining section of the division, which had retained their fire, delivered it with great precision and an effect similar to the former; those who had emptied their pieces on the previous occasion, contenting themselves with discharging a cane. By this time, the two other divisions, under D’Erlach, had pushed through the gorge, and were spreading themselves right and left, among the pines, in a situation to practice the same game with their assailants, which had been played so well by the foremost party. We must not follow the caprices of the battle. It is enough to say that, deceived by the apparent discharge of all the pieces of the Frenchmen, the Indians, headed by Oolenoe himself, dashed desperately upon their enemies, and were received by the fatal fire from more than a dozen guns, which sent their foremost men headlong to the ground, the subtle chief, Oolenoe himself, among them. At this sight, the savages set up a howl of dismay, and fled in all directions; while Oolenoe, thrice staggering to his feet, at length sunk back upon the ground, writhing in an agony which did not, however, prevent him, on the approach of D’Erlach, from making a desperate effort to smite him with his stone hatchet. His whole form collapsed with the effort, and wrenching the rude but heavy implement from the dying savage, the lieutenant drove it into his brain and ended his agonies with a single stroke.
With this adventure, the difficulties of the party ceased. That night they reached the fortress, in season to confirm the authority of Laudonniere; and, as we have seen, to assist in the execution of the mutineers by whom he had been temporarily overthrown.
Sustainedand reassured by the return of his lieutenant, Laudonniere, released from his bonds, proceeded to re-organize his garrison. He promoted those who had proved faithful when all threatened to be false, and deprived the doubtful, or the dangerous, of all their previous trusts. To improve and strengthen his forts, to build vessels, which were to supply the places of those which the mutineers had taken, and others of smaller burthen for the express navigation of the river, were his immediate cares, in all of which his progress was considerable. During this period he lived on relations of tolerable amity with his Indian neighbors. Their little crops had, by this time, been harvested, and they were not unwilling to exchange their surplus productions for the objects of European manufacture which they coveted. The supplies brought by the red-men were “fish, deere, turki-cocks, leopards, little beares, and other things, according to the place of their habitation,” for which they were recompensed with “certaine hatchets, knives, beades of glasse, combs, and looking-glasses.” The “leopards and little beares” were probably wild cats and raccoons, or opossums, all of which furnished excellent feeding to our hungry Frenchmen in September. The wild-catis usually a fat beast, differing very considerably from the more savage tribes to whom we liken him, the wolf and the panther; while the opossum is probably the fattest of all animals at seasons when the forest mast is abundant. Of the quality of the meat we will say nothing. To those with whom the appetite has been made properly subservient to the taste, and who suffer from no necessities, his flavor is scarcely such as legitimates his admission into the kitchen. But the case is far otherwise with those inferior tribes with whom the appetites are coarse and eager. The negro is seldom so well satisfied as when he feeds on ’possum. “’Possum,” is the common remark among this people, “’possum heap better than pig!” To those who know how high is the estimate which the negro sets upon the pig family—an estimate which is the occasion of an epidemic under which a fat pig, straying into the woods in June and July, is sure to perish—the compliment is inappreciable.
Thus, feeding well, with his health and self-esteem gradually recovering, Laudonniere began to resume his explorations, and to cast his eyes about him with his old desire for precious discoveries. It was about this time that he was visited by a couple of savages from the dominions of King Maracou. This potentate dwelt some forty leagues to the south of La Caroline. The Indians, among other matters, related to Laudonniere that, in the service of another native monarch named Onathaqua, there was a man whom they called “Barbu, or the bearded man,” who was not of the people of the country. Another foreigner, whose name they knew not, was said to inhabit the house of King Mathiaca, a forest chieftain, whose tribes occupied a contiguous region. From the descriptions thus given him, Laudonniere readily conceived that these strange men were Christians. He accordingly openeda communication with the tribes by which the intermediate country was occupied, and under the stimulus of a liberal recompense, promised them in European goods, the two strangers were brought in safety to La Caroline. The conjecture of Laudonniere proved rightly founded. They were white men and Christians—Spaniards who had suffered shipwreck some fifteen years before, upon the flats called “The Martyrs,” and over and against that region of the country, which at this period was called Calos—from a great native prince of that name.[22]This savage repaired to the wreck, and carried off into captivity its crew and passengers. Many of these were women, who became the wives of their conquerors. The king of Calos, whom a Spaniard described as the “goodliest and the tallest Indian of the country, a mighty man, a warrior, and having many subjects under his obedience,” not only saved the Europeans from their wreck, but, by diligent and indefatigable perseverance, rescued most of the treasure that was in the vessel; the wealth which had been gleaned with unsparing cruelties from the bowels of the earth in Peru and Mexico. The treasures thus obtained by King Calos, were represented to be of almost limitless value. “He had great store of golde and silver, so farre forth that, in a certaine village, he had a pit full thereof, which was at the least as high as a man, and as large as a tunne.” According to our Spaniards, it might be easy, “with an hundred shot,” to obtain all this spoil; to say nothing of the scattered treasures which might be gleaned from the common people of the country. That the extent of their resources might not be under-valued, the captive Christiansfarther informed him, that the young women of the country, when engaged in their primitive dances, assembled to their festivities in a glorious costume, such as would be an irresistible charm in any European assembly. They were not only lovely in themselves, with their dark beauties partially unfolded to the gaze, and the tawny hues enlivened by the warm lustre of the sun, shining in crimson flushes through the prevailing hue of the complexion, but they wore, suspended from their girdles, plates of gold, large as a saucer, the number and weight of which would have totally impeded the action as well as agility of any but a people so exquisitely and vigorously proportioned. The men wore similar decorations, though not perhaps in such great profusion. This gold, according to their account, was derived chiefly from vessels cast away—the coasts of the territory of King Calos being particularly treacherous, and their secret, lurking shoals frequently rising up suddenly to rob the king of Spain of his hardly-won ingots. The residue of his wealth in the precious metals, King Calos derived from the kings and chiefs of the interior. Perhaps more of it was obtained in this way than our Spaniards knew. There can be no doubt but that the mines of the great Apalachian ranges were explored, however imperfectly, by the red-men of the country, following, in all probability, some superior races, who first taught them where to look, and of whom we have now but the most imperfect vestiges.
Among the articles of traffic, which the people of Calos sold to the interior tribes, was a domestic root, constituting a favorite bread-stuff which was particularly grateful to the palates of their people. This is described as forming a fine flour, than which it it is impossible to find better, and as supplying the wants of an immense tract of country. It was undoubtedly the breadstuffknown ascoontiin modern periods. This, and a species of date, taken from a sort of palm tree—the persimmon probably—were commodities in which they dealt to great extent. Of the root from which they made their favorite breadstuff, it is written, that the proprietors were very slow to part with, unless well paid for it. The people of King Calos are probably to be traced through a thousand fluctuations of place, character and fortune, to the Seminoles of recent periods—a like people, living in the same region, and rejoicing in the same fruits and freedom.
