The rebels were staggered. The trap was sprung on them before they knew that there was a trap. Those in front shrank back from the iron warriors of Multnomah, those in the rear wavered before the fierce Cayuses. They paused, a swaying flood of humanity, caught between two lines of rock.
CHAPTER V.
SENTENCED TO THE WOLF-DEATH.
|
The other, great of soul, changed not Countenance stern. Dante. |
In that momentary pause Multnomah did something that showed the cold disdainfulness of his character as nothing else could have done. He had given the death-sign; he had not yet told how or when death was to be inflicted. He gave the sentence now, as if in utter scorn of the battle-cloud that hung quivering, ready to burst.
“He would have torn the confederacy to pieces; let him be left bound in the wood of the wolves, and torn limb from limb by them as he would have rent the tribes asunder.”
The two warriors who had brought the criminal into the council came forward, flung a covering over his head and face, and led him away. Perhaps no custom of the northwestern Indians was more sombre than this,—the covering of the culprit’s eyes from the time of his sentence till his death. Never again were those eyes to behold the sun.
Then, and not till then, did Multnomah turn his gaze on the malcontents, who stood, desperate but hesitating, hemmed in by the Willamettes and the Cayuses.