Now that the over-mountain men were disowned and told to find a guardian in the handicapped central Government, the wily leader realized the Cherokee Nation stood at the threshold of its destiny. Sevier represented the element opposing the red man’s ascendancy; therefore, he must be removed. No man had ever been more highly esteemed by the Indians as a fighter, and the full measure of praise would be given him even while the sentence of death was being carried out. Sevier had found this recognition of merit to be a characteristic of every Indian tribe with which he had had dealings. Torture and the torments of hell would be accompanied by the sincere acknowledgment of the victim’s virtues.
Sevier stepped to a window and noticed the guard on that side had been withdrawn. A similar inspection on the other three sides revealed the same negligence. But the borderer was not to be decoyed into imagining he could escape to the forest by a sudden rush. He knew he was circled about by sharp weapons and sharper eyes and that, should he attempt to escape, he would be despatched off-hand. Such an ending of his captivity would relieve Watts from any censure on the part of Old Tassel and his faction.
Leaning from an open window, Sevier found the invitation to attempt an escape was accented by the absence of even the women and children. The village appeared to be deserted. He smiled grimly at such a transparent ruse. He had fought too many times with the nation, had whipped it too often, to imagine the warriors would neglect any oversight that would insure his captivity. And yet the manœuvre made him think more kindly of Watts. The chief fought for the future of his people; he preferred to remove the stumbling-block in the council-house without brutality.
There was something in the drowsy atmosphere of the village that was reminiscent of James Robertson’s last visit to his home on the Nolichucky. The fancy was absurd and yet persisted; something that now thrilled him with a promise of succour, and yet too vaguely remembered to take a tangible form in his thoughts. He forced his recollections over the back trail. He recalled the evening. He could see Robertson at the table, talking. Then there flashed across the sensitive screen of his memory the words:
Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sunrising; that the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live.
Now he had it through the seeming irrelevancy of some passages of Scripture. Robertson had been to Echota, and had spoken of it as a “white,” or “peace” town. Sevier had summoned it back to mind through the association of ideas. The Cherokees had degenerated in other matters, but they still held strictly to their ancient law and vouchsafed a refuge to the murderer which was even more liberal than that set forth in Deuteronomy. For, while Moses had stipulated that wilful or premeditated homicide placed the offender outside the pale of sanctuary on the east side of Jordan, the old Cherokee law protected even the wilful slayer once he gained Echota.
Sevier knew a trader, a white man, who had demanded and secured sanctuary at Echota after slaying an Indian in defence of his goods. This man had even been warned by the chiefs that he would be waylaid and killed on his way home unless he first appeased the dead man’s relatives with gifts. Sixteen years back Oconostota, speaking for the Cherokee Nation at Johnson Hall on the Mohawk, in the course of making peace with the Iroquois, had said—
“We come from Chotte, where the white house, the house of peace, is erected.”
But this was not Echota, and yet the vague promise of help persisted in the borderer’s mind. Then there walked through his thoughts the figure of a Frenchman, who had visited him at Jonesboro, having come from the Creek country and passing near the lower towns, and the Frenchman had told of finding rest and security.
“I have it now!” softly exclaimed Sevier, lifting his head and glancing sharply about the village.