Of this King Calos, the narrative of our Spaniards goes farther, passing finally into the province of the miraculous. He is described as a prince held in special reverence by his subjects;—not simply for his valor as a soldier, or his wisdom as a ruler, but his wondrous powers as a magician. He seems to have combined the civil and the religious powers of the nation—to have been priest and prophet as well as Governor. The government of his country, like that of simple nations generally, was theocratic and patriarchal. His people were taught to believe that it was through his spells and incantations, that the earth brought forth her fruits. He resorted to various arts to perpetuate this faith, and various cruelties to subdue and punish that spirit of inquiry which might test too closely the propriety of his spiritual claims. Twice a year he retired from the sight of all his subjects, two or three of his friends alone excepted, and was supposed, at this season, to be busy with his mighty sorceries. Woe to the unlucky wretch who, whether purposely or by accident, intruded upon his mysteries. The dwelling to which he had resort was tabooed on every hand; and death, with the most fearful penalties, stood warningly at all the avenues by which it was approached. Each year a prisoner was sacrificed to the savage god he served; andthis prisoner, so long as Barbu had been a captive, had been a Spaniard always—the supply being sufficient, from the frequency of wrecks upon the coast, by which an adequate number of captives was always to be had. The dominions of Calos are described as lying along a river, beyond the cape of Florida, forty or fifty leagues towards the southwest; while those of Onathaqua were nearer to La Caroline, on the northern side of the cape, “in a place which we call in the chart, Cannaverel, which is in 28 degrees.”
When the two Spaniards were brought before Laudonniere they were entirely naked. Their hair hung below their loins, as did that of the savages; and so completely had they become accustomed to the habits of the red-men, that the resumption of the costume of civilization was not only strange but irksome. But Laudonniere was not disposed to permit their acquired habits to supersede those of their origin. He caused the hair of his newly-found Christians to be shorn, as heedless of the loss of strength which might follow as ever was Dalilah while docking the long locks of her giant lover. It was with great reluctance that the wild men submitted to this shearing. When the hair was finally taken off they insisted upon preserving it, and rolling it in linen put it away carefully, to be shown in Europe as a proof of their wild and cruel experience. In removing the shock from one of them, a little treasure of gold was found hidden in its masses, to the value of five-and-twenty crowns, by which the Spaniard conclusively proved that one portion of his Spanish education had never deserted him. What a commentary upon the wisdom of civilization, that, in such a state, with such bonds, after such losses, of freedom, position, and the society of all the well-beloved and equal, his heart should still yearn for the keeping of a treasure which must, at every moment, have only served to mockthe possessor with the dearer treasures of home, country, friends, religion, of which his fortunes had made utter forfeit. But let us pass to the narrative of Barbu, himself—one of the recovered Spaniards—which we owe, in some degree to history, but mostly to tradition.
Nowwhen Barbu, the bearded man, who had been dwelling among the people of Calos, had been shorn of the long and matted hair and beard, which had made him much more fearful to the eye than any among the savages themselves,—and when our right worthy captain had commanded that we should bathe and cleanse him, and had given him shirts of fine linen and clothes from his own wardrobe, so that he should once more appear like a Christian man among his kindred,—albeit he seemed to be greatly disquieted, and exceedingly awkward therein,—then did he conduct him into thecorps de garde, where our people were all bidden to assemble. There, being seated all, Barbu, the Spaniard, being entreated thereto by our right worthy captain, proceeded to unfold the full relation of the grievous strait and peril by which he had fallen into the power of King Calos, and of what happened to him thereafter. And it was curious to see how that he, a Spaniard born, and not ill-educated in one of the goodly towns of old Spain, in all gentle learning, should, in the space of fifteen years sojourn among the savages, have so greatly suffered the loss of his native tongue. Slow was he of speech, and greatly minded to piece out with theIndian language the many words in which the memory of his own had failed him. Well was it for our understanding of what he delivered, that so many of us had been dwelling among the red-men at other times,—to speak nothing of Monsieur D’Erlach, Monsieur Ottigny, both lieutenants in the garrison, and Monsieur La Roche Ferriere, who, with another, by special commandment of our captain, had dwelt for a matter of several months among the people of King Olata Utina. By means of the help brought by these, we were enabled to find the meaning of those words in which Barbu failed in his Spanish. So it was that we followed the fortunes of the bearded man, according to the narrative as here set down.
Then, at the repeated entreaty of Monsieur Laudonniere, Barbu arose and spoke:
“First, Señor Captain, I have to declare how much I thank you for the protection you have given me, the kindness which has clad me once more in Christian garments, and the cost and travail with which you have recovered me from my bonds among the heathen. Albeit, that I feel strangely in these new habits, and that my native tongue comes back to me slowly when I would speak from a full and overflowing heart, yet will I strive to make you sensible of all the facts in my sad history, and of the great gratitude which I feel for those by whose benevolence I may fondly hope that my troubles are about to end. I know not now the day or season when we left the port of Nombre de Dios, in an excellent ship, well filled with treasures of the mine, and a goodly company, on our return to the land of our fathers beyond the sea. My own share in the wealth of this vessel was considerable, and I had other treasures in the person of a dear brother, and a sister whoaccompanied us. Our sister was married to one who was with us also, and the united wealth of the three, such was our fond expectations, would enable us to retire to our native town of Burgos, and commend us to the favor of our people. But it was written that we should not realize these blessed expectations, and that I alone, of the four, should be again permitted to dwell among a Christian people. Yet I give not up the hope that I shall yet see my brother, who was carried away among the Indians of the far west, when we were scattered among the tribes, in the grand division of our captives. But this part of my story comes properly hereafter.
“We put to sea from the port of Nombre de Dios with very favoring winds; but these lasted us not long, ere they came out from all quarters of the heavens, and we ran before the storm under a rag of sail, without knowing in what course we sped. Thus, for three days, we were driven before the baffling winds; and when the storm lulled, the clouds still hung about us, and our pilot wot nothing of that part of the sea in which we went. Two days more followed, and still we were saddened by the clouds that kept evermore coming down from heaven, and brooding upon the deep like great fogs that gather in the morn among the mountains. Thus we sped, weary and desponding as we were, without any certainty as to the course we kept, or the region of space or country round about us. Meanwhile, the seams of our vessel began to yawn, and great was the labor which followed, to all hands, to keep her clear of water. This we did not wholly; and it was in vain that our carpenter sought for, in order to stop, the leak. Thus, weary and sad, we continued still sweeping forward slowly, looking anxiously, with many prayers, for the sun by day and the moon and stars bynight. But the Blessed Virgin was implored in vain. We had offended. There was treasure on board the vessel, but it was stained with blood. You have not heard in your histories of the bloody Juan de Mores y Silva, who tortured the unhappy Mexicans by fire, even in the caverns where they resided, seeking the gold, which they gained not sufficiently soon, or in sufficient quantity, to satisfy his cruel lust for wealth. He was one of our companions on this voyage, bound homewards with an immense subsidy in ingots—huge chests of gold and silver—with which he aimed to swell into grandeur with new titles, when he arrived in Spain. But the just Providence willed it otherwise. He was, doubtless, the Jonah in our vessel, who fought against the prayers for mercy and protection which the true believers addressed to the Holy Virgin in our behalf.”
