“He that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood.”
“He that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood.”
—All's Well.
“What nearer debt in all humanity, than wife is to the husband.”
“What nearer debt in all humanity, than wife is to the husband.”
—Troilus and Cressida.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and a burning sun threw its strong rays upon the sandhill where stood prepared, for whatever further emergency might occur, the little band of American soldiers now reduced to less than one half of their original number. The acquisition of the three-pounder had greatly encouraged them for the moment, but, during the inaction that succeeded to the death and removal of the body of the fierce Chippewa, each had leisure to reflect on the but too probable issue of the struggle. As long as day remained to them, they felt that they could, while possessed of the gun and a sufficient quantity of ammunition, defend themselves; but when the darkness of night should come on, enabling their enemies to approach and surround them from all quarters, it must be vain to expect they could maintain the contest with the same success that had hitherto attended their extraordinary efforts. Inactivity, in a position of that kind, ever brings despondency, and from one evil the mind is prone to revert to another. The married men thought of their wives and children and the horrible fate that awaited them, and from the men of strong nerve which they had manifested themselves to be while in positive action, they now were fast becoming timid, and irresolute, and anxious. The sight of the many dead and scalped bodies of their comrades around them was not much calculated to reassure them.
Meanwhile, Captain Headley had kept his glass almost constantly directed towards that part of the common adjoining the fort, where the great body of the Indians had now collected, and appeared to be in earnest deliberation. Among the number of those assembled he could distinctly make out Winnebeg, Waubansee, and Tee-pee-no-bee, the former of whom seemed to be addressing the younger Pottowatomies in energetic terms, while he frequently pointed to the blanket which contained the body of the slain Chippewa. At length, when he had been succeeded by the two other chiefs just named, who seemed to deliver themselves in a similar spirit, a yell apparently of assent and approval came from the dark mass, and in a few minutes a party of about a hundred detached themselves from the group, and preceded by the same flag that had been raised by the immediate followers of Pee-to-tum, slowly advanced towards the little square.
“Courage, men,” said Captain Headley, “we have not fought our steady battle for nothing; but let us give the credit of success where most it is due, We owe our preservation, if we are preserved, wholly to the gallantry of Ensign Ronayne. Had he not removed the spike from that gun, and fired it at the eventual sacrifice of his own life—nay more, had he not slain Pee-to-tum, our most bitter and relentless enemy—we should all have slept upon this field—that sight we should never have seen;” and he pointed to the rude flag of which Winnebeg was the bearer, and which was then half way from the point of departure of the band.
“Even so,” observed Lieutenant Elmsley—“to poor Ronayne, if this rag means anything pacific, and, from the fact of its being borne by Winnebeg, I have no doubt it does, must be ascribed our exemption from the fate of our unhappy comrades. Your ball was well aimed, Captain Headley, and hastened the death of the loathsome and vindictive savage; but never could he have survived that bayonet wound. Life must have ebbed away with the blood that followed its removal; yet,” and this was said with a significance which his commanding officer seemed to understand, “it must be not a little satisfactory to you to know that your shot saved him from the tomahawk that was already raised to dispatch him.”
“Would that in doing so I had saved his life,” returned Captain Headley, seriously. “How doubly unfortunate is our position—without a surgeon to attend the wounded. Von Voltenberg I have not seen during the day—I greatly fear he has fallen also.”
At this moment the Indians had come within about twenty paces of the square, one face of which Captain Headley had ordered to be opened to make a display of the gun behind which stood a man with a lighted match. Here they halted, looking with mixed regret, awe, and anxiety upon what they had so recently had in their own possession, while Winnebeg advanced a few paces to the front.
“What would the chief Winnebeg?” asked Captain Headley, with dignity. “He brings with him a flag. Are the Pottowatomies sick with blood?”
“The Pottowatomies are strong,” returned the old warrior, in the figurative language of his race, “but they would not slay the brave. If the warriors of the white chief will lay down their arms and surrender themselves prisoners, their lives shall be spared.”
“This is well to promise,” rejoined the commanding officer; “but what reason have we to believe that the Pottowatomies are serious? They know that we will fight to the last, and they seek to save their own lives by fair words.”
“On the faith of a chief, I pledge myself that their word shall be kept. Pee-to-tum is dead—he has no longer power over the young men, and they will now obey the voice of their own leaders.”
“The word of Winnebeg is always good,” replied Capt. Headley, “but I distrust his young men; they received presents from their Great Father, and promised to escort his soldiers to Fort Wayne. How have they kept their word? Look around. More than half my soldiers lie there; but, not alone. If the Pottowatomie count well, they will find more than two Indians for every white man.”
“Our Father's warriors are brave,” returned the chief, “and so the Pottowatomies would spare their blood. If they surrender their arms, I promise, in their name, that no more shall be spilt.”
“I will consult my brave soldiers—they shall decide,” observed the commandant, “not that I doubt your word or your good intentions, Winnebeg, but as you had not the power to restrain your young men at first, how am I to know that you can do so now? At present we have arms in our hands, and can defend ourselves; but if we yield them up, we may be tomahawked the next moment. However, as I said before, my brave, followers shall decide.”
“Mr. Elmsley,” he added, turning coolly to his subaltern, “count up our little force, and ascertain how many men of the detachment remain.”
“Two-and-twenty, sir,” returned his subaltern, who had taken but a few minutes to enumerate them.
“Two-and-twenty out of sixty with whom we advanced to the charge this morning, besides two officers—one mortally wounded, the other missing. Well, this is rather hot work; but you see, Winnebeg, that if our loss has been more than forty, including the Miamis, the Pottowatomies killed are more than double in number.”
Winnebeg replied not, but he looked imploringly at Captain Headley, as if desirous that he should accept the offered terms without irritating his people with allusions to their heavy loss.
“Well, men,” continued that officer, who had remarked the particular expression of the countenance of the chief, “what is your decision? I am perfectly ready to act as you shall say, either to fight to the last, or to surrender, with the chance of being knocked on the head afterwards.”
“Had we not better put it to vote, sir?” suggested Lieut. Elmsley; “the responsibility will then rest with the majority.”
