"He must be a lawyer," said the woman in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, and something dropped heavily to the floor. There was a voice,—"O Lord!"
Excited, peering into the night, the trembling woman listened. Another pistol, and then a voice at her door,—"Oh, madame, give me some water and heal my wounds!"
Peering into the moonlight between the open unplastered logs, she saw her guest stagger and fall. Presently he crawled back into the room. Then again he came to the kitchen door, but did not speak. An empty pail stood there with a gourd,—he was searching for water. Cowering, terrified, there in the kitchen with her children the woman waited for the light.
At the first break of day she sent two of the children to the barn to arouse the servants. And there, on his bearskins on the cabin floor, they found the shattered frame of Meriwether Lewis, a bullet in his side, a shot under his chin, and a ghastly wound in his forehead.
"Take my rifle and kill me!" he begged. "I will give you all the money in my trunk. I am no coward, but I am so strong,—so hard to die! Do not be afraid of me, Pernia, I will not hurt you."
And as the sun rose over the Tennessee trees, Meriwether Lewis was dead, on the 11th of October, 1809.
VIII
A LONELY GRAVE IN TENNESSEE
A hero of his country was dead, the Governor of its largest Territory,—dead, on his way to Washington, where fresh honours awaited him,—dead, far from friends and kindred in a wild and boundless forest.
Did he commit suicide in a moment of aberration, or was he foully murdered by an unknown hand on that 11th of October, 1809? President Jefferson, who had observed signs of melancholy in him in early life, favoured the idea of suicide, but in the immediate neighbourhood the theory of murder took instant shape. Where was Joshua Grinder? Where were those servants? Where was Neely himself?
"I never for a moment entertained the thought of suicide," said his mother, when she heard the news. "His last letter was full of hope. I was to live with him in St. Louis."