Here our captain, Laudonniere, interrupted Barbu, andsaid—
“Verily, Señor Spaniard, had thy prayer been addressed to God himself, the Father, through the intervention and the mediation of the Blessed Saviour, his Son, whose blood was shed for sinners, it might have better profited thy case. Thy prayers to the Virgin were an unseemly elevation of a mortal woman over the divinity of the Godhead. But I will not vex thee with disputation. Thou art a Christian, though it is after a fashion which, to me seems scarcely more becoming than that of these poor savages of Calos, who yield faith, as thou tellest me, to the spells and enchantments of their bloody sovereign. But, proceed with thy story, which I shall be slow to break in upon again until thou art well ended.”
With the permission thus vouchsafed him, Barbu, the bearded man, thus resumed his discourse:
“We plead for the interposition of the Virgin, Monsieur leCapitaine, not as we deem her the source of power and of mercy, but as we hold it irreverent to rush even with our prayers to the feet of the awful Father himself; and rejoice to believe that she who was specially chosen, as one who should bear the burden of the Saviour-child, was of a spirit properly sanctified and pure for such purposes of interposition. But, as thou sayest, we will leave this matter. If we offend in our rites and offices, it is because we err in judgment, and not that our hearts wish to afflict the feelings or the thoughts of those who see with other eyes the truth. Besides, my long and outlandish abode among the red-men, might well excuse me many errors.”
“And so, indeed, it might, Señor Spaniard,” said Laudonniere graciously; then, as the latter remained silent, Barbu continued:
“Doubtless, Señor, as I said before, the bloody Juan de Mores y Silva, was the Jonah of our vessel, on whose account the Blessed Providence turned a deaf ear to our prayers and entreaties. It was not decreed that he should escape to rejoice in his ill-gotten treasure; and his fortunes were so mixed up with ours, that the overthrow of one was necessarily at the grievous loss and peril of us all. How many days we lay tossing on the tumultuous waves, or swept to and fro, beaten and sore distressed by the violent and changeful winds, I do not now remember, but it was in very sickness and hopelessness of heart, that we lay down at night as one lies down and submits to a power with which he feels himself wholly powerless to contend. Thus did we cast ourselves down—as the dreary shades of night came over us, with a deeper and drearier cloud than ever,—not seeking sleep, but seized upon by it, as it were, to save us from the suffering, akin to madness, which must haply follow upon our fearful waking thoughts. While we slept, our vessel struck upon the low flats of the Martyrs—those shoalswhich have laid bare the ribs of so many goodly and gold-laden ships of my countrymen, sucking down their brave hearts and all their treasures in the deep. We were lifted high by the surges, and rested, beyond recovery, upon the shoals, from which the remorseless seas refused again to lift us off. Our vessel lay upon one side, and the greedy waves rushed into her hold. We were stunned rather than awakened by the shock. We strove not for safety or repair. How many perished in the moment when the ship fell over I know not, but one of these was the husband of my sister. He was drowned in the first rush of the billows into the ship, though, as it was night, we knew it not. My sister had thrown herself beside my brother, and was sleeping upon his arm. She was the first to learn her misfortune, awaking, as she averred, to hear the faint cries of her lord for succor, though she knew not whence the sounds arose. When our eyes opened upon the scene, strange to say, the clouds had disappeared. The dark waves of the tempest had sped away to other regions. A gentle breeze from the land had arisen, full of sweet fragrance and a healing freshness, and, bright over head, in the blessed heavens, blossomed fresh the eternal host of the stars. Oh! the life and soothing in that smile of God. But we were not strong for the blessing, nor sufficiently grateful that life was still vouchsafed us. The day dawned upon us to increase our wretchedness. It left us without hope. Our food was ruined by the waves that filled the vessel, and though the land was spread before us in a lengthened stripe, bearing forests which were surely full of fragrance, we beheld not the means by which we should gain its pleasant shores with safety. Our boats had perished in the surf; one of them stove to pieces, and the other swept away. In our despondency and our sleep we had yielded our courage and our providence,and we lay now in the sight of heaven, amidst the equal realm of sea and sky, with the land spreading lovelily before us, yet could we do nothing for ourselves. We lay without food or drink all day, seeing nothing but the bare skies, the sea, and the shore, which only mocked our eyes. My sister sorrowed and sickened in my arms. She cried for water as one cries in the delirious agonies of fever. She would drink of the water of the deep, but this we denied her; and the day sunk again, and with it her hope and strength. With the increase of the winds that night, she grew delirious; and, when we knew not—and this was strange, for I cannot believe that I closed mine eyes that night—she disappeared. Once, it seemed that I heard her voice, in a wild scream, calling me by name, and I started forward to feel that she was gone. She left my arms while I lay insensible. It was not sleep. It was stupor. My consciousness was drowned in my great grief, and in the exhaustion of all my strength for lack of food.
“My brother and myself alone survived of all our family. With the knowledge that our sister was really gone—swallowed up, doubtless, in the remorseless deep, into which she had darted in her delirium—we came to a full consciousness. Then, when it was only misery to know, we were permitted to know all, and to feel the whole terrible truth pressing upon us, that we were alone in that dreary world of sea. Not alone of our company; only of our people. Many there were who still kept in life, watchful but hopeless. We could see their dusky forms by the faint light of the stars, crouching along the slanting plane of the vessel, upon which, by cord, and sail, and spar, we still contrived to maintain foothold; and, anon, our company would lessen. The solemn silence of all things, except the dash of the wavesagainst us, rolling up with murmurs, and breaking away in wrath, was interrupted only by a sullen plunge, ever and anon, into the engulphing deep, as the hope went out utterly in the heart of the victim, and he yielded to death, rather than prolong the wretched endurance of a life so full of misery.
“Thus the night passed; not without other signs to cheer as well as startle us. Through the darkness we could see lights in the direction of the shore, as if borne by human hands. With the dawn of day, our eyes were turned eagerly in that direction. Nor did we look in vain. The shore swarmed with human forms. A hundred canoes were already darting along the margin of the great deep, and evident were the preparations of the people of this wild region, to visit our stranded vessel. In a little time they came. Their canoes were some of them large enough to carry forty warriors, though made from a single tree. They came to us in order of battle; a hundred boats, holding each from ten to fifty warriors. These carried spear and shield, huge lances, and well-curved bows, drawn with powerful sinews of the deer. Their arrows were long shafts of the feathery reed, such as flourish in all these forests. The feather from the eagle’s wing gave it buoyancy, and the end of the shaft was barbed with a keen flint, wrought by art to an edge such as our best workmen give to steel. Many were the chief men among these warriors, who approached us in full panoply of barbaric pomp. Turbans of white and crimson-stained cotton, such as the Turk is shown to wear, though folded in a still nobler fashion, were wrapped about their heads, over which shook bunches of plumes taken from the paroquet, the crane, and the eagle. Robes of cotton, white, or crimson, or scarlet, colored with native dies of the forest, clothed their loins, and fell flowing from their shoulders;and, ever and anon, as they came, they shook a thousand gourds which they had made to rattle with little pebbles, which, with their huge drum, wrought of the mammoth gourd, and covered with raw deer skin, made a clamor most astounding to our hapless ears. Thus they hailed our vessel, making it appear as if they intended to have fought us; but when they beheld how famishing we lay before them, with scarcely strength and courage enough to plead for mercy—speaking only through our dry and scalded eyes, and by clasping our hard and weary hands together—then it seemed as if they at once understood and felt for us; and they drew nigh with their canoes, and lowered their weapons, and darting with lithe sinews upon the sides of our leaning vessel, they held gourds of water to our lips, which cheered us while we swallowed, as with the sense of a fresh existence.
