Esther

by Ann S. Stephens

“Let the children of the Dacotahs turn back to their wigwams. The Great Spirit hates the trail their moccasins are following. He has sent the fire-eyed ones from his giant wigwam, in the far-off clouds, to warn them,” cried an old warrior, starting up in the red light of the stricken tree.

“When they met the sons of the pale-face in battle,” cried another, “he turned their arrows aside, made their arms weak as the little pappoose, and their bow-strings snap like the dry reed in the breath of the tempest. Manitou is very angry!”

“Hark!” exclaimed another—for in an hour like that, all the usual etiquette of the council-fire was thrown aside—the pipe was left unsmoked, and the wampum-belt was not passed from hand to hand. “Hark! the chieftains of the Dacotahs are not deaf. They have ears, and they can hear his voice as it was in its anger. They are not blind; they can see the flash of his eye as it lights mountain and prairie with its red glare. Let them go back again to their homes.”

“Yes,” answered the old warrior, stoutly. “When the sun-spirit smiles again upon the world—when its golden wings drive the black-plumed ones to their hiding places, then the foot of the Dacotahs will take the trail. No horse of the prairie, or moccasin of man can keep their footing in the mountains now.”

But with the voices of his people in his ears, Black Eagle shook off his terror. Even in that hour—even in the short lull of the storm which had followed the lightning-stroke that shivered the giant pine of the mountain, and scattered the debris in a fiery storm around them, his black heart aroused itself, and resumed its wicked purpose. Again he was plotting treason and weaving crafty spells.

Ah, man! man! how vain is all warning to the selfish and cruel of heart! A moment before, and that wild chief had cast himself to the earth, aghast at the lightning, and crouching in fear at the open-mouthed thunder. But the sky-written lesson of doom passes from his mind while its fire was yet flaming around him.

“See!” whispered one of the warriors to Black Eagle, “See!”

Far down in the valley, but coming noiselessly up the very side of the mountain, climbing as it were along the bald face, a snowy object glides. What is it? what can it be? each Indian asks of the others, for their tongues were fettered by terror. Surely nothing mortal would be abroad in a storm like that; and if a human being could be found so desperate in courage, it was impossible to scale the dizzy cliffs. On—on, still it goes, dimly visible, ghastly white, unearthly, in the dim, bluish gleams of lightning. They look again, and it is gone. Gone even as a smoke-wreath disappears from before the eye, we know not whither. It was a spirit to the many—a wandering semblance of something once belonging to earth. To the Black Eagle, it was the phantom-horse of his murdered brother, that, killed among the rocks, was wandering, ghost-like, seeking for his late master. But if this was so—and his superstitious soul could not shake the belief off—where, then, was the girl for whom he had ventured and lost so much?

But the wind sobbed itself to sleep, the black clouds were no more riven by flame, and the earth was left unshaken by the thunder—the airy fountains had dashed themselves to spray against the rocks. The world wrapped itself in the mantle of darkness and slept, still shivering under the storm that had passed over it. The solemn silence of the calm followed the terrific crashing of the tempest, and slumber settled heavily down upon the travel-stained and weary band of red-men, whose strength had been exhausted by their fears.

Is it true that angels guard us when we slumber, and, awake, leave us to temptation, and perchance crime? In the hour of darkness, is there an unseen, unknown power, that watches by our pillows, blunts the edge of the assassin’s knife, and turns the glittering steel aside? If such a power there be, (and who will dare dispute it?) then it kept watch and ward of the sleeping warriors of the Dacotahs—blood-stained and merciless as they were, in that almost unsheltered bivouac. When the weight pressed upon eye and brain, and when the body was most leaden, there crept into their midst, timidly, and as that spirit might have taken form had it really watched there, Waupee, the abandoned wife of Black Eagle. Bitter, indeed, must have been the passion, and deep the love which had so long kept her upon the trail of her husband, and severe must have been the toil she had endured tracking him, like a sleuth-hound among the winding-paths of the mountains. Love, fiery love—the one master-passion of an Indian woman’s life—must have been entirely blotted out, and all the serpents that lurk among human passions in the hour of its darkness, must have entered and held triumphant sway in her savage nature. It is a terrible thing when all the finer feelings of our nature are thrown broadcast to the winds, and standing on the verge of the maelstrom of despair, an immortal soul recklessly plunges into the mad waves beneath, to be whelmed and lost forever!