She stepped proudly into the center of the ring, her hand still grasping the tomahawk.
“Chiefs,” she cried, “behold Mahaska is now indeed a queen. The lightning crowns her. The great Mineto shouted from the sky when she clove that traitor’s skull.”
They crowded about her with subdued acclamations and lowly reverence; and there she stood in the fading glories of the sunset, with that cruel smile upon her lips, that deadly light in her eyes, to receive the homage of her people; yet her bosom heaved in its rage, that they had insisted on sharing her sovereignty with Gi-en-gwa-tah. She was queen, but he was chief and her husband.
CHAPTER II.
THE TIGRESS DALLYING WITH HER PREY.
While the savage enthusiasm of the gathered people was at its hight, Mahaska did not forget to urge anew the wish for a chieftainship, which the dead Fox had opposed. Her set purpose was in no manner changed by the evident decision of the chiefs to consider her their prophet and queen—not their chiefest chief. They said, “Gi-en-gwa-tah is our chief, as he is your husband;” thus implying that she was not supreme. A great throb of pain, the pang of a thwarted ambition, shot through her bosom. Had she, the daughter of the noble Frontenac, deserted her father’s halls of splendor—had she cast her civilization away and wedded, at the command of her Indian half-countrymen, a savage chief—all to be denied the prize for which she had aimed? No! the fierce heart of the woman cried; she would be chief not alone of the Senecas, but chief of her husband—chief of the Six Nations; she would be supreme, or be powerless altogether. She glanced toward Gi-en-gwa-tah, her eyes fairly blazing with indignation. A sense of intense dislike of him surged through her breast.
His brow was overcast with thought; there was a heavy pain in the stern, dark eyes. Love for his beautiful wife had become so strong in his savage nature, that it was absolute idolatry; but, with all his bravery, his heart was gentle and tender almost as a woman’s. It had sent a terrible shock through his whole being when he saw Mahaska, with her own hand, deal that death-blow to his enemy. Not that he loved her less; his savage teachings made him admire her daring; but the pain was at his heart, notwithstanding, and he shuddered when he saw the blood-stain on that slender white hand.
The young chief felt no jealousy of his wife for the supremacy she had gained over the people. He believed, firmly as the others, in her supernatural powers; but the sneers of the murdered man had touched him to the quick—he burned for some opportunity to prove to his people that he did not bury his manhood in the reflected glory of a woman, however much he might bow before her claims as a prophetess and the descendant of their great medicine men, by whom she had been bequeathed to the tribe.
Whatever the feelings might be which actuated him, Mahaska could not afford then to allow any cloud to come between them—hereafter it would matter little; her eagle gaze was looking forward to a future of undivided sway, to which the present was but a stepping-stone.
She motioned the chiefs to approach her, saying:
“The council-fire has been kindled in vain—the braves have forgotten.”