“Thus were we rescued from the yawning deep. The savages took us, with a rough kindness, from the wreck. They carried us in their canoes to the shore; and several were the survivors, as well women as men. They gave us food and nourishment, and when we were refreshed and strengthened, they separated us from our comrades, sharing us among our captors, each according to his rank, his power, or his favor with his sovereign. Seventeen of our poor Christians were thus scattered among the tribes and over the territories of the king of Calos. Some were kept in his household; but my hapless brother was not among them. He was given to a chief of the far tribes of the West, who made instant preparation to depart with him. When they would have borne us apart, with a swift bound and a common instinct, we buried ourselves in a mutual embrace. The chiefs looked on with a laugh that made us shudder; while he to whom my brother was given, with a savage growl, thrust his handsinto the flowing locks of my brother, and hurled him away to the grasp of those who stood in waiting for the captive. He struggled once more to embrace me, and long after I could hear his cry—‘Brother, brother, shall we see each other never more!’ They heeded not his cries or struggles, or mine. They threw him to the ground with violence, bound him hand and foot, with gyves of the forest, and placing him in one of their great canoes, they sped away with him along the shores, as they treaded to the mighty West, where roll the great waters of the Mechachebe.
“Thus was I separated from my only surviving kinsman; and neither of us could tell the fate which was in waiting for the other. Verily, then did I look to find the worst. I no longer had a hope. It is my shame, as a Christian, that, in that desolate moment, I ceased to have a fear. I not only expected death, but I longed for it. I could have kissed the friendly hand that had driven the heavy stone hatchet of the savage into my brain. But, the Blessed Mother of God be praised, I thought not, in my despair, to do violence to my own self. That sin was spared me among my many sins, in that hour of despondency and woe; and all my crime consisted in the criminal indifference which made me too little heedful to preserve life. But this indifference lasted not long. I was the captive of the king of Calos himself. Nine others were kept by him including me, and among these was the cruel tyrant upon whose head lay the blood of so many of the wretched people of Mexico, Don Juan de Mores y Silva. He was the tyrant no longer. All his strength and courage had departed in his afflictions; and in the hour of our despair and terror, he was feebler than the meanest among us; feebler of soul than the girl whose heart beats with the dread that she cannot name, fearfully, as that of the little bird which you cover with yourhand. We loathed him the worse for his miserable fear; and it made us all more resolute in courage to see one so cast down with his terrors, whom we had seen of late so insolent in his triumphs.
“When the lots were determined, the king of Calos drew nigh to examine us more heedfully. He had not before regarded us with any consideration. Verily, he was a noble savage to the eye. His person was tall, like one of the sons of Anak, and his carriage was that of a great warrior, born a prince, to whom it was natural equally to conquer and to rule. Rich were the garments of flowing cotton which he wore loosely, like a robe, mostly white, but with broad stains of crimson about the skirts and shoulders.
“A great baldrick hung suspended at his back, which bore a quiver, made of the skin of the rattle-snake, filled with arrows, each shaft better than a cloth-yard’s length. The macana which he carried in his grasp, was a mighty club of hard wood, close in grain, and weighty as stone, which, save at the grasp or handle, was studded with sharp blades of flint, which resembled it to the mighty blade of the sword-fish. With this weapon mine eyes have seen him smite down two powerful enemies at a single stroke. Great was his forehead and high, and his cheek bones stood forth like knots upon his face, as if the cheeks were guarded by a shield. Black was his piercing eye, which grew red and fiery when he was angered; and, at such seasons, it was easier for him to smite than to speak. Unlike his people, he wore the natural growth of his hair, long and flowing straight adown his back, glossy with its original blackness, and with the oil of the bear, of which, like all his people, the lord of Calos made plentiful use. This king might be full forty years of age. Yet looked he neither young nor old—neither so young that you might not hold him the gravest and best counsellor of wisdom inthe land, nor so old, but that he might better and more ingeniously lead in battle than any of his warriors. Certes, he was the most ready first to march when the invasion of the distant tribes had been resolved on; and, of a truth, never was statesman in the great courts of Europe—not the counsellors of the great Carlos himself—so cool in speculation, so just in judgment, so heedful to consider all the advantages and all the risks of an enterprise, before the first step was set down in the adoption of a policy. For seven years had I sufficient means, in the immediate service of his household, to watch the courses of his thoughts and character, and to know the virtues and the strength thereof. I saw him devise among his chiefs, and inform them with his own devices. I have seen him lead in battle, when all the plans were his own, and it was his equal teaching and valiancy by which the field was won. Verily, I say that this lord of Calos were a prince to mate with the best in Europe; and, but that we have in European warfare such engines of mischief as come not within the use or knowledge of his race, it were difficult to circumvent him in stratagem, or overcome his braves in battle. With an hundred shot—no less—and employing at the same time all the red-men as allies, who are hostile to this king of Calos—and they are many—and I doubt not Monsieur Laudonniere, but that you could penetrate his dominions and make the conquest thereof. But of him could you make no conquest. He is a warrior of the proudest stomach, who would rather perish than lose the victory; and who, most surely, would never survive the overthrow of his dominion.
“Me, did this great king examine with more curious eyes than he bestowed upon the other captives. I know not for what reason, unless because of the superior size and strength which I possess, and the extreme length and thickness of my beard andhair, of which, as a Christian man, I have always made too much account. All of us did he assign to labor; to the gathering of wood, and work in the maize fields, with the women. By-and-by, there came a preference for me beyond the others. I was brought into the king’s household, and barbed his arrows, and wrought upon his great macanas, and strove, among the Indians, in hewing out his canoes from the cypress, first burning out the greater core with fire. But when harvest time came, a great festivity was held among the savages. Bitter roots were gathered in the woods, and great vessels of the beverage which was made thereof, was placed within the council or round-house of the nation. Thither did the chiefs resort and drink; and ever as they drank they danced, though the liquor wrought upon them likeaguardientewith the European, and moved them even as the most violent of emetic medicines. Still danced they, and still they danced for the space of three whole days.—But the lord of Calos seemed not to mingle at this strange festival. He purposed rites still more strange—rites, which even now, I think upon with horror only. He had a dwelling to himself in the deep woods, whither he retired the night before the day when the great feast of the nation was to begin. Here he waited all the night, watching with reverence and patience the burning of a strange fire which had been wrought of many curious and fragrant herbs and roots. Three of the ancient people, the priests or Iawas, as they style themselves, retired with him to build this fire, which, when it began to burn, placing in store a sufficient supply of aromatic fuel that he might feed it still, they left him, with strange exorcising, to himself. And there he kept watch throughout the night. But early with the next morning he came forth, and he sprinkled the ashes of the fire upon the maize field, and he cried thrice, with aloud voice, of Yo-he-wah, which, I believe to mean the sacred name as known among the red-men. With each cry, as our poor Spaniards, myself among them, were gathering the green ears from the maize stalks, the priests who followed the king of Calos, seized bodily upon three of our brethren, taking us by surprise, and putting us all in a quaking fear. These three were all brought before the lord of Calos, who, not looking upon them as they lay bound at his feet, threw yet another vessel of sacred ashes into the air, and as these three Spaniards lay separate, with their faces looking up, I beheld the ashes sink immediately upon the breast of him whom I have already named to you—the Jonas by whom our vessel was doomed to wreck—the cruel Don Juan de Mores y Silva. Now, though the king surely looked not as he threw the ashes into the air, yet did it descend upon the breast of this said Spaniard, as certainly as if the eye and arm of this lord had been upon this particular person at the moment when he threw. Verily, though I know not well how it should be—being counselled by Holy Church against such belief—yet, verily, had this lord of Calos certain powers which did seem to justify the saying among his people, that he was a master of magic and of arts superior to those of common men.
