The Indian queen

by Ann S. Stephens

“Away with you, dog—traitor—coward!” was her greeting.

She had determined, it was apparent, to carry her point by force—too proud, too defiant to yield, at that crisis evoked by her own fury.

The chief stepped not out of her way, but more completely before her.

“Gi-en-gwa-tah will no longer permit a squaw decked in gewgaws presented by the English hogs as the price of her baseness, to address him. Thus he disposes of these emblems of disgrace and treachery.”

He deliberately seized her coronet of feathers and dashed it to the earth; then her splendid cloak and trail of crimson velvet he stripped from her shoulders. She was speechless and powerless before this unexpected display of audacious assumption, but, recovering in a moment, she caught the jeweled dagger from her belt, and, quick as thought, aimed a blow full at his breast. His hand was too rapid in its movement, for he caught her wrist in his vice-like clutch, drew the poniard from her grasp, and threw it away. He unclasped from her arm its serpent wristlet of gold and blood-stone, wrenched from her neck the splendid necklace of pearls and crown diamond. This done, he led her unresistingly into the lodge. Proceeding to its center, he said:

“Here is the murderer of Upepah—the attempted betrayer of my tribe—the deceiver and impostor. Do with her as you will. Gi-en-gwa-tah repudiates her as his wife; she is no longer the mother of his child, and he casts her forth as the enemy of his race—the destroyer of his peace. Henceforth she is not even to him a slave. Gi-en-gwa-tah bids her away—away forever, for the door of his lodge is closed against her.”

With that he left her, disrobed and disowned, standing alone in the center of the circle, while he took his seat on the ground in the first rank allotted to the leading chiefs.

“It is well!” said the eldest of the chiefs.

“It is well!” was slowly and solemnly repeated in turn by every one of the circle save Gi-en-gwa-tah, who sat as one conscious of his triumph, but too dignified, too much afflicted by the events of the hour to betray his feelings further. He was as impassive in his grief and pain as a statue of bronze—as insensible as a rock.

Mahaska stood as one in a dream. So sudden, so unexpected, had been the act of Gi-en-gwa-tah, as to confound her, while the conscious justice of his act seemed to strike her nerves powerless. Then that line of faces, as hard and as dark as flint, all acting with one common impulse of sympathy and duty, convinced the queen that she had, indeed, passed from power and was a queen no longer. This consciousness was overwhelming; the long pent-up, warped and perverted woman’s nature asserted itself; tears, so strange, so almost unknown to her wild, fierce breast, welled up in her eyes and dropped upon her bosom; a low moan, something like a wail and a sigh, broke from her white lips; and, clasping her hands over her heart, she turned and walked slowly out of the lodge toward the castle. All eyes followed her, but not a soul approached, for all respect for and fear of her had not passed away in that act of dethronement and widowhood. She was alone in her sorrow, and was so absorbed by it as to be unconscious of all things else. Once or twice she paused, and, for a second, the old baleful light of uncontrolled passion would gleam in her eyes and redden her cheeks; but only for a second, for the deadly whiteness would quickly return, and, with a gasp, a smothered sob, a suppressed cry of anguish painful even to the dullest sense, she would hurry on, evidently eager to reach the shelter of her lake retreat. How hateful, how reproachful all looked to her now! Everywhere were tokens of her deception and treachery; every article of English gift was a silent witness of her duplicity; but amid them were the gifts of costly furs from her noble husband’s hands, and oh, how they rebuked her! Strange that never before this woman, so shrewd, so sagacious, so intellectual, had looked upon herself in her true light!