“A good idea, Mr. Elmsley. So be it. The majority of votes shall decide whether we fight or surrender.”
The votes were accordingly taken, and the result was an equal division—eleven for surrendering and taking the chances of good faith—the other eleven, chiefly the unmarried men, for fighting to the last.
“The casting vote is with you, Mr. Elmsley; that given, we return our answer,” remarked Captain Headley.
“Winnebeg,” said the lieutenant, addressing him for the first time, “one question I would ask you first: know you anything of our wives—are they dead—and where is Mr. McKenzie?”
“They are all alive,” returned the chief with animation—“bad wound, though—Winnebeg help save him himself.”
Human nature could stand no more. Both officers, as if actuated by the same common impulse, met and embraced each other warmly. A mountain weight seemed to be taken from their oppressed hearts, and those two men, who had preserved the most cool and collected courage through the fearful, the appalling scenes of that day, stilling all their more selfish feelings, now suffered the warm tears to gush in silence from their eyes. The men beheld this sight with an emotion little inferior to their own, and many a tear trickled over their faces and moistened and mixed with the dark deposit left by the bitten cartridge, as they too rejoiced in the safety of those brave and noble women.
“There can be no doubt what my decision in this matter will be now,” remarked the lieutenant, when he had a little recovered from his emotion. “The good Winnebeg who has done thus much—saved those most dear to us—cannot want the power to save ourselves. My vote is for the surrender.”
“Winnebeg,” said Captain Headley, with great feeling, “whatever doubts may have existed in our minds as to the propriety of surrendering, they are now wholly removed. We know your worth and humanity, and commit ourselves wholly to your good faith. Indeed, from the moment I saw you coming at the head of this party, after the death of the black-hearted Pee-to-tum, I felt that we were safe from further attack. Still, it was my duty to consult the men who had so bravely fought with me. We consent to become your prisoners, on three conditions—first, that we be suffered to retain our colors, which you see there wrapped round the dying body of Mr. Ronayne, the friend of your son; secondly, that we be permitted to bury our dead comrades; and thirdly, that we be surrendered to the nearest British post at the earliest opportunity.”
Winnebeg, after looking at the spot where the young officer lay, spoke for a few moments with his followers, who did not seem to relish the arrangement, for a good deal of animated conversation ensued between themselves; but at length the point was satisfactorily settled, and the former assented to the conditions of surrender Captain Headley had imposed. To have reposed any faith in the warriors themselves after what had occurred, that officer was now fully sensible would have been an act of madness; but he confidently hoped that, although Winnebeg and the other friendly chiefs might not have had the power to restrain the excitement of their young men in the first outburst of their rage for blood, their influence would to a certain extent be regained, now that the fiercest act in the drama had been played, and the chief actor was no more. The only thing that created uneasiness in him was the apprehension that the severity of their own loss might induce such a desire of vengeance in the minds of the warriors as to cause in them a renewal of their fury, and an utter disregard of the pledges of their leaders. Something however—indeed much—must be left to chance. As prisoners they might and would be saved, if the influence of their sager warriors and their own better feelings prevailed, while, as combatants, every man, without an exception, must have fallen. Moreover, the reason which had decided Lieutenant Elmsley in giving his vote had an equal influence in sustaining himself in the expediency of surrender. Their wives were prisoners, and a reunion with them was not impossible; whereas if they had resolved on defending themselves with the obstinacy of despair, that hope must have been for ever cut off, and the noble women—not to speak of the partners of their brave and humble followers—who had taken so prominent a share in the combat, wounded and sustained only by the faint possibility of a meeting with their husbands, would assuredly be made to undergo a similar fate.
And now commenced the most humiliating part of the movements of the day—the breaking up of the gallant little square, and the return, flanked by their Indian captors, of the remains of the detachment to the fort. In compliance with the wish of Captain Headley, expressed at the suggestion of his men, instead of taking the route selected by Winnebeg in his advance, the party were suffered to return past the wagons. The scene which took place here was one of mingled consolation and despair. Such of the married men as had survived the conflict anxiously sought their wives, many of whom, with pale cheeks and sunken eyes, and hearts nearly crushed by the pitiless murder of their children, still wrung comfort in the midst of their despair, as they gazed once more on the features of those whom they had given up as lost for ever. But then, on the other hand, was the soul's misery complete of the poor women, widowed within the past few hours, who sought eagerly but in vain to distinguish the features of him who alone could console her under a similar bereavement, and who, with tears and sobs, sank back again into the wagon, in all the agony of increased and confirmed despair. It required stern hearts to behold all this unmoved; but the knowledge that their wives had been unharmed, whatever the savage destruction of their children, brought some little relief to the overcharged hearts of such of the married men as had been spared, and in their secret hearts they returned thanks to the Providence that had guarded not only their own lives, but the lives of those most dear to them.
And with what feelings did they now re-enter the fort, and what an aspect did it present! Half-drunken Indians were yet engaged in the work of plunder and destruction, insomuch so that it scarcely appeared to them the same place from which they had sallied out in the morning; and there were moments when the stoutest-hearted wished that they had never returned to it, but perished on the field where their comrades lay, unconscious of the past, regardless of the future of desolation, of which all they saw seemed to give promise. The officers' quarters, and the blockhouses, which had afforded them protection and shelter during many a long year, were now burst open, and every article of heavy bedding and furniture hurled into the square—the latter ripped open, and broken, and the feathers and fragments strewn around as if in mockery of the neatness that had ever been a distinctive characteristic of the well—swept parade ground, where heretofore a pin might have been picked up without a finger being soiled in the act. These were, seemingly, too minute considerations to have weighed at such a moment when higher and more important interests were at stake; but, to the well-regulated eye of the soldier, accustomed to order and decorum, they were now mountains of inequality and discomfort, which contributed as much to the annoyance and mortification of his position as the very fact of captivity itself; and if this was the feeling generally of the men, how deep must have been its effect on the officers, and particularly on Capt. Headley, who had ever been punctilious to a nicety in all that regarded the internal arrangements of Fort Dearborn. But, offensive as this was, how much more so was it to behold many of the band fantastically arrayed, not only in their own clothing, but in that of their wives, desecrating, as it were, the terrible solemnity of the day, and mocking at the severity of suffering to which the latter had been subjected.