“Now, when the Iawas, or priests, beheld where the ashes fell, they seized incontinently upon the Spaniard aforesaid. They bore him away from us, wondering and fearing all the while. But those who remained loosed the other two who had been bound, and they were set free with the rest, to pursue their labors in the corn-field. But we were not let to know the awful fate which befel the Spaniard who was taken. Verily, he saw his danger in the moment when the ashes lighted on his breast. His face was whiter than the blossom of the dogwood when it firstopens to the spring. His eye glared, and his lip quivered like a leaf in the gusts of March, though nothing he spake at anything they did to him. But when they bore him away from our eyes, then a terrible fear and agony caused him to cry aloud—‘Oh! my countrymen, will you not save me from the bloody savage!’ I cannot soon forget that cry, which was clearly that of a person who beholds his doom. But of what avail? We had not the people, nor the strength, nor the weapons! A thousand savages danced wildly around the council-house, and the fields were full of these who came to drink and dance. Besides, we thought not of any danger but our own. We knew not how soon the fate was to befal us; for had it not seized upon Don Juan without a warning or a sign.
“They bore him to the secret tabernacle in the woods, where the lord of Calos watched alone. We saw not then, but afterwards we knew, what had been his fate. There they laid him upon a great mound of earth, with the sacred fire burning at his head in a large vessel of baked clay, formed with a nice art by the savages, and painted with the mystic figure of a bloody hand. The garments which he wore were taken off, and his limbs were fastened separately to great stakes driven in places about the mound. Thus were his hands and legs, his body and his very neck made fast, so that whatever might be the deed done upon him, he could oppose it not even in the smallest measure. But it was permitted him to cry aloud—and those of us who stole into the woods seeking to hear,—with a terrible curiosity which our very apprehensions fed,—we heard,—we heard,—and even as the awful scream of our late companion came piercing through the woods upon our ears,—we fled afar from the sound, which was that of a mortal agony and anguish. And, verily, the torture towhich he was doomed was that which might well compel the poor outraged heart of humanity to cry aloud. With a keen knife, and the hand of one who had practised long at the cruel rite, the lord of Calos laid bare the breast of the victim, he not able to struggle even,—only to shriek,—he laid it bare as one peels the ripe fruit, and exposes the precious heart thereof! Even this did the lord of Calos. He stripped the skin from the breast of his victim, then, with sharp strokes, he smote away the flesh, until the quaking ribs lay bare to his point. With a sharp stone chisel he smote the breast-bone asunder, lifted the ribs, and tore away the smoking heart, which he cast, reeking red, into the burning fire of odorous woods and herbs, which then flamed up and brightened in the dark chamber, as if fed with some ichorous fuel. In that terrible agony, when the soul and the human life were thus rudely torn apart from the mutual embrace, it was told me by the lord of Calos, himself, that the victim burst one of the wythes that bound him, and freed his right hand, which he waved violently thrice, even while his murderer was plucking his heart away from its quivering fastenings! Oh! the horror, though for a moment only, of that awful consciousness! Verily, my friends, if the lord of Calos did possess a power of magic such as his people affirm, verily, I say, he paid a terrible price to the eternal hater of human souls, when he gat from him his perditious privilege!
“But the sufferings of that wretched victim, who then and thus perished, were they greater than those which followed our footsteps,—we, the survivors,—haunting us by night and day, with the mortal terrors of a fear that such must be our doom also? Every rustle of an approaching footstep among the maize-stalks where we toiled, breaking the stems and gathering the ripenedears, seemed to our woe-stricken souls, as the step of one who came as an executioner; while we labored in the gloomy thicket, gathering fuel for the winter fires, the same fear was hanging over us with a threat of the impending doom. We lived and slept in a continual dread of death, which made the hair whiten on every brow, even of the youngest, before that terrible winter was gone over.
“To us it was assigned to put away the body of our murdered comrade. But this was only after the three days of the feast was elapsed, and when the duty was tenfold distressing. Still, though all our senses revolted at the task, a fearful curiosity compelled a close examination of the victim. Then it was that we saw how the execution had been done, though we knew not then, nor until some time after, that the cell which enshrined and kept the heart had been torn open, and the sacred possession wrenched away with violent hands, even while the wretched victim had eyes to see, as well as sensibilities to feel, the sacrilegious and bloody theft. We bore the body far into the woods, wrapping it with leaves so as to hide it from our eyes, while we carried it in the bottom of an old canoe which we found for this purpose. Our burial was conducted after the fashion of the red-men. We laid the corse of our comrade upon a bed of leaves on the naked earth, and laid heavy fragments of pine and other combustible wood about him. With this we made a great pile, which we set on fire, and let to burn until everything was consumed. We then, with sad, sorrowing, and trembling hearts, returned, each one of us, in a mournful silence that wist not what to say, to our separate tasks, and the places which had been assigned us.
