The Indian queen

by Ann S. Stephens

“It shall be as the chief demands,” Upepah added.

“It shall not be!” shouted Mahaska, fairly beside herself, and fearful of the power which her husband’s eloquence would bring to bear against her.

“Mahaska is queen, not chief,” said Upepah. “She will not command now.”

“She will command. She will consult the prophet before she goes to the council. It shall be as she says; nor will she release this dog until he goes to the council.” She spoke with frenzied energy, and looked like a Nemesis of fury.

“She dares not go where Gi-en-gwa-tah will expose her wicked craft and tell the story of her past crimes. Let my people only hear me and her power is gone forever. She then becomes my squaw, and the Senecas shall be saved from the destruction which she is plotting. To the council-chamber!” The chief rose upon his horse, extending his pinioned hands to the sight of his braves and the chiefs. Upepah stepped forward, and, with his knife, severed the thongs which bound his wrists.

Unable longer to control herself, the infuriated woman hurled her tomahawk full at Gi-en-gwa-tah’s head, but it passed harmlessly by him and buried itself in the brain of old Upepah, who sunk to the earth a corpse!

“Seize her—seize her!” cried a dozen voices at once, maddened as they were at the atrocious deed. But she drew herself up proudly on the horse, her eyes flashing and scintillating like a serpent’s.

“Let him who wants to die,” she hissed, “but touch a hair of my horse’s mane. Guards!” she added, in a tone of imperious command, “see to it that that dog does not escape. I will be at the council-chamber at nightfall.” With that, she turned to ride away for the castle. It was the mistake of her life, to leave her husband there with the people whom he might harangue, and, over the dead body of the aged chief, might recall the Senecas to a sense of their baseness and humiliation in submitting to the tyranny of a woman. But, she could not do otherwise; for the dead Upepah was a power she dare not face, and she resolved to rely upon her own resources for any emergency that might arise.

Gi-en-gwa-tah, at the fall of the old man, had leaped from his horse, and was leaning over him when the queen rode away. The bloody tomahawk he placed in his own girdle. Then he gave orders for the removal of the body to the council-house. The guards still hovered around as if to execute the queen’s orders for his secure keeping, but he did not notice them, and no attempt was made for his seizure. Arrived at the council-lodge, the crowd paused while the body was borne within. None but chiefs entered, at first, but Gi-en-gwa-tah ordered the old warriors to enter and the young braves to surround the building, that they might hear all that was said—a very unusual proceeding, for the young men had never been permitted even to hear the discussions in the lodge.

All was still and solemn as the death-scene within demanded. Soon, however, the voice of Gi-en-gwa-tah broke the stillness. At first it was low and monotonous, as if but the expression of commonplace phrases; but soon it grew in volume, and the attentive crowd without caught his words. They were the words of one who spoke with great pain, of one whose own wrongs were past expression. The speaker suddenly paused, and all outside thought his speech ended. It was but a moment’s lull, for, like a thunder-burst, his cry of mingled scorn, anguish, and offended honor rose wild and high, penetrating even to the forest beyond the lodges. The savages were riveted to the soil by the tremendous fury of the speaker’s eloquence—were silent and motionless as the great oaks around. Higher and fuller rolled forth the volume of words. In the strong imagery of the Senecas’ figurative tongue, he painted not his own but his people’s abasement in permitting the will of a woman, proven to be artful as a serpent and as cruel as a wolf, to rule them. His language was, at times, that of resolution and defiance; then he uttered a reproof calculated to sting the Indians’ sense of honor; all at once, the picture of a nation humiliated by English insolence, bleeding from its feuds, sorrowing for its braves lost in an unholy contest against their old friends the French, sprung to vivid reality before their startled gaze, and the dread silence without was broken. A long, low howl, resembling a wail, broke over the masses; it was the wail of men roused to their danger and eager to retrieve it. Ere it had died away, the chief bent over, raised the body of the dead Upepah in his arms, held it aloft, crying in his loudest tones: