PART III.
She struck but once, no need hath lightning stroke
For second blow to rend the heart of oak,
Nor waited there to see how Gray Cloud died;
Her fury all in that fierce outburst spent,
As from a charnel cave she fled the tent;
The wolfish dog suspiciously outside
Sniffed at her moccasins but let her pass.
Her tipi soon she reached, distant no more
Than arrow from a warrior’s bowstring sent,
Paused but to wipe her knife upon the grass,
And found her usual couch upon the floor.
But not to sleep; she closed her eyes in vain,
Shutting away the moonlight from her view;
Darkness and moonlight wore the same dread hue,
Flooding the universe with crimson stain.
She clasped her bosom with her hands to still
The throbbing of her heart that seemed to fill
With tell-tale echoes all the air; an owl
The secret with unearthly shrieks confessed,
And Gray Cloud’s dog sent forth a doleful howl
At intervals; but worse than all the rest,
That dreadful drum still beating in her breast,
As furious war-drums in the scalp-dance beat
To the mad circling of delirious feet.
Early next morning, as the first faint rays
Of sunlight through the rustling lindens played,
Two children sent to seek the conjurer’s aid,
Gazed on the sight, with horror and amaze,
Of Gray Cloud’s lifeless body rolled in blood.
Fast through the village spread the news, and stirred
With mingled fear and wonder all who heard.
The oracles were baffled and dismayed,
And spoke with muffled tones and looks of dread:
“Some envious foeman lurking in the wood,
With medicine more strong than his,” they said,
“Stole in last night and gave the fatal wound.”
The warriors scoured the country miles around,
Seeking for sign or trail, but naught they found:
The murderer left behind no clue or trace
More than a vampire’s flight through darkling space.
The Raven with a stoic calmness heard
Of Gray Cloud’s death, nor showed by look or word
The wrath that to its depth his being stirred.
Winona heard the news with false surprise,
As if just roused from sleep she rubbed her eyes;
When she arose her knees like aspens shook,
But this she quelled and forced a tranquil look
To feign the calmness that her soul forsook.
And when the mourning wail rose on the air,
Winona’s voice was heard commingling there.
She gathered with the other maidens where,
On a rude bier, the conjurer’s body lay
Adorned and decked in funeral array.
She flung a handful of her sable hair,
And wept such tears above the painted clay[14]
As weeps a youthful widow, only heir,
Over the coffin of a millionaire.
Moons waxed to fulness and to sickles waned.
The gossips still conversed with bated breath.
The appalling mystery of Gray Cloud’s death,
Wrapped in impenetrable gloom, remained
A blighting shadow o’er the village spread.
But youthful spirits are invincible,
Nor fear nor superstition long can quell
The bubbling flow of that perennial well;
And so the youths and maidens soon regained
The wonted gayety that late had fled.
All save Winona, in whose face and mien,
Unto the careless eye, no change was seen;
But one that noted might sometimes espy
A furtive fear that shot across her eye,
As in a forest, ’thwart some bit of blue,
Darts a rare bird that shuns the hunter’s view.
Her laugh, though gay, a subtle change confessed,
And in her attitude a vague unrest
Betrayed a world of feelings unexprest.
A shade less light her footsteps in the dance,
And sometimes now the Raven’s curious glance
Her soul with terrors new and strange oppressed.
Grief shared is lighter, none had she to share
Burdens that grew almost too great to bear,
For Redstar sometimes seemed to look askance,
And sought, they said, to win another breast.
Winona feigned to laugh, but in her heart
The rumor rankled like a poisoned dart.
Sometimes she almost thought the Raven guessed
The guilty secrets that her thoughts oppressed,
And sought, whene’er she could, to shun his sight.
Apart from human kind, still more and more,
The Raven dwelt, and human speech forbore.
And once upon a wild tempestuous night,
When all the demons of the earth and air
Like raging furies were embattled there,
She, peering fearfully, amid the swarm
Flitting athwart the flashes of the storm,
By fitful gleams beheld the Raven’s form.
To her he spoke not since the fateful night
His chosen comrade passed from human sight,
Save only once, forgetting he was by
And half forgetting too her cares and woes,
Unto her lips some idle jest arose.