Of the Indians who had formed their escort, some stopped outside the gate, others mixed with the spectators, and only about a dozen followed them to the mess room, which Winnebeg said he had selected for their temporary quarters, as being the least liable to interruption or molestation. He promised to send them food, and later in the evening, when all was quiet, to conduct the two officers to their wives, who, for greater quiet and security, were still lying concealed in the canoe where he had first placed them.
“Winnebeg, Winnebeg,” said Capt. Headley, solemnly, “how can we ever sufficiently repay you for your noble conduct to-day? Depend upon it, I shall not fail to make known to our Great Father that you have saved the lives of one third of the detachment; but let me remind you of the first part of our contract—the burial of the dead. There is plenty of daylight, and I wish to send out a dozen men for the purpose of digging one common grave for them all. Mr. Ronayne must, if not dead, be brought in on a litter; if, however, he is no more, no grave can be more honorable to him than that shared with his followers. You know, Corporal Collins, where the spades and picks are kept.”
“Yes, sir, I know where they are usually kept, and where it is not likely they have been disturbed. What men, sir, am I to take?”
Almost every man in the detachment expressed his anxiety to be of the party; but the remainder of those who had been with the Virginian when he fell, and a few others, all unmarried men, were selected.
“Do you not think, sir,” said Lieutenant Elmsley, “that I should command this party and superintend the arrangements? Poor Ronayne must be delicately handled.”
“If you will do so, Mr. Elmsley, I shall be most glad; but not deeming it absolutely necessary, I did not propose it as a point of duty. But there is another thing to be considered: Winnebeg, what escort will you give to my people? You know your young men are excited, and many may not know of the conditions of our surrender.”
During this conversation, almost the whole of the Indians, to the number of eighteen or twenty, who have been alluded to as having plundered and offensively arrayed themselves in the dresses of the officers' wives, and who were evidently the most turbulent of the band, had been drawing gradually closer around the little party of prisoners. All were more or less ludicrously painted, and exhibited the most grotesque appearance.
When the remnant of the detachment first entered the fort, it was remarked that one of them—a mere youth—had closely, almost impertinently, examined the features of the officers, and had followed, with most of his companions. When Captain Headley made his request for an escort, this individual suddenly went up to Winnebeg, tapped him on the shoulder, and said something, not in Pottowatomie but in Shawnee, accompanied by much gesticulation, which seemed to have great weight with the chief.
“Give him escort, dis,” said the latter in reply, as he glanced his eye quickly upon the group, and with seeming intelligence.
“What! those men!” returned Captain Headley, with a shadow of remonstrance in his tone.
“Yes, all good Pottowatomie—all brave warrior—no give him dis,” and he pointed to those who had accompanied them from the field, “all too much tired with fight already—dis men stay here all day. No fight.”
Although by no means persuaded by the reasoning of Winnebeg, that men who had been plundering and drinking what they could find, during the whole of the morning, were the most proper persons to guard prisoners from the violence of excited enemies, Capt. Headley felt that it would be imprudent to urge any further opposition. For a single moment, it occurred to him that the chief had offered this escort with a hostile motive, but it was a thought which, involuntarily forced upon his mind, was as instantly discarded as unworthy of the chief, and, whatever might have been his latent misgivings, he no longer opposed an objection.
The preparations were soon made; the litter, and materials for digging found, and the little party, who had taken off their uniforms to avoid particular remark, and to be more free in their movements, sallied forth. On passing near the gate, and in a direction opposite to that by which they had just entered, they beheld the body of Doctor Von Voltenberg, within a few paces of the pathway by which they now advanced, which was the route taken by the Indians with the three-pounder. He was stripped to the skin, scalped, and with a profusion of large green flies and ants of the prairie settled on and seemingly disputing possession of the dark and coagulated blood that was already incrusted on the festering wound. The body was fast becoming bloated and discolored under the rays of an August sun, but no one could mistake the black and the peculiarly cut whisker, and the good natured and smiling expression of face which even in death had not wholly deserted him.
They had now reached the point where the Indians stood when the first grenades were thrown in among them by the followers of Ronayne. From this could be commanded a full view of the theatre of contest as far as the crest of the sandhill, being a full musket-shot from the spot where he had last fallen. The intermediate space, as has already been remarked, was thickly strewn with dead bodies amounting in all to upwards of a hundred, and the place chosen for interment by Lieutenant Elmsley was the small copse of underwood, from which the flank movement had been made upon Ronayne by the fresh band of Indians upon whom he had directed the fire of the three-pounder.
While occupied in digging a grave of about twenty feet square, their strangely attired looking escort amused themselves with examining the dead uniformed bodies that lay strewed thickly around, and it was remarked that they showed no such curiosity in regard to their own people who were indiscriminately mixed up with them. Gradually they approached the crest of the hill, and Lieutenant Elmsley, who was distrustful of their intentions, and kept a close eye upon their movements, saw the youth, already noticed, suddenly bound with uplifted tomahawk towards the spot where poor Ronayne was known to lie, and, after addressing a few words to his companions, stoop over his body, with what intention he could not make out, but he presumed to dispatch and to scalp him, for the cry uttered by the Virginian and heard even at that distance, was piteous to hear. Desiring the men to go on with their work, and collect the bodies as soon as it was completed, he hurried rapidly to the scene of this new action, and as he advanced saw another and a much stronger party of Indians approaching the same spot. Rapidly their escort closed in upon the officer over whom the young warrior was kneeling, and stooping down, drew from their victim another moan of inexpressible anguish. All then rose, and, grouped together, moved away parallel with the said ridge until they were finally lost behind a sudden elevation that continued the hill in an obtuse angle towards the forest.