“Now, many months had passed in this manner, and still I was employed about the king’s household. This lord of Calosdistinguished me, as I have said, beyond my comrades. I had a great vigor of limb which is not common among this people, except in so much as it moves them to great agility. They are rather light, swift and expert, than powerful in war; and trust rather to great cunning than superior strength, in the meeting with their enemies. The king of Calos greatly admired to see me lift heavy logs of timber, such as would have borne down any among his people if laid upon his shoulders. But he himself had a strength superior to his people, and he wondered even more when, striving to lift the logs which I laid down, he found it beyond his mastery. Then, he put his bow into my hand, and giving me a cloth-yard shaft of reed, well tipped with a flinty barb, and dressed with an eagle’s feather, he bade me draw it to the head, and send it as I would. Upon which, doing so, he greatly wondered to see how rapid and distant was the flight, for well he knew that the ability to shoot the arrow far comes rather from sleight than from strength, and is an art that only grows from practice. But this, perhaps, had not fully given me to the confidence of the king, had it not been for a service which I rendered on one occasion to his favorite son, a boy of but twelve years of age, whom I plucked from beneath the feet of a great stag, which the hunters had wounded in the forest. The red-men greatly delight to see their sons take part in the chase, even while their gristle is yet soft and their limbs feeble; for by this early practice they desired to make them strong and skilful. The son of the lord of Calos was a youth, tall and strong beyond his years; and because of the fondness of his father, exceedingly audacious in all manner of sports and strifes. Thus it was that, having seen a great stag wounded by the shaft of his sire, he had run in upon him with his slender spear. The staff of the spearbroke, even as the barb penetrated the breast of the beast, and the boy fell forward at the mercy of his mighty antlers. Then was it that, seeing the lad’s danger,—for I was at hand, bearing the victuals for the hunters—I threw down the basket, and rushing in, took the stag by his horns, in season for the lad to recover himself. The lord of Calos drew nigh and saw, but he offered no help, leaving it to his son to draw the keen knife which he carried, over the throat of the struggling beast. And, excepting what the boy said to me of thanks, nothing did I hear of the thing which I had done. But, three weeks after, the king made his preparations, for a war party against the mountain Indians. Then he spoke to me, saying, in his own language,—which, by this time, I could understand,—Barbu,—this was the name which had been given me because of my beard—Barbu, it is not fit that one with such limbs and skill as thou hast, should labor still in the occupation of the women. Get thee a spear, such as will suit thy grasp, and there are bows and arrows for thy choice,—make thee satisfied with sufficient provision, and get thee ready to go against mine enemies. Thou shalt have to tear the flesh of a strong man!
“Verily, my friends, though it shames me to confess, that I, a Christian man, could lift weapon in behalf of one against another savage of the wilderness; yet such had been my sorrow, and so wretched did I feel at the base tasks to which I had been given,—so very unlike the valiant duties which had distinguished mine ancient service in the armies of Castile,—that I even rejoiced at the chance of putting on the armor of war,—and the meaner weapon of the red-men satisfied me then, who of old had carried, with great favor, the matchlock and the sword. But the weapon of the savage, as perchance thou knowest, is not greatly inferior, according to their usage, and in their country, to the superior implementswith which the Christian warrior takes the field. If the arquebuse is more fatal than the barbed arrow of the Indian, it is yet less frequently ready for the danger. While you shall have put your pieces in readiness for a second fire, the savage will deliver thirty javelins, each of which, if within bullet reach, shall inflict such an injury, short of death, as may disarm the wounded person. Their reeds are always ready at hand. To them every bay and river bank affords an armory, and the loss of their weapons, which were fatal to Frenchman or Spaniard, causes them but little mischief, since a single night will repair all their losses. Neither much time nor much cost is it to them to supply their munitions, of which they can always carry a more abundant provision than can we. The great superiority of the European, in his encounter with the red-man, is in his wisdom, the fruit of many ages of civilization, and not in the weapons which he wields in conflict. Let him exchange weapons with the savage, and he will still obtain the victory.
“It was because of this showing of superiority, together with the service which I had thus rendered to his son, that made the lord of Calos take me with him, armed as a warrior, on his expedition against the mountain Indians of Apalachy. I hastened to provide myself with weapons, as I was commanded, and I made for myself a great mace, such as that which the strongest warriors carried, which was a billet of hard wood, not more than four feet in length, with a handle easy to the grasp, while at each side ran down a great row of flinty teeth, each broad and sharpened like to a spear-head. It is a fatal weapon, with a well-delivered blow. In like manner did I imitate the practice of the red-men in dressing the head and breast for war. I put on the paints, red and black, which I beheld them use; but, instead of the unmeaningand rude figures which they scored upon the breast, I drew there the figure of a large cross, by which, though none but myself might know, I made anew my assurance to Holy Mother, of a faith unperishing, in Him who bore its burthen; and implored His protection against the perils which might lurk along the path. In the same manner, with a bloody cross, did I inscribe my forehead and each cheek, while I dipped my hands above the wrist in the black dyes which they also used as paints, and which they took from the walnut and other woods of the forest. Greatly did my Christian comrades wonder to behold me, painted after this fashion, with a bunch of turkey feathers tied about my head like the savage, and the strange weapons of the red-men in my grasp. These rejoiced exceedingly as they beheld me, and laughed and chatted among themselves, saying—‘Yah-hee-wee! Yah-hee-wee!’ with other words, by which they testified their satisfaction. But our Spaniards were in the same degree sorry, as it seemed to them that, in spite of the holy emblem upon my breast, I had delivered myself up to the enemy, and had put on, with the habit, all the superstitions of the Heathen. They had sorrow upon other grounds, since I was about to leave them, and, from the favor I had found with the lord of Calos, I had grown to be one to whom they began to look as to a mediator and protector.
“We set out thus for the country of the enemy, the lord of Calos leading the way upon the march, as is the custom with the Indians, while the foe is yet at a distance from the spot. But, as we drew nigh to the hills of the Apalachian, the young men were scattered on every hand, as so many light troops. They covered all the paths, they harbored in all places where they could maintain watch and find security, and nightly they sent in runners tothe camp, reporting their discoveries. I entreated of the lord of Calos to be sent with these young men; but, whether he feared that I would seek an opportunity to fly and escape to the enemy, I know not. He refused, saying that it required scouts of experience,—men who knew the ways of the country, and that I could be of no use in such adventures. He was pleased to add that he wished me near him, as one of his own warriors—that is, the warriors of his family or tribe—that I might do battle at his side, and in his sight!
“We were not long in finding the enemy, who had received tidings of our approach. Several battles were fought, in which I did myself credit in the eyes of our warriors. The lord of Calos was greatly pleased. He took me with him into counsel, and it was fortunate that the advice which I gave, as to the conduct of the war, was adopted, and was greatly successful. Many were the warriors of the mountain whom we slew. Many scalps were taken, and more than a hundred captive boys and damsels. These, if young, are always spared, and taken into the conquering tribe. The former are newly marked with the totem of the people who take them, while the latter become the wives of the chiefs, who greatly value them. I confess to you, my brethren, that I was guilty of the sin of taking one of these same women into my cabin, who was to me as a wife, though no holy priest, with appointed ceremonials of the church, gave his sanction to our communion. She was a lovely and a loving creature, scarcely sixteen, but very fair, almost like a Spaniard, and of hair so long that she hath thrice wrapt it around her own neck and mine.”
“Why didst thou not tell me of that woman?” said Laudonniere, interrupting the narrator. “Had we known, she should have been procured with thee. But, even now, it is not too late.We will bid the chief, Onathaqua, send her after thee, so that thou may’st wed her according to the rites of the church.”
“Alas!” replied Barbu, “thou compellest me, Señor Laudonniere, to unravel sin after sin before thee. I have greatly erred and wandered from the paths of virtue, and from the laws of Holy Church, in my grievous sojourn among the savages. That woman filled no longer the place which she had at first in my affections. With increase of power and security, I grew wanton. I grew weary of her, and sold her to one of the chiefs for a damsel of his own house, which mine eyes coveted.”
