The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

“But this is the religion for the Cherokees—that they may be meek and broken, and after the land fling the weapon, and wear the yoke and drag the chain. Men and brothers, the spirits of the dead will rise against you if you suffer this. It is not agreeable to the old beloved rites that we tolerate this serpent of the forked tongue to scoff at our ancient worship and bring in a new religion, manufactured for the free and independent Cherokee, which means British rule.”

There is something strangely daunting in the half-suppressed tumult of an angry crowd. It was not merely that an imprecation was heard here and the sibilance of whispered conspiracy there, or that restless gestures betokened a rising menace,—it was that a total change had come upon the aspect of the assemblage, as unmistakable as if a storm-cloud had blighted the day. The people were convinced. The work of the missionary was annihilated in this masterstroke of craft. To him it was only a reason for a renewal of his labors. When Captain Howard, tearing a leaf from his note-book, wrote a few words upon it and sent it into the “beloved square” by the interpreter, the clergyman merely glanced at it with a shaking head, and tossed it aside, saying with a smile, “No—my place is here. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel!”

Rolloweh had watched the communication with jealous disfavor, but as the familiar words resounded on the air his eye glittered, his long, cruel, flat lips were sternly compressed; he glanced over to the booth where the English officer so incongruously was stationed, and enunciated the fatal words,—“Your beloved man will be removed.”

The attentive crowd caught the phrase, and a keen, savage cry of triumph suddenly broke forth, unlike anything ever voiced by civilized man—an utterance blended of the shrill exultation of a beast of prey, and the guttural human halloo, indescribable, nerve-thrilling, never to be forgotten, once heard. The transformation was complete. They were no more men—not even savages; they had entered upon that peculiar phase of their being which seems to those of different standards absolutely demoniac and demented. There was no right reason in some of the faces gazing at the impassive, unmoved old man in the centre of the square. They were waiting only the word for an act from which the imagination shrinks appalled. Captain Howard’s fears were intensified for his stalwart young soldiers, despite the terrors of the retributive power of England which the recent Cherokee war against the British government had served to induce in the tribe. As the swaying of the crowd and the gaudily decorated figures of the head-men in the “holy white cabin” betokened the breaking-up of the assemblage, he ordered a young sergeant to have the men fall in quietly and keep them together. Captain Howard’s attention was suddenly bespoken by the appearance of two or three chiefs who claimed a personal acquaintance, and who were approaching across the square to meet him. They were wreathing their harsh countenances into sardonic smiles, but they called out: “How! How!” very pleasantly by way of salutation.

Constrained to await their greeting, he bethought himself that perhaps some new influence, a fresh urgency, might avail with the stubborn old missionary.

“Raymond,” he said in a low voice to the ensign, “do you go to the Reverend Mr. Morton and use your best endeavors to persuade him to embark with us. If he remains here after our departure I fear me much these damn scoundrels will burn him alive.”

“I think I can persuade him, sir,” said the capable and confident ensign.

Captain Howard looked hard at the dashing and debonair young officer, erect, stalwart, alert, clear-eyed, as he lifted his hand to the brim of his cocked hat and turned away, jostled considerably in his movements, and perhaps intentionally, by a dozen or more contumacious looking tribesmen, who were awkwardly crowding about the booth assigned to the soldiers.

“Take three men with you, Ensign,” added Captain Howard. He had a positive fear that alone the subaltern might be attacked in the press, throttled, whisked away, tortured on the sly, and mysteriously disappearing, be lost to the service forever. “A trio of wide red Irish mouths,” he thought, “could not easily be silenced.”

And with this preparation for the graces of social intercourse he turned to greet the three chiefs who now came up with acclamations of pleasure, desirous of showing their companions the degree of consideration they enjoyed on the part of the commander of his Majesty’s fort.