Startled by the appearance of these fresh comers, Lieut. Elmsley paused for a moment in his advance, but feeling that any appearance of mistrust might act unfavorably upon the band, he renewed his course, expecting at every moment to reach the mangled body of his friend. The Indians approached the same point at the same time, and he saw at once that the majority were composed of those who had accompanied Winnebeg when he came to offer terms to Captain Headley. Trusting, therefore, that there was no violence to be apprehended from those who were aware of the fact of the surrender, towards himself or party, he proceeded to search for his friend; but, to his surprise, his body was not to be seen. He could not be mistaken as to the spot where it had lain, close to Sergeant Nixon; but, though the latter was nearly in the same position in which he had fallen, the knife which he had used upon the throat of the Chippewa, and the imprint of his body upon the sand, deeply moistened with the blood of both, was the only indication of Ronayne's having been there. It was evident that he had been carried off by the strange party who had formed their escort, and that the cries of agony uttered by him had been produced by the torture of moving his broken limb. What the motive for this new outrage could have been, it was difficult to conjecture, unless it was to secure at their leisure, and before the other party of Indians came up to dispute possession of the spoils with them—not only his scalp, but the blood-stained colors which he bore—perhaps to sell the latter as a trophy to the British.
Without condescending to bestow the slightest notice upon the officer, the Indians approached the bodies, and leisurely proceeded to strip them of their clothing. Their leader, uttering a yell of delight and surprise as he came near it, sprang upon the sergeant and secured the scalp, which Pee-to-tum had failed to take. This piece of good fortune led the others to hope for something similar, and they accordingly dispersed themselves rapidly over the scene of combat, examining every head and stripping everybody. All this was done without Lieut. Elmsley having the slightest power to interfere, for he knew that any attempt at remonstrance would only be to provoke a similar fate, and thus the party passed on, stripping every soldier to the skin.
While he lingered hesitatingly near the spot whence his friend had been so singularly removed, waiting for the plunderers of the dead to depart before he should rejoin his men, his ears were suddenly assailed by a piercing shriek from the further extremity of the underwood in which the latter were digging, and which extended about two hundred yards on the left of the plain below. At once he knew the cry, and comprehended its cause; and rushing down the sandhill without thought of the new danger to which he might be exposed, turned the corner of the small wood, and stopping abruptly at a point where he could see without being noticed himself, beheld A sight as distressing as, a few moments before, it had been unexpected.
With his uncovered head slightly raised, and reposing upon the projecting root of a tall tree that rose capriciously, yet majestically, amid the stunted growth around, lay the enfeebled and dying Ronayne extended upon a pile of clothing formed of the very dresses that had now been doffed for the purpose by his escort. By his side knelt his wife, disguised in the neat dress of one of Wau-nan-gee's sisters, and gazing into his pale face with a silent expression of agony which no language could render. But though his face was wan, and his eye gradually losing its lustre, the arm of the officer closely clasped around the waist of his wife, ever and anon strained her so passionately, so convulsively to his heart that a new fire seemed at these moments to be enkindled in both—and to prove all the intensity of the undiminished love he bore her. Neither spoke. Speech could not so well convey what was passing in their sad souls as could their looks, while the exhausted state of the wounded officer rendered exertion of any kind not merely painful but impossible. On the other side of the Virginian, who held his hand affectionately in his feeble grasp, stooped the young Indian already noticed, and standing grouped round, and gazing with evident sorrow on the scene, were his companions. The youth was Wau-nan-gee. His companions were his immediate and devoted friends—those who had sought to make the young officer a prisoner on a former occasion, when, had they succeeded, all this trial of the wife's agony might have been spared. On the first exit of the troops they had rushed into the fort on the pretence of plunder and excess, in the hope that their example would be imitated by many, and that thus the detachment might be left to pursue its route comparatively unharmed. And to a certain extent they succeeded, for many did follow them, and Pee-to-tum among the rest, whose absence in the first onset of the battle had dispirited the Indians, whom he had first excited, and given the Americans an advantage of which they never lost sight until the close. To have taken an active part in the defence, would have been not only impossible but impolitic, but in the course they had pursued they had no doubt saved such of the detachment as remained, for had all been engaged—had all borne a prominent share in the attack, the event, from the great disparity of numbers, could not have long been doubtful. When Wau-nan-gee, whose anxiety to know his fate had been great, first heard from his father of the wounded condition of Ronayne, he had proffered himself and friends as the escort of the detachment, intending to bear off the body, without being seen by the other Indians, to his mother's tent, where his wounds might be dressed and his life saved by the care and attention of his own wife.
All these particulars Lieut. Elmsley subsequently ascertained from Winnebeg, for anxious as he was to take a last leave of his dying friend, and to express his joy at once again beholding, even under these disheartening circumstances, her for whom both himself and his wife had ever entertained the strongest friendship, the officer was afraid to move from the spot where, unseen himself, he had witnessed all, lest by suddenly exciting and agitating, he should abruptly destroy the life which was evidently fast drawing to a close. To have broken that solemn and silent communion of spirits, would, he felt, have been sacrilege, and he abstained; and yet, as if fascinated by the sight, he could not leave the spot—he could not abandon his dearest and best friends without lingering to know how far his services might yet be available to both or one.
Apparently, Mrs. Ronayne had not uttered a sound since that piercing cry had escaped her which attested her first knowledge of the hopeless condition of her wounded husband. The attempt to carry him off the field, with the view not only of preventing him from being scalped, as he certainly would have been by the party then advancing, but of conveying him to the Indian camp of the women, had been productive of the greatest suffering; so much so that when he had gained the point where he now lay, and where his wife had first met him, he declared to Wau-nan-gee his utter inability to proceed further, and prevailed on him to place him on the ground that he might die in quiet.
It was now near sunset, and the condition of the Virginian was momentarily becoming weaker. He suddenly made an attempt to rally, and for a moment or two raised himself upon the elbow of the hand that still encircled the waist of his wife.
“Maria, my soul's adored!” he murmured, “I feel that I have not many moments left, and I should die in despair did I not know that there is one who will protect you while he has life. God knows what has been the fate of our poor companions, but even if living, they cannot shield you from danger. Wau-nan-gee,” he said, turning faintly to the youth, “two things I am sure you will promise your friend—first, to conduct yourself in all things as my wife—your sister—desires; secondly, to conceal and guard these colors until you can deliver them up to the nearest American fort.” Then, when the youth had solemnly promised, with tears filling his dark eyes, that he would faithfully execute the trust, he turned again to his wife, and said in a tone that marked increased exhaustion at the effort he had made, “Maria, sweet, it is hard to die thus—to leave you thus; but yet you will not be alone—Wau-nan-gee will love and protect you, obey your will: yet you need not now fear, I have avenged your wrong—that wrong of which the ruffian boasted when I slew him—tortured him—the monster. How different the gentle love of this affectionate boy! But I have not strength—oh, what sickly faintness comes over me! surely this must be ——.”
