"Hush," said Chenos, listening; "I hear the crowing of the Great Turkey-Cock[9]; I hear him speaking." They stopped, and Chenos went close to the fire, and talked with his master, but nobody saw with whom he talked. "What does the Great Spirit tell his prophet?" asked the head chief.
Chenos answered, "He says the young woman must not be offered to him; he wills her to live, and become the mother of many children."
Many of the chiefs and warriors were pleased that the beautiful woman was to live. They wished to make her their daughter; but those who had lost their brothers and sons in the war were not appeased. They said, "We will have blood. We will have revenge for our sons. We will go to the priest of the Evil Spirit, and ask him if his master will not give us revenge."
Not far from where our nation had their council-fire there was a great hill, covered with stunted trees, and moss, and rugged rocks. There was a great cave in it, how great none of the Indians could tell, save Sketupah, the priest of the Evil Spirit, for no one but he had ever entered it. He lived in this cave, and there did worship to his master. It was a strange place, and much feared by the Indians. If a man but spoke a word at the mouth of it, somebody from within mocked him in a strange, hoarse voice, which sounded like the first of the thunders. And just so many and the same words as the man at the mouth of the cave spoke, the spirit in the cave repeated.[10]
Sketupah was a strange old creature, whom the oldest living man of the nation never saw but as he now was. He would have been very tall if he had been straight, but he was more crooked than a warped bow. His hair looked like a bunch of snakes, and his eyes like two coals of fire. His mouth reached from ear to ear, and his legs, which were very long, were no bigger than a sapling of two snows. He was, indeed, a very fearful old man, and the Indians feared him scarcely less than the Evil One. Many were the gifts which our nation made to Sketupah, to gain his favour and the favour of his master. Who but he feasted on the fattest buffalo hump? Who but he fed on the earliest ear of milky corn?—on the best things which grew on the land or in the water? The fears of the Indian fed him with the choicest things of the land.
The Old Eagle went to the mouth of the cave, and cried with a loud voice, "Sketupah!"
"Sketupah," answered the hoarse voice of the Evil Spirit from the hollow cave. Soon Sketupah came, and asked the Old Eagle what he wanted.
"Revenge for our sons, who have been killed by the Walkullas and their friends, who live beyond the Great Lake, and came on the back of a great bird. Revenge we must have."
"Revenge we ask, revenge we must have," said the hoarse voice in the cave.
"Will your master hear us?" asked the Old Eagle of the priest.