“They shall, indeed!” cried Mahaska; “he is a dog, and shall die a dog’s death.”
The chief turned upon her like a lion at bay.
“Let the woman beware; Gi-en-gwa-tah has borne in silence long enough; for her own sake, for her child’s sake, let her pause and think, before her craft is exposed.”
“Let him speak—who will heed his lies? What he means to say has been already revealed to Mahaska; he will dispute her power—he will say that the prophet does not direct her—that the Great Spirit did not fill her dwelling with gifts—let him speak—the queen laughs!”
He stood confounded by her words; he was at a loss to understand how she could have penetrated the secret he had discovered, and stunned by the matchless audacity with which she avowed it.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah may well look troubled,” she said; “he can not doubt the queen’s power, in spite of his lies.”
“He does doubt it!” he cried. “He knows that she is false—that the gifts which fill her home came from the English—he will tell all at the council—”
She interrupted him with a fearful denunciation, and again cried out:
“Secure him! Obey, or every guard shall hang before to-morrow’s sunset.”
The guards rushed forward again—the chief leveled the foremost with a blow of his musket, but he was speedily overpowered by numbers and soon bound hand and foot.