“Winona,” said the Raven, in a tone
Of stern reproof that on the instant froze
All thought of mirth, and when she met his eye,
As by a serpent’s charm it fixed her own;
The hate and anger of a soul intense
Were all compressed in that remorseless glance,
The coldly cruel meaning of whose sense
Smote down the shield of her false innocence.
She strove to wrest her eye from his in vain,
Held by that gaze ophidian like a bird,
As in a trance she neither breathed nor stirred.
And gazing thus an icy little lance,
Smaller than quill from wing of humming-bird,
Shot from his eyes, and a keen stinging pain
Sped through the open windows of her brain.
Her senses failed, she sank upon the ground,
And darkness veiled her eyes; she never knew
How long this was, but when she slowly grew
Back from death’s counterfeit, and looked around,
So little change was there, that it might seem
The scene had been but a disordered dream.
The Raven sat in his accustomed place,
Smoking his solitary pipe; his face,
A gloomy mask that none might penetrate,
Betrayed no sign of anger, grief, or hate;
Absorbed so deep in thoughts that none might share,
He noted not Winona’s presence there;
From his disdainful lips the thin blue smoke
From time to time in little spirals broke,
Floating like languid sneers upon the air,
And settling round him in a veil of blue
So sinister to her disordered view,
That she arose and quickly stole away.
She shunned him more than ever from that day,
And never more unmoved could she behold
That countenance inscrutable and cold.
But Hope and Love, like Indian summer’s glow,
Gilding the prairies ere December’s snow,
Lit with a transient beam Winona’s eye.
The season for the Maidens’ Dance drew nigh,
And Redstar vowed, whatever might betide,
To claim her on the morrow as his bride.
What now to her was all the world beside?
The evil omens darkening all her sky,
Malicious sneers, her rival’s envious eye,
While her false lover lingered at her side,
All passed like thistle-down unheeded by.
The evening for the dance arrived at last;
An ancient crier through the village passed,
And summoned all the maidens to repair
To the appointed place, a greensward where,
Since last year unprofaned by human feet,
Rustled the prairie grass and flowers sweet.
None but the true and pure might enter there—
Maidens whose souls unspotted had been kept.
At set of sun the circle there was formed,
And thitherward the happy maidens swarmed.
The people gathered round to view the scene:
Old men in broidered robes that trailing swept,
And youths in all their finery arrayed,
Dotting like tropic birds the prairie green,
Their rival graces to the throng displayed.
Winona came the last, but as she stept
Into the mystic ring one word, “Beware!”
Rang out in such a tone of high command
That all was still, and every look was turned
To where the Raven stood; his stern eye burned,
And like a flower beneath that withering glare
She faded fast. No need that heavy hand
To lead Winona from the joyous band;
No need those shameful words that stained the air:
“Let not the sacred circle be defiled
By one who, all too easily beguiled,
Beneath her bosom bears a warrior’s child.”
Winona swiftly fleeing, as she passed,
One look upon her shrinking lover cast
That scared his coward heart for many a day,
Into the deepest woods she took her way.
The dance was soon resumed, and as she fled,
Like hollow laughter chasing overhead,
Pursued the music and the maidens’ song.
Just as she passed from sight an angry eye
Glared for a moment from the western sky,
And flung one quivering shaft of dazzling white,
With tenfold thunder-peal, adown the night.
Her mother followed her, and sought her long,
Calling and listening through the falling dew,
While fast and furious still the cadence grew
Of the gay dance, whose distant music fell,
Smiting the mother like a funeral knell.
High rode the sun in heaven next day before
The stricken mother found along the shore
The object of her unremitting quest.
The cooling wave whereon she lay at rest
Had stilled the tumult of Winona’s breast.
Along that shapely ruin’s plastic grace,
And in the parting of her braided hair,
The hopeless mother’s glances searching there
The Thunder-Bird’s mysterious mark might trace.
So died Winona, and let all beware,
For vengeance follows fast and will not spare,
Nor maid, nor warrior that dares offend
Who hath the cruel Thunder-Bird for friend.