The Spaniard hung his head as he made this confession, while Laudonniere with severe aspect rated him for his lecheries. When the captain had ceased his rebuke, Le Barbu continued his story thus:
“We gained many battles in this war with the mountain Indians, who are neither so fierce, nor so subtle as those who dwell along the regions of the sea. Verily, the people of the lord of Calos are great dissemblers, treacherous beyond the serpent, valiant of their persons, and fight with excellent address. Great was the favor which I found with them because of my conduct in the war; and, in each succeeding war, for a space of six years, I became, in like manner, distinguished, until I became a most favorite chief with the lord of Calos, and a bosom friend and companion of his son—he whom I had rescued from the stag, and who had now grown up to manhood. Greatly did this lad favor his father. He was of a light olive complexion, scarcely more dark than the people of Spanish race, but superior in stature, well-limbed, and of admirable dexterity. With him I hunted from the fall of the leaf in autumn, to the budding of the leaf again in spring; and, when the summer time came, we sped away in our canoes, up thevast rivers of the country, through great lakes, many of which lie embadey in forests of mangrove and palm, where the forest swims upon the water. If it were possible for a Christian man—for one who has heard the sound of a great bell in the cities of the old world, and who has communed with the various good and wondrous things of civilization—to be content with a loss of these, and their utter exclusion from sight for ever, then might I have passed pleasantly the years of my captivity among the people of Calos. I had become a chief and was greatly honored. I had power and I was much feared. I had wealth—such wealth as the savage estimates—and I was loved; and the lord of Calos and his noble son, put in me a faith which never betrayed a doubt or a denial. But I had not power to shield my brother Christians, save in one case. Each year witnessed the sacrifice of a comrade. They were the victims to the Iawas. The priesthood was a power under which the kings themselves were made to tremble. With them was it to determine upon peace or war, life or death, bonds or freedom; and the strength of the king lay greatly in his alliance with the priesthood. But for this, the rule among the savage nations would be wholly with the people. Season after season, when came the harvest, one of our luckless Spaniards was taken away from the rest and doomed to the sacrifice. In this way the savages propitiate the unknown God, to whom they looked for victory over their enemies. Do not suppose that I beheld this cruelty without toiling against it. But I spoke in vain. I made angry the Iawas, until the lord of Calos himself addressed me, after this fashion—‘Son of the stranger, art thou not well thyself? Why wouldst thou be sick, being well? Art thou not thyself safe? Why, being so, put thy head under the macana? It is not wise in thee toseethe thingsover which the power is denied thee. Go then, with Mico Wa-ha-la,’—such was the name of his son—‘go then with him into the great lake of the forest, and come not back for a season. Depart thou thus, always, when the maize is ready for the harvest.’
“I obeyed him; but not until I found that I was endangering my own safety to attempt further expostulation; and then it was that my companions perished, all save the one who now sits before thee with myself, and whom I saved because of a service which I rendered to the Iawa, and whom I persuaded to take my white brother into his wigwam. He went, even before myself, but through my means, into the service of Onathaqua.”
Here Captain Laudonniere interrupted the speaker.
“For what reason,” said he, “being such a favorite with the king of Calos and his son, didst thou at last leave his service for that of the King Onathaqua?”
“Alas, Señor Laudonniere, thy question shames me again, since it requires of me to lay bare another of the vices of my evil heart, and to confess how the bad passions thereof could lead me into follies which proved fatal to my better fortune. I had gained great honor among the savages by my prudence and my skill in war, my strength in battle, and the excellence of my counsel in the country of the enemy. I had gained the good will and protection of the great king of Calos, and the affection of his son, the noble young Mico Wa-ha-la! But these contented me nothing, though they brought plenty and security to my wigwam, and such delights as might satisfy the man, a dweller in the wilderness. I have said that I was greatly trusted by the king, the prince, and the head men of the country. These then, after I had been eight years in their service, confided to mycharge a great and sacred commission. The time had come when it became proper that this Mico Wa-ha-la should take to himself a wife. Now, tidings had reached Calos of a creature, lovely as a daughter of the sun, who was the youngest child of the King Onathaqua. A treaty was agreed upon between the two kings for the marriage of their children; and I was dispatched, with a select body of warriors, to bring the maiden home to her new sovereign. It was not the custom for a chief desiring a wife, that he should seek her in person. AccordinglyI was dispatched, and I reached the territories of Onathaqua in safety. Here I beheld the maiden in pursuit of whom I came, and my froward heart instantly conceived the wildest affection for her beauty. Beautiful she was as any of our Castilian maidens, and as delicate and modestly proper in her bearing, as one may see in the gentlest damsel of a Christian country. Deeply was I smitten with this new flame, and greatly did I strive to please the maiden who had fired me with these fresh fancies. I spake with her in the Indian language, with charms of thought which had been taken from the Castilian, such as were vastly superior to those which belonged to Indian courtship. I sang to her many a glorious ballad of the sweet romance of my country, discoursing of the tender loves between the Castilian cavaliers and the dark-eyed and dark-tressed maidens of Grenada. Verily, the beauty of the delicate daughter of Onathaqua, the precious Istakalina—by which the people of Onathaqua understand the white lily of the lake before it opens—was no unbecoming representative of that choice dark beauty which made the charm of the Moorish damsel of my land, ere Boabdil gave up his sceptre into the hands of the holy Ferdinand. For Istakalina, I rendered the language of the Castilian romance into the dialect ofher people; and with a sad fondness in her eyes, that drooped ever while looking upwards at the passionate gaze of mine, did she listen to the story of feelings and affections to which her own young and innocent nature did now tenderly incline. Thus was it that she was delivered into my keeping by her sire, that I should conduct her to the young Mico Wa-ha-la, my friend. And thus, with fond discourse of song and story, which grew more fond with every passing hour—with me to speak and she to listen—did we commence our journey homeward to the dominions of the lord of Calos. Alas! for me, and alas! for the hapless maiden, that, in the fondness of my passion, I forgot my trust; forgot preciously to guard and protect the precious treasure in my keeping; and, in the increase of my blind love, forgot all the lessons of war and wisdom, and all the necessary providence which these equally demand. Thus was it that I was dispossessed of my charge, at the very moment when it was most dear to my delight. Didst thou ask me for the hope which grew with this blind passion, verily, señor, I should have to say to thee that I had none. I thought not of the morrow; I dared not think of the time when Istakalina should fill the cabin of Wa-ha-la. I knew nothing but that she was with me, with her dark eyes ever glistening beneath their darker lids, as she met the burning speech of mine; that we thridded the sinuous paths of silent and shady forests, with none to reproach our speech or glances; our attendants, some of them going on before, and some following; and that, when she ascended the litter, which was borne by four stout savages, or sat in the canoe as we sped across lake or river—for both of these modes of travel did we at times pursue—I was still the nearest to her side, drunk with her sweet beauty, and the sad tenderness which dwelt in all her looks and actions.Nor was it less my madness that I fondly set to the account of her fondness for me, the very sadness with which she answered my looks, and the sweet sigh which rose so often to her softly parted lips. Verily, was never man and Christian so false and foolish as was I, in those bitter blessed moments. Thus was I blinded to all caution—thus was I heedless of all danger—thus was I caught in the snare, to the loss of all that was precious as well to my captor as myself.”