“Death!” he would have added, but silence had for ever sealed the lips that never more would speak his undying affection for his noble, graceful, and accomplished wife.
For some moments the unhappy woman continued to gaze upon the still features of her husband as though unconscious of the extent of her great misery, and when the reaction came, it was not expressed in shrieks or lamentations, or strong outward manifestations of emotion, but in the calm, serene, condensed silence of the sorrow that stultifies and annihilates. Her cheek was pale as marble, and there was a fixedness of the eye almost alarming to behold, as she rose erect from her bending position, and said, with severity, “This and more have your cursed people done, Wau-nan-gee! I shall ever hate to look upon an Indian face again! Yet that body must be buried deep in the ground, and in a spot known only to us both, where none may violate the dead. You have promised to obey me in all things. This is the first charge upon you. Let us go—the night is fast approaching, and the place remains to be reached, and the grave is to be dug. By to-morrow's dawn we travel together and alone through the wilderness, in execution of the will of your friend and my husband. Mark that, Wau-nan-gee! It is his will that we travel together—that you shall be my guide and protector. See this dress, how well it disguises me. I shall be taken, as we journey, for your squaw. Ha! ha! That will be excellent, will it not? Maria Heywood—Ronayne's wife—the mistress of a fiend—then Wau-nan-gee's squaw—and not yet six weeks married to the first!”
She suddenly paused, put her hand to her brow—seemed to reflect, and then turning to Wau-nan-gee, inquired why he lingered so long and wherefore he did not replace the body in the litter and depart.
With a pensive and serious mien the youth, who had been still kneeling, absorbed in sorrow at the strange coldness of Mrs. Ronayne's manner, and afraid to disturb her in a distraction which he comprehended more from her looks and actions than her language, now rose, and saying something in a low tone to his companions, who had also regarded her throughout with silent surprise, the covering on which the body of the unfortunate officer reposed, was placed upon the blanket, which four of the party held extended, and at the direction of Wau-nan-gee the whole proceeded towards the forest.
When this strange and dispiriting scene had terminated, Lieut. Elmsley, who felt at each moment in a greater degree the uselessness of any interference in his powerless position, was rejoiced that at least the last moments of his friend had been consoled by the presence of his wife; he was led to hope that it had been the result of a momentarily-disordered brain, on which despair had now wreaked its worst, and which, therefore, might be expected to regain a stronger if not its wonted tone when the bitterness of grief should have somewhat subsided.
Proposing to prevail on Winnebeg to obtain for him a meeting with her on the morrow, when the remains of her husband should have been consigned to their rude resting-place, he returned towards his party, whom he found in the act of covering up the bodies which they had, unmolested by the Indians, brought in from the different points where they had fallen. The grave was soon filled up—a short and mournful prayer read by the officer from memory, and the party returned full of gloom, and with hearts bowed down by sorrow, to the dismantled and desolate-looking fort.
“This act is an ancient tale twice told.”
“This act is an ancient tale twice told.”
—King John.
The wretchedness of that night who can tell! the despondency that filled the hearts of all, not so much in regard to the present as from apprehension for the future, who, untried in the same ordeal, can comprehend? but the feelings of the remnant of that little band, who were indebted for their safety to their own bravery, were not selfish. They lamented as deeply the fate of the fallen, as the dark and uncertain future that awaited themselves—uncertain because, although the chiefs had promised, and with sincerity, that they should be given up as prisoners of war at the nearest post, they had seen too much of the falsehood of the race generally to rely implicitly on its fulfilment by the warriors. Alas! where were their comrades—friends, nay, brothers of yesterday? Where was the brave, the noble-hearted Wells—where the once gay, ever high-spirited Ronayne—where poor Von Voltenberg—the manly Sergeant Nixon, a Virginian also—the faithful Corporal Green—and nearly two thirds of the privates of the detachment? The very fact of being in the fort again, and everywhere surrounded by objects rendering more striking the contrast between the past and the present, was agony in itself. There was scarcely a man among them who would not have preferred bivouacking, in the wild wood, amid storm and tempest, and the howling of beasts of prey, to resting that night within the polluted precincts of what had so recently been their safeguard and their pride.
Fortunately, the two surviving officers were, in some measure, exempt from these mortifications. True to his word, Winnebeg had caused Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley to be conveyed undercover of the darkness from their place of concealment to the mansion of Mr. McKenzie, which, from the great popularity of the trader with the whole of the Indian tribes, had been left untouched—he himself having been looked upon as a non-combatant, and, therefore, spared from all personal outrage.
The meeting between the husbands and their wives—both the former also slightly wounded during the day—was, as may be supposed, most affecting. Neither had ever expected, on parting in the morning, to behold each other; and now, although more or less injured, to find those who were preserved, as it were, by a miracle from a cruel death, with a prospect of future happiness, the past was for the moment forgotten, and gratitude to God for their preservation the dominant feeling of their souls. The examination of the wounds of the heroines was the next consideration. Most fortunate was it that of all the wounds received by the ladies—seven by Mrs. Headley and three by Mrs. Elmsley—not one was of a nature to disable or impede the motion of their lower limbs. A ball that had lodged in her arm, however, gave the former great pain; but, alas! there was no Von Voltenberg to cut it out. In this extremity, Winnebeg said he knew an Indian who was very expert at incision, and that he would procure his attendance.
Meanwhile the party were enabled to partake of some refreshments which had been ordered on the departure of Winnebeg for his charge; and exhausted as all had been by intense anxiety and emotion, from the moment of their setting out almost to the present, this was truly acceptable, especially to the two officers.
In the course of the repast, allusion was made to the gallantry and suffering of the unfortunate. Ronayne, when, on Captain Headley asking, for the first time, what had been done with the body, Lieut. Elmsley proceeded to relate all that he had heard and witnessed a few hours previously.
