Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3

by James Athearn Jones

"I come to offer thee freedom. There is no time to be lost; to-morrow the chiefs of my nation return, and then will thy guards for a sun be doubled; the beams of the next shall light thee to torture and death. Beneath their vigilance thy escape becomes impossible. Mohegan, I am here to restore to the young eagle his wings, and to cut the cords which bind the young panther of his tribe."

"And flies the young eagle forth alone? goes the young panther to the thicket without a companion?" demanded the warrior.

The maiden hid her eyes beneath their long black lashes, and said nothing. The Mohegan continued:—

"Thou wilt give me liberty of my limbs, but thou leavest my heart fettered. Wilt thou not, my beautiful deliverer, be the partner of my flight? What will liberty be to me if thou art not the light of my cabin? Almost would thy presence and thy pity compensate for the tortures which await me if I remain. Is it not better for me to die with thee beholding my constancy and patience in suffering, and rendering me the tribute of a tear as my spirit departs for the land of souls, than to go from thy presence sorrowing for the beautiful maiden with the bright eyes, and fair hair, and ripe lip, and fawn-like step, whom I have left in the land of my foes? And what, my beautiful deliverer, will be said by thy kindred if it be known, as it must be, that thou hast aided my escape, and thus disappointed the vengeance of thy tribe? I would rather die, Bird of Beauty! by the death of fire than expose thee to the slightest peril."

Why should I waste time in telling my brother what has been so often told? The heart of a young maiden in every nation is soft and susceptible, and, when besieged by love and compassion, is too certain to yield. The maiden made the warrior repeat over and over again his promises of affection and constancy, as if they would be a security against any unfortunate consequence of the imprudence she was going to commit. She ended by believing all he said, and by consenting to become his wife and the companion of his escape. "But I cannot go to thy tribe," said she, "for then thou wouldst be obliged to raise the tomahawk against my people, and I may not abide in the habitation of him who seeks to spill the blood of my friends. If thou wilt take me for the guide of thy path, I will bring thee to a hiding-place where the arrows of thy enemies cannot reach thee, and where we may remain sheltered till this cloud of war be overpast."

The youth hesitated. "Nay then," continued she, "I may not go with thee. I will cut thy cords, and the Good Spirit will guide thee to the land of thy friends."

This was enough: love prevailed for once over the desire of warlike glory, in the bosom of a descendant of the Mohawks, and it was settled that the flight should take place that night.

They had just arrived at this conclusion when the man who guarded the prisoner returned. He had been absent the longer because the eagle had changed his perch, and had alighted on a tree at a still greater distance than at first. He had succeeded in bringing down the bird, and was now displaying its huge wings with great satisfaction at the success of his aim. The maiden pulled from them a handful of the long gray feathers, as the reward of having shown the prize to the guard, and departed.

The midnight of that day found the captive awake in the cabin, and his keepers stretched on a mat asleep at the door. They had begun to regard him with less vigilance because he had made no attempt, and shown no disposition, to escape. He thought he heard the light sound of a footstep approaching; he raised his head, and listened attentively. Was it the rustling of leaves in the neighbouring wood that deceived him, or the heavily drawn breath of the sleepers, or the weltering of the river on whose banks the village stood, or the crawling of some beast of prey through the thicket, or the moving of a spirit? These were the only sounds he was now able to distinguish. A ray of moonlight shone through a crevice in the cabin, and fell across the body of his sleeping guards. As his eye rested on this, he saw it gradually widening, and, soon after, the mat that hung over the opening which served for a door-way was wholly withdrawn, and the light figure of the maiden appeared. She stepped cautiously and slowly over the slumbering guards, and, approaching the Mohegan with a sharp knife, severed, without noise, the cords which confined him, and, