“What is the word of the council? Shall the white man live or die?”
Snoqualmie was on his feet in an instant.
“Blood for blood. Let the white man die at the torture-stake.”
One by one the chiefs gave their voice for death. Shaken for but a moment, the ancient inherited barbarism which was their very life reasserted itself, and 234 they could decide no other way. One, two, three of the sachems gave no answer, but sat in silence. They were men whose hearts had been touched before by Cecil, and who were already desiring the better life They could not condemn their teacher.
At length it came to Tohomish. He arose. His face, always repulsive, was pallid now in the extreme. The swathed corpses on mimaluse island looked not more sunken and ghastly.
He essayed to speak; thrice the words faltered on his lips; and when at last he spoke, it was in a weary, lifeless way. His tones startled the audience like an electric shock. The marvellous power and sweetness were gone from his voice; its accents were discordant, uncertain. Could the death’s head before them be that of Tohomish? Could those harsh and broken tones be those of the Pine Voice? He seemed like a man whose animal life still survived, but whose soul was dead.
What he said at first had no relation to the matter before the council. Every Indian had his tomanowos appointed him by the Great Spirit from his birth, and that tomanowos was the strength of his life. Its influence grew with his growth; the roots of his being were fed in it; it imparted its characteristics to him. But the name and nature of his tomanowos was the one secret that must go with him to the grave. If it was told, the charm was lost and the tomanowos deserted him.
Tohomish’s tomanowos was the Bridge and the foreknowledge of its fall: a black secret that had darkened his whole life, and imparted the strange and mournful mystery to his eloquence. Now that the Bridge was 235 fallen, the strength was gone from Tohomish’s heart, the music from his words.
“Tohomish has no voice now,” he continued; “he is as one dead. He desires to say only this, then his words shall be heard no more among men. The fall of the Bridge is a sign that not only the Willamettes but all the tribes of the Wauna shall fall and pass away. Another people shall take our place, another race shall reign in our stead, and the Indian shall be forgotten, or remembered only as a dim memory of the past.
“And who are they who bring us our doom? Look on the face of the white wanderer there; listen to the story of your brethren slain at the sea-coast by the white men in the canoe, and you will know. They come; they that are stronger, and push us out into the dark. The white wanderer talks of peace; but the Great Spirit has put death between the Indian and the white man, and where he has put death there can be no peace.