This singular detail excited not only surprise but pain, especially in Mrs. Headley, whose deep friendship for, and interest in, both husband and wife had already been so strongly exhibited. It is not often that, in the hour of our keenest suffering, we have much sympathy to bestow upon others; but the noble woman had known the ill-fated Maria too intimately—known her too well—not to feel deep sorrow for the double affliction under which she labored. In the confession, if such it can be called, which he had committed to writing and subsequently transmitted by Wau-nan-gee, as well as in her wild and unconnected language on the day of the fatal occurrence itself, she had alluded to something terrible—an attempt at outrage, but in those vague terms of violated modesty which left the extent only to be surmised. No one of those who knew the contents of her communication, had suspected or presumed the worst, and had it not been for the avowal by Ronayne of his vengeance for the avowed fulfilment of the hellish and sacrilegious lust of the hideous monster, and the strange admission that fell in her despair from Mrs. Ronayne herself, the secret must have died with themselves.
It was not exactly a subject for discussion, under ordinary circumstances, and before everyday women; but here not only were the parties cognizant few in number, but actuated by nobler motives than those which would have governed mere worldly and censuring people. Moreover, the nature of their connexion with each other, and with the victims themselves—for it was shown that Ronayne had received his mortal wound from the rifle of the Chippewa—even the atrocity complained of, connected as it was with all the horrors of the past day, not only justified but compelled it.
“She must not be left where she is,” gravely remarked Mrs. Headley, after some moments of reflection; “cannot Winnebeg, the good Winnebeg, whom, perhaps, we have taxed too much, be persuaded to bring her to us? Now that the worst has happened she will be far happier—more contented, by sharing our fortunes, whatever they may be, than remaining in the Indian encampment, cut off from every kindred association. What think you, Mrs. Elmsley?”
“Oh, I shall be too delighted to see, and to soothe her sorrow. As a sister, I have ever loved her—as a sister, I love her still.”
“Then, assuredly,” returned Mrs. Headley, “will she not hesitate to overcome her false delicacy, and to consider herself, what she really is, the victim of misfortune, and not of guilt, when a mother and a sister united look upon her as pure in thought as in the days of her unwedded innocence, and offer her what home may be preserved to themselves.”
“Generously, nobly said!” remarked Lieutenant Elmsley, pressing the hand of his wife and looking his feelings as he caught the eye of the last speaker. “I had intended to ask Winnebeg not to simply go himself, but to permit me to accompany him, that I might know her intention and offer her my aid. What I have now heard confirms me in my design. Early to-morrow morning, if he assents, we shall go over. But here he is himself, with the Indian who is to perform the operation on your arm, Mrs. Headley.”
The door opened, and Winnebeg entered, followed by a tall, powerful, good-looking Pottowatomie, who glanced inquisitively around the apartment with the air of one who expects an unpleasant recognition, nor was it apparently without reason, for the moment Mrs. Elmsley beheld him, she uttered an involuntary shriek, and drew back with every manifestation of disgust. The Indian remarked it, and sought to retire, but Mrs. Elmsley, suddenly recollecting herself, and fearing so to offend him as to prevent the aid he had come to render, rose and held out her hand to him, saying, with an attempt at a smile—
“Never mind—although we have fought a hard battle together to-day, it is all over now. Let us be friends. Winnebeg, explain this to him.”
Winnebeg did so, when, with a mingled look of astonishment and pleasure, the Pottowatomie warmly returned her pressure. It was the same warrior with whom she had grappled, in the desperation of a last hope, when so opportunely extricated from her perilous position by Black Partridge. As he had the reputation of much expertness in making incisions and removing balls lodged in the flesh, his attendance had been requested.
Calm and composed, although evidently laboring under deep dejection for the loss of her uncle, the horrible mode of whose death had, however, been kept back from her, Mrs. Headley, dressed in the light-textured riding habit in which she had gone forth in the morning, and which, it has already been remarked, set off her finely moulded bust and waist to the best advantage, prepared to submit herself to the operation. As she raised herself up on the ottoman on which she reclined, Mrs. Elmsley cut open the sleeve to the shoulder, thus laying bare one of the most magnificent arms that ever was appended to a woman's body, the dazzling whiteness of whose contour was only dimmed in the fleshy part above, and in the immediate vicinity of the spot where the ball had entered.
At a sign from Captain Headley, the Indian, who had been talking aside with his chief, now approached, but no sooner did he behold the uncovered limb, when, either dazzled by its brilliancy, which to him must have seemed in a great degree superhuman, or shocked that anything so beautiful should have been thus wounded, he suddenly stopped, and while his eyes were as if fascinated, the blood could be seen suddenly to recede from his dark cheek.
“No, father,” he said to Winnebeg, “I cannot do it. I cannot cut that arm open—the very thought makes me sick here”—and he pointed to his heart. “I cannot do it.”
Although this involuntary homage to the rich, full, and moulded beauty of a limb which was but a sample of the perfection of the whole person, and which in a woman seldom attains its fullest harmony of proportion before the mature age which Mrs. Headley had attained, was not exactly that of the porter who, at an earlier period, solicited the famous Duchess of Gordon to permit him to light his pipe at her ladyship's brilliant eyes, it was certainly conceived in much of a similar spirit, and Mrs. Headley could scarce herself suppress a smile when she remarked the effect upon the Indian.
And yet this man had been one of the foremost in the attack, and at his waist, even then, dangled more scalps than had been taken by any other warrior during the day.
“Well,” said Mrs. Headley, on the Pottowatomie continuing resolute in his refusal to touch the wound—“somebody must do this act of charity, for the ball gives me much pain. Mr. McKenzie,” she added, with that sort of smile that may be attributed to a person seeking to assume an air of unconcern even when most disheartened—“you have long been accustomed to use the dissecting knife on the buffalo and the bear: do you not think that you could find the courage necessary for the occasion!”
“Most decidedly; I will make the attempt if you desire it,” returned the trader; “but I fear that my surgical apparatus is Very limited indeed. Von Voltenberg having been stripped, all his instruments have, doubtless, been plundered, so it is no use to look for aid there; and the only thing with which I can try my skill is a common but very sharp penknife.”
