CHAPTER II.
THE MARRIAGE AND THE BREAKING UP.
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Remembering love and all the dead delight, And all that time was sweet with for a space. Swinburne. |
After Cecil had been borne from the council-grove, the Indians, rousing themselves from the spell of the strange scene they had just witnessed, looked around for Tohomish the seer. He was gone. No one could remember seeing him go, yet he was missing from his accustomed place, and never was he seen or heard of more. Upon his fate, lost in the common ruin that engulfed his race, the legend casts no ray of light. It is certain that the fall of the Bridge, with which his life was interwoven, had a disastrous effect upon him, and as he said, that the strength of his life was broken. It is probable that the orator-seer, feeling within himself that his power was gone, crept away into the forest to die. Perhaps, had they searched for him, they would have found him lying lifeless upon the leaves in some dense thicket or at the foot of some lonely crag.
Whatever his fate, the Indians never looked upon his face again.
Multnomah made no comment on the death of Cecil, or on the prophecy of Tohomish, so much at variance with his own interpretation of the fall of the 242 Bridge. Whatever he had to say was evidently held in reserve for the closing talk with which he would soon dismiss the council.
“You shall see Multnomah’s daughter given to Snoqualmie, and then Multnomah will open his hand and make you rich.”
So said the war-chief; and a runner was dispatched with a summons to Wallulah. In a little while a band of Indian girls was seen approaching the grove. Surrounded by the maidens, as if they were a guard of honor, came Wallulah, all unconscious of the tragedy that had just been enacted.
Among the chiefs they passed, and stopped before Multnomah. As they paused, Wallulah looked around for Cecil in one quick glance; then, not seeing him, she cast down her eyes despondingly. Multnomah rose and beckoned Snoqualmie to him. He came forward and stood beside the war-chief. The Indian girls stepped back a little, in involuntary awe of the two great sachems, and left Wallulah standing alone before them.