Barncho and Slolux also share in this unusual privilege. How the thud of the pick, with which the earth was loosed, must have driven back to the remotest corner of each heart the quickened blood!
The retreat sounds out far and wide over the camp and fortress, and sweeps its music through the cracks of the stockade and prison cells, mingling with the weird, wild shrieks of the despairing Modoc women and children.
Midnight comes, and still the prayers are offered up, and incantations are going on; sleep does not come to weary limbs.
The morning breaks. Fortress and camps, stockade and prison cells, are giving signs of life.
The sun is climbing over the pine-tree tops, and sending rays on the just and the unjust, the guilty and the innocent.
The roads leading to the fort are lined with the curious, of all colors, on wheels and horse. At 9.30 A.M., the soldiers form in line, in front of the guard-house.
Col. Hoge, officer of the day, enters and unlocks the doors of the cells, and bids the victims come forth. Every day, from the 20th of February to the 11th of April, had this command, and even invitation, been extended to them. Then it was to come forth to live free men; now it is to come forth to die as felons. To the former they turned a deaf ear, and answered back with insult, strange as it may appear. To the latter they arose with chains rattling on their limbs, and, with steady nerve, turned their backs on their living tombs, to catch a sight of their new-made graves yawning to receive them.
Then they were surrounded with daring desperadoes, whose crimes bade them resist. Now, by no less brave men, whose polished arms compel submission. Then the chief was pleading for his people, surrounded, overruled by traitorous villains. Now, he is surrounded by men who will soon take his life, and let the villains live to chide justice by their blood-covered garments and double-dyed treason.
A four-horse team stands in front of the guard-house, in which are four coffins; the six prisoners mount the wagon. The chief sits down on one of these boxes, Schonchin on another, Black Jim on the
third, and Boston Charley on the fourth, Barncho and Slolux beside him. A glance over the heads of the guards shows six open graves; there are but four coffins in the wagon. What means this difference? But few of all the vast assembly can tell. The chief’s thoughts are busy now trying to solve the problem. Perhaps he is not to die; an uncertain glimmering of hope lights up his heart. The cavalcade moves out in line passing near the stockade. The prisoners catch sight of their loved ones; they hear the cries of heart-broken anguish.