“Try whatever you please,” said Mrs. Headley; “only relieve me of this suffering; that which you may inflict cannot possibly be worse”—and unflinchingly extending her arm, she waited for him to begin.
For the first time in his life Mr. McKenzie felt nervous. There was a greater amount of courage required to cut into the delicate flesh, of a woman than even tokilla bear or a buffalo; but as he had promised, he summoned up his resolution and skill to the task.
The Pottowatomie, bedizened with scalps as he was, had remained to witness the cutting out of the ball; and nothing could surpass the expression of surprise that pervaded his features, as he keenly watched the almost immovability of Mrs. Headley from the moment that the blade of the penknife, dexterously enough handled, entered into the flesh and effected the incision necessary to enable the ball to be removed. When the operation was finished, and the ball produced, he started suddenly to his feet, and uttered a sharp exclamation, denoting approbation of her wonderful courage. He asked, as a favor, to retain the ball as a testimony of her heroism; when Mrs. Headley presented it to him with her own hand. And with this he departed, exulting as though he had taken a new scalp.
This incident, perhaps unimportant in itself, was not without some moment in the results to which it led. On the day following the fort was filled with Indians and their squaws not only endeavoring to assert their claims to individual prisoners, but infuriated at the losses, seeking a victim to the manes of their deceased relatives. Among others was an aged squaw, who had lost a favorite son in the battle, and who, having been told by a warrior that he had distinctly seen him killed by a shot from Mrs. Headley's rifle, repaired to the house of Mr. McKenzie, where she knew she then was, bent upon exciting the general sympathy of the warriors in her favor, and obtaining their assent that she should revenge his death upon the “white squaw.”
It happened, however, that the noble woman, feeling great relief from the abstraction of the ball from her left arm the preceding evening, and feeling secure in the pledge entered into by Winnebeg, and confirmed in a measure by his people, had fearlessly mounted her horse, which had been recovered for her, and ridden alone to the baggage wagons for the purpose of procuring some article which, at the moment, she much required. As she was returning, and when near the entrance to the fort, she was met by the vixen, furious with rage and disappointment at not having found her.
Advancing with a cry that might be likened to that of a fiend, she seized the bridle of the horse, and attempted to drag his rider by her habit to the ground—shrieking forth at the same time her determination to have her life who had taken the life of her son. But Mrs. Headley was not one, as the reader of this by no means fictitious narrative already knows, to be thus intimidated. She possessed too much of the high spirit, the resolute nature of her unfortunate uncle to submit quietly to the outrage, and, moreover, she knew enough of the Indian character to be sensible that it was not by any manifestation of submission that she could hope to escape the threatened danger. Her course was at once taken. She struck the gaunt and shrivelled hag such a violent stroke over her shoulder with the horsewhip of cowhide she held, that the latter was compelled to release her hold; and, as she rushed into the fort, calling on the Indians to revenge her son and kill the white squaw, the latter followed her completely round the square, using her cowhide with a dexterity and an effect, as she leaned over her saddle, that drew bursts of laughter and approval from the warriors eagerly gazing on the scene. At one moment, there was a manifestation of a desire to carry out the wishes of the crone and kill Mrs. Headley, and several voices were loud in the expression, but suddenly then stood forth the Pottowatomie of the preceding evening, the antagonist of Mrs. Elmsley, who, from his commanding appearance, not less than by the prestige of his bravery imparted by the numerous fresh scalps at his side, soon made himself an object of attention. None of the chiefs were present.
“The white squaw shall not be killed,” he pronounced, as he held up his tomahawk authoritatively; “she is brave like a Pottowatomie warrior. See here,” holding up first five and then two fingers—“so many balls have hit her, and yet she is here, on horseback, as if nothing had happened. What Indian would have courage to do that? Speak!”
“Pwau-na-shig lies,” returned the beldam, whom Mrs. Headley had now ceased to punish, yet who, panting from the speed she had used in her flight, was almost inarticulate, thereby provoking the greater mass of the Indians knowing its cause to increased mirth—“the white squaw has no wounds—where are they—she cannot show them. If she had wounds she could not sit on her horse; but she has killed my son, and I demand her blood. Let her be given up to my tomahawk.”
A loud and confused murmur burst from many of the group, influenced by the words of the last speaker. Mrs. Headley sat her horse with indifference, patting his head gently with the whip, yet looking earnestly towards Pwau-na-shig, upon whom she now altogether relied.
“The mother of Tuh-qua-quod is a foolish old woman, and knows not what she says,” vociferated the tall warrior; “do you doubt the word of Pwau-na-shig—see here,” and he took from his pouch and held up to view between his finger and thumb the bullet which had been extracted the preceding evening. “That,” he said, “I saw taken from her flesh with my own eyes—she did not move—she made no sign, of pain—she was like a warrior's wife; but you shall see what Pwau-na-shig says is true.”
He approached Mrs. Headley, who, comprehending his object, shifted her rein to the whip hand, and calmly extended her left arm. Where it had been cut open, the sleeve of her riding habit was fastened from the wrist to the shoulder by narrow dark ribbons, which had been sewn on the previous evening by Mrs. Elmsley, and these the Pottowatomie proceeded to untie; then turned back the sleeve, as well as the snow—white linen of the upper arm, soiled only with her own blood, until the whole was revealed.
Apparently as much struck by the brilliancy and symmetry of the limb as Pwau-na-shig himself had been, the warriors—even those who had been most clamorous in support of the demand of the old squaw—were now unanimous in their low expressions of admiration; nor was this sentiment at all lessened when, following from the wrist the rich contour of the swelling arm, it finally rested upon the wound she herself had divested of its slight drapery. The incision made by the penknife of Mr. McKenzie, at least three, inches in length, had assumed a slight character of inflammation, and contrasting as it did with the astounding whiteness of every other portion of the limb, gave it the appearance of being much more severe than it really was. But it was not the wound alone that enlisted the feelings of the Indians in favor of Mrs. Headley. Connected with that was the coolness she had evinced throughout the whole affair from the persevering flogging of the harridan, who sought her scalp, to the graceful unconcern with which she sat her horse when she must have known that it was then a question under discussion whether her life should be taken or not. This, with the fact of the wound which they then saw, and their no longer doubt of the existence of many others, were undeniable evidences of her heroism, and at that moment Mrs. Headley was regarded by these wild people with a higher respect than she had ever commanded in the palmiest days of her husband's influence with the race.
