“The tongue of the pale girl is sweet; her hair is like the silk of the maize, when browned in the moon of the falling leaf. She has turned the trail of truth. She shall find a home in the wigwam of the red-man. The Black Eagle has said it.”
“Never! I will die first.”
“The angel with wings like the thunder-cloud that stands by the dark river comes not when the children of earth call. Many years yet the moccasin of the wife of Black Eagle will press the prairie.”
“Your wife—the White Hawk—yes.”
“Waupee will wait upon the new wife of Black Eagle. She is put away from the breast of the warrior.”
“Any thing but your wife.” The poor girl shuddered as she spoke the hateful word. “Merciful heaven, am I reserved a fate like this?”
“The dove may beat its tender breast against its prison, but the coo of its song will yet be music for the ears of its mate when it looks for his coming with its wings folded.”
“I your mate! I dwell in your wigwam! Listen to me, treacherous man. Sooner than submit to that, I would leap from the precipice and dash myself into atoms on the jagged rocks beneath—leap into the deep stream and float a disfigured corpse among the reeds on its shore—with my own hand I will destroy the life God has given me, and escape with self-murder from your loathsome power.”
Without deigning to reply to what he perhaps scarcely understood, the savage whistled long and shrill. In a moment the poor, injured and abandoned wife, Waupee, entered, shrinking and trembling as if in mortal terror. A few words of command were given to her in her nation’s tongue that the white girl could not understand, and without lifting her eyes, Waupee departed.
“Let the child of the white man prepare!” continued Black Eagle. “The Medicine of the tribe is hastening to prepare the marriage ceremony of the Dacotahs. The maidens are weaving the bright flowers of spring, and the warriors decking themselves in their best robes. The hour has come. The wigwam of the sachem shall lift its mat for a new bride.