“How was this? How happened it?” demanded Laudonniere as Le Barbu paused, and covered his face with his hands in silence, as if overcome with a great misery.
“Thou shalt hear, Señor. I will keep nothing from thee of this sad confession; for, verily, have I long since repented of the sin and folly which brought after them so much evil. Thou shalt know that, distant from the territories of the lord of Calos, a journey of some three days, and nearly that far distant also from the dwelling of Onathaqua, there lieth a great lake of fresh water, in the midst of which is an island named Sarropee. This island and the country which surrounds the lake, is kept by a very powerful nation, a fierce people, not so numerous as strong, because they have places of retreat and refuge, whither no enemy dare pursue them. On the firm land, and in open conflict, the lord of Calos had long before conquered this strange people; but in their secure harborage and vast water thickets, they mocked at the power of all the surrounding kings. These, accordingly, kept with them a general peace, which was seldom broken, except under circumstances such as those which I shall now unfold. The people of this lake and island are rich in the precious root called theCoonti, of which they have an abundance, of a quality far superior to that of all the neighboring country.Their dates, which give forth a delicious honey, are in great abundance also, and of these their traffic is large with all other nations. But that they are a most valiant people, and occupy a territory so troublesome to penetrate, they had been destroyed by other nations, all of whom are greedy for the rich productions which their watery realm bestows. Now, it was, that, in our journey homewards, we drew nigh to the great lake of the people of the isle of Sarropee. Here it was that my discretion failed me in my passion. Here it was that my footstep faltered, and the vision of mine eyes was completely shut. I knew that our people were at peace with the people of Sarropee, and I thought not of them. But had I not been counselled to vigilance in bringing home the daughter of Onathaqua, even as if the woods were thick with enemies? But I had forgotten this caution. I sent forth no spies; I sought for no wisdom from my young warriors; and, like an ignorant child that knows not of the deep gulf beneath, I stepped confidently into the little canoe which was to take Istakalina and myself across an arm of the lake which set inwards, while our warriors fetched a long compass around it. Alas! señor, I was beguiled to this folly by the fond desire that I might have the lovely maiden wholly to myself in the little canoe, for already did I begin to grieve with the thought that in a few days, the journey would be at an end, and I should then yield her unto the embraces of another. And thus we entered the canoe. I made for her a couch, in the bottom of the little boat, of leaves gathered from the scented myrtle. With the paddle in my hand, I began to urge the vessel, but very slowly, lest that we should too soon reach the shore, and find the warriors waiting for us. Sweetly did I strive to discourse in her listening ears; and with what dear delight did I behold her as she answered me onlywith her tears. But these were as the cherished drops of hope about mine heart, which gave it a life which it never knew before. While thus we sped, dreaming nothing of any danger, over the placid waters, with the dark green mangrove about us, and a soft breeze playing on the surface of the great lake, suddenly, from out the palm bushes, darted a cloud of boats, filled with painted warriors, that bore down upon us with shows of fury and a mighty shout of war. I answered them with a shout, not unlike their own, for already had I imbibed something of the Indian nature. I shouted the war-whoop of the lord of Calos, and tried to make myself heard by the distant warriors that formed my escort. And they did hear my clamors; for already had they rounded the bayou or arm of the lake which I had sought to cross, and were pressing down towards us upon the opposite banks. Then did I bestir the paddle in my grasp, making rapid progress for the shore, while the canoes of the Sarropee strove to dart between us and the place for which I bent. But what could my single paddle avail against their better equipment? Theirs were canoes of war, carrying each more than a score of powerful warriors armed for action, and prepared to peril their lives in the prosecution of their object. I, too, was armed as an Indian warrior, and with their approach, I betook me to my weapon. I had learned to throw the short lance, or the javelin of the savage, with a dexterity like his own; and, ere they could approach me, I had fatally struck with these darts two of their most valiant warriors. They strove not to return the arrows lest they should hurt the maiden, Istakalina, who had raised herself at the first danger, and now strove with the paddle which I had thrown down. As one of the canoes which threatened us drew nigh, I seized the great macana which I carried, and preparedmyself to use it upon the most forward warriors; but when I expected that they would assail me with war-club and spear, the cunning savages thrust their great prow against our little boat, amidships, and even while my macana lighted on the head of one of the assailants, smiting him fatally, I fell over into the lake with the upsetting of our vessel. In a moment had they grasped Istakalina from the lake, and taken her to themselves in their own canoe, and as I raised my head from the water, beholding this mishap, a heavy stroke upon my shoulder, which narrowly missed my head, warned me of my danger. Then, seeing that I could no longer save the captive maiden, I dived deeply under, making my way like an otter, beneath the water, for the shore. A flight of arrows followed my rising to take the air, but they were hurriedly delivered, with little aim, and only one of them grazed my cheek. The mark is still here as thou seest. Again I dived beneath the water, still swimming shoreward, and when I next rose into the light and air, I was among the people of the lord of Calos. They were now assembled along the banks of the lake, as near as they could go to the enemy, some of them, indeed, having waded waist deep in their wild fury and desperate defiance. But of what avail were their weapons or their rage? The maiden, Istakalina, the princess and the betrothed of Wa-ha-la, was gone. The people of the Sarropee had borne her off, heeding me little even as they had taken her. She was already far off, moving towards the centre of the lake, and faint were the cries which now came from her, though it delighted my poor vain heart, in that desperate hour, to perceive that, in her last cries, it was my unhappy name that she uttered. They bore her away to the secret island where they dwelt, in secure fastnesses; and long and fruitless, though full of desperation,was the war that followed for her recovery. But, though I myself fought in this war, as I never have fought before, yet did I not dare to do battle under the eye, or among the warriors of the lord of Calos. I fled from his sight and from the reproaches of my friend, the Mico Wa-ha-la, for, in my soul, I felt how deep had been my guilt, and my conscience did not dare the encounter with their eyes. I took refuge with Onathaqua, the father of Istakalina; and when he knew of the valor with which I strove against the captivity of the maiden, he forgave me that I lost her through my own imprudence. Of the blind and selfish passion which prompted that imprudence, he did not dream, and he so forgave me. Under his lead, I took up arms against the tribes of Sarropee, and for two years did the war continue, with great slaughter and distress among the several nations. But, in all our battles, I kept ever on the northern side of the great lake, and never allowed myself to join with the warriors of Calos. They but too well conceived my guilt. The keen eyes of mine escort distinguished my passion, and saw that it was not ungracious in the sight of Istakalina. Too truly did they report us to the lord of Calos, and to my friend, the young Mico Wa-ha-la. Bitter was the reproach which he made me in a last gift which he sent me, while I dwelt with Onathaqua. It consisted of a single arrow, from which depended a snake skin, with the warning rattles still hanging thereto. ‘Say to the bearded man,’ said the Mico, ‘when you give him this, that it comes from Wa-ha-la. Tell him that his friend sends him this, in token that he knows how much he hath been wronged. Say to the bearded man, that Wa-ha-la had but one flower of the forest, and that his friend hath gathered it. Let his friend beware the arrow ofthe warrior, and the deadly fang of the war-rattle, for the path between us is everywhere sown with the darts of death.’