“No kill him,” said Pwau-na-shig, exultingly, as he remarked the effect produced on his companions—“white chiefs wife good warrior.”
“No, no kill him,” answered another voice, in broken English also. “Dam fine squaw—wish had him wife—get brave papoose.”
A general expression of assent came from the band, when Mrs. Headley, whose sleeve had again been rudely tied by Pwau-na-shig, fearing that if she remained longer another reaction might take place, pressed the hand of the Indian with a warmth of gratitude that brought the strong fire into his eye and the warm blood into his cheek, turned her horse's head, and cantered out of the fort, followed by the wild ravings of the beldam, who tore her long and matted grey hair and stamped her feet in fury at the disappointment. In a few minutes she was again at the door of Mr. McKenzie, and alighted in the arms of her husband, who, alarmed at her long absence, was in the act of leaving the house in search of her when she arrived.
“There come Elmsley and Winnebeg, but unaccompanied,” remarked Captain Headley, when, in reply to his inquiry as to the cause of her long absence, she said she would tell him later. “I fear that they have been unable to prevail upon Maria to leave the new home of her election.”
“I am sorry for it,” gravely returned his wife. “I must say her choice is not exactly what I should have expected; but here they are—we shall soon know. Well, Mr. Elmsley,” she added, as that officer ascended the veranda, followed by Winnebeg, “what news do you bring of the truant?”
“I scarcely know whether to consider it good or bad,” returned the lieutenant, with an air of disappointment; “but I have not seen Mrs. Ronayne. There seems to have been more method than madness in her language to Wau-nan-gee of yesterday, for this morning she departed with him to Detroit.”
“Indeed,” remarked Mrs. Headley; “you surprise me, Mr. Elmsley; but does she perform that long journey on foot?”
“No; Winnebeg ascertained from his wife that she was mounted on her own horse, and that Wau-nan-gee, having visited and returned from. Hardscrabble during the night with a couple of trunks, she had made up two large packages, which were tied to the back of her saddle, while the youth strapped two others similarly prepared with provisions, behind his own pony. Thus provided, and Wau-nan-gee with his rifle on his shoulder and otherwise well armed, they set out at daybreak.
“Poor Maria! what your eventful destiny will be, heaven only knows,” sighed Mrs. Headley; “for not only the road but the course you pursue is one beset with danger. But our lots are now cast in different channels, and we have need of attention to ourselves. Come in, Winnebeg, while I relate to you the somewhat narrow escape I have again had from the tomahawk since you left this morning.”
“Good God! what do you mean?” simultaneously exclaimed the two officers. Winnebeg stared and looked as if he did not fully comprehend.
“Oh! quite an adventure, I can assure you; and who do you think was my devoted knight-errant?”
“What a subject to jest about, Ellen!” remarked her husband, half reprovingly. “To whom do you allude?”
“Only the tall warrior who tried so desperately to get your wife's scalp, Mr. Elmsley.”
“What, Pwau-na-shig?”
“The same. You cannot imagine what a conquest I have made; but let us go in—the story is too good not to be told to all, and I presume both Mrs. Elmsley and her father are in.”
“They are,” said Captain Headley, as the lieutenant gave his arm to conduct her into the house.
Little remains to be added to our tale. Of the incidents that occurred to Wau-nan-gee and his charge, after their departure from the camp of the Pottowatomies, we might, and may, speak hereafter; but, as it is not essential to our present design, and would necessarily occupy far more space than is consistent with the limits we have been compelled to prescribe to ourselves for the detail of the attack and partial massacre of the garrison of Fort Dearborn, we forbear. We had always intended the facts connected with the historical events of that period to be divided into a series of three, like the Guardsmen, Mousquetaires, and Twenty Years After, of Dumas. Two of these, embracing different epochs and circumstances, we have completed in “Hardscrabble” and “Wau-nan-gee;” and whether the third, on a different topic than that of war, and which, as we have just observed, is not necessary to the others, ever finds embodiment in the glowing language and thought of Nature, nursed and strengthened in Nature's solitude, will much depend on the interest with which its predecessors shall have been received. Yet, whether we do so or not, we trust the sweet, the gentle Maria Ronayne—the loadstone of attraction to all who knew her, will have excited sufficient interest in those of her own sex who have followed her in her hitherto chequered fate to induce in them a desire to know more of the destiny to which she seemed to have been born.
Of the other characters, scarcely less interesting, we can speak with greater confidence. On the third day after the battle, the prisoners, including Mr. McKenzie and the members of his household, were removed from Chicago, and scattered about in small and separate parties, at various intervals of distance from Mackinaw, then in possession of the British. Here Mrs. Headley remained some time, in order that she might recover sufficiently from her troublesome wounds, when Winnebeg, in whose immediate charge she and her husband were, learning that his people manifested impatience at the indulgence shown to them, and with their usual fickleness and inconsistency, desired to have them given up to their own custody, paddled them, aided only by his squaw, from their village, a distance of three hundred miles along the shores of Lake Michigan to the post of Mackinaw, whence the prisoners, who had been received with all the courtesy the knowledge of their position and the fame of their deeds could not fail to inspire, by the gentlemanly commander of that post, were subsequently transferred to the general then commanding at Detroit.
And great was the curiosity of the young British officers then in garrison at the latter post, to behold this noble and accomplished woman, the reputation of whose coolness and courage, under the most trying circumstances, had been widely circulated by her friend, Mrs. Elmsley, who, with her father and husband, had some weeks preceded her to the same quarter.
Little did we at the time, as we shared in the general and sincere homage to her magnificence of person and brilliancy of character, dream that a day would arrive when we should be the chronicler of Mrs. Headley's glory, or have the pleasing task imposed upon us of re-embodying, after death, the inimitable grace and fulness of contour that then fired the glowing heart of the unformed boy of fifteen for the ripened and heroic, although by no means bold or masculine woman of forty.