[CHAPTER XVIII.]
A MOTHER'S CONFESSION.
"It is just seventeen years ago, you will remember, Harry; you had recently received your commission as lieutenant in the army; you were young, enthusiastic; the future appeared to you to be drawn in the brightest colours. One evening, during weather like the present, you came to my husband's clearing, to tell us the news, and bid us an affectionate farewell; for you hoped, like ourselves, not to be long away from us. The next morning, in spite of our entreaties, after embracing the children, pressing the hand of my poor husband, who loved you so, and giving me a parting kiss, you galloped off, and soon disappeared in a whirlwind of dust. Alas! who could have foretold that we should not meet again till today, after seventeen years' separation, upon Indian territory, and under terrible circumstances? However," she added, with a sigh, "God has willed it so, may His holy name be blessed! It has pleased Him to try His creatures, and let His hand fall heavily on them."
"It was with a strange contraction of the heart," the Major said, "that six months after that parting, when I returned among you with a joyous heart, I saw, on dismounting in front of your house, a stranger open your door, and answer, that the white family had emigrated three months before, and proceeded in a western direction, with the intention of founding a new settlement on the Indian frontier. It was in vain that I tried to gain any information about you from your neighbours; they had forgotten you; no one could or would, perhaps, give me the slightest news about you, and I was forced to retrace, heartbroken, the road I had ridden along so joyfully a few days before. Since then, despite all the efforts I have made, I never was able to learn anything about your fate, or lift the mysterious veil that covered the sinister events to which I was convinced you had fallen victims during your journey."
"You are only half deceived, my brother, in your supposition," she went on. "Two months after your visit, my husband, who had long desired to leave our clearing, where he said the land was worth nothing, had a grave dispute with one of his neighbours about the limits of a field of which he believed, or pretended to believe, that neighbour had cut off a corner: under any other circumstances, the difference would have been easily settled, but my husband sought an excuse to go away, and having found it, did not let it slip again. He would listen to nothing, but quietly made all his arrangements for the expedition he had so long meditated, and at length told us one day that he should start the next. When my husband had once said a thing, all I could do was to obey, for he never recalled a determination he had formed. On the appointed day at sunrise, we left the clearing, our neighbours accompanying us for the first day's journey, and at nightfall left us, after hearty wishes for the success of our expedition. It was with inexpressible sorrow I quitted the house where I was married, where my children were born, and where I had been happy for so many years. My husband tried in vain to console me, and restore me that courage which failed me; but nothing could efface from my mind the gentle and pious recollections I previously kept up: the deeper we buried ourselves in the desert, the greater my sorrow became. My husband, on the other hand saw everything in a bright light; the future belonged to him; he was about to be his own master, and act as he thought proper. He detailed to me all his plans, tried to interest me in them, and employed all the means in his power to draw me from my gloomy thoughts, but could not succeed. Still we went onwards without stopping. The distance became daily greater between ourselves and the last settlements of our countrymen. In vain did I show my husband how remote we were from all help in case of danger, and the isolation in which we should find ourselves; he only laughed at my apprehensions; repeated incessantly that the Indians were far from being so dangerous as they were represented, and that we had nothing to fear. My husband was so convinced of the truth of his assertions, that he neglected the most simple precautions to defend himself against a surprise, and said each morning, with a mocking air, at the moment of starting, 'You see how foolish you are, Margaret; be reasonable, the Indians will be careful not to insult us,' One night the camp was attacked by the Redskins, we were surprised during our sleep; my husband was flayed alive, while his children were burned at a slow fire before his face."
While uttering these words, the poor woman's voice became more and more choked. At the last sentences, her emotion grew so profound, that she could not continue.
"Courage!" the Major said, as much moved as herself, but more master of his feelings.
She made an effort, and continued in a harsh, unmodulated voice,—
"By a refinement of cruelty, the barbarism of which I did not at first understand, my youngest child, my daughter, was spared by the Pagans. On seeing the punishment of my husband and children, at which I was forced to be present, I felt such a laceration of the heart, that I imagined I was dying. I uttered a shriek, and fell down. How long I remained in that state, I know not: but when I regained my senses, I was alone. The Indians, doubtlessly, fancied me dead, and left me where I lay. I rose, and not conscious of what I was doing, but impelled by a force superior to my will, I returned, tottering and falling almost at every step, to the spot where this mournful tragedy had been enacted. It took me three hours—how was I so far from the camp?—at length I arrived, and a fearful sight presented itself to my horror-struck eyes. I looked unconscious upon the disfigured and half carbonized bodies of my children—my despair, however, restored my failing strength. I dug a grave, and, half delirious with grief, buried in it husband and children, all that I loved on earth. This pious duty accomplished, I resolved to die at the spot where the beings so dear to me had perished. But there are hours during the long nights in which the shades of the dead address the living, and order them to take vengeance! That terrific voice from the tomb I heard on a sinister night, when the elements threatened to overthrow nature. From that moment my resolution was formed. I consented to live for revenge. From that hour I have walked firm and implacable on the path I traced, requiting the Pagans, on every opportunity that presents itself, for the evil they had done me. I have become the terror of the prairies. The Indians fear me as an evil genius. They have a superstitious invincible dread of me; in short, they have surnamed me the Lying She-wolf of the Prairies; for each time a catastrophe menaces them, or a frightful danger is hanging over their heads, they see me appear. For seventeen years I have been nursing my revenge, without ever growing discouraged, certain that the day will come when, in my turn, I shall plant my knee on the heart of my enemies, and inflict on them the atrocious torture they condemned me to suffer."
The woman's face, while uttering these words, had assumed such an expression of cruelty, that the Major brave as he was, felt himself shudder.