The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

CHAPTER XVIII

Ensign Raymond was no polemic nor versed in the Hebraic analogies rife at that day among those who ascribed a Semitic origin to the American Indian and sought to recognize in them the “lost tribes of Israel.” When at last he set foot on the “ever-sacred” soil of the city of refuge and opened his sealed orders, it was less a resemblance to ancient Jewish customs that appealed to him than an appreciation of the prudence of his commander in choosing this site for the delivery of his mission. For he had that to say to the head-men of the Cherokee nation which elsewhere might cost him his life. Here, however, at the horns of the altar, had he, himself, been the shedder of blood, he was safe. Here his blood could not be shed. He was under the shadow of the “wings of peace.” The “infinitely holy” environment protected him and his.

When he drew up his command and addressed the soldiers, ordering them on no account to venture beyond the limits of the “beloved town,” the amazement and flouting ridicule on their florid Irish and Cockney faces marked the difficulty which the ordinary mind experiences in seeking to assimilate the theories of eld. With the heady severity characteristic of a very young officer, he replied to the nettling surprise and negation in their facial expression.

“It may sound like a fool notion to you, but you must remember that you are only a pack of zanies, and don’t know a condemned thing but the goose-step. They had this same sort of immunity ’way back in the Bible times,”—he was himself a trifle vague,—“cities of refuge, where, in the case of involuntary manslaughter, the slayer might find protection, and in this ‘old peaceable town’ of Choté no hurt may be done even to a wilful man-slayer, no blood may be shed here,—now, do you understand?”

The heads were all erect; the position was the regulation “attention” with “eyes front,” but so round were these eyes with amazement that “the greasy red-sticks” had aught similar to customs “’way back in the Bible times,” that the caustic young commander was moved to add: “You are a set of heathen, too, or you would have learned all that long ago,—about holding to the horns of the altar, as an effective defensive measure. Anyhow,” he summed up, “if you choose to go off the ‘sacred soil’ and get yourselves slaughtered, you cannot say that you have not been fairly warned. You will disobey orders, you will be put under full stoppage of pay, and—your bones will not be buried.”

The parade was dismissed and they marched away, much marvelling at his strange discourse.

The allusion to their bones remained rankling in his mind. For there was a fence of human bones at Choté, very grievous for a British soldier to look upon,—a trophy, a triumphal relic, of the massacre of the British garrison of Fort Loudon after its capitulation. It had been difficult for Raymond to control the righteous wrath of his soldiers in the presence of this ghastly mockery,—notwithstanding their scanty number and the realization that any demonstration would be but the sacrifice of their own lives the moment they should quit the soil of immunity. The assurance of their commander that he would report the indignity to the government, when doubtless some action would be taken, was necessary to avert disastrous consequences.

Raymond, himself, had great ado to contend with the storm of anger a-surge within his own breast when the Cherokees ceremoniously received him, beating the drums of the late Captain Demeré, who had marched out of Fort Loudon with the full honors of war, with flags and music and their assurance of safeguard.

“This is not well,” Raymond could not refrain from saying, as he stood in the centre of the “beloved square” in the midst of the town, with the head-men, splendidly arrayed in their barbaric fashion, gathered to greet him. “The articles of capitulation reserved to Captain Demeré the colors, drums, and arms of the garrison—he had the solemn assurance of the Cherokee nation,—and—” Raymond was very young; his face turned scarlet, the tears stood in his eyes, he caught his breath with something very like a sob, “the remains of that honorable soldier are entitled to Christian burial.”

He was sorry a moment later that he had said aught. The Indians’ obvious relish of his distress was so keen. They replied diplomatically, however, that all this had happened long ago, nearly three years, in fact, and that if they had done aught amiss, the British government had amply avenged the misdeed in the distressful wars it had waged against the Cherokee nation, that had indeed been reduced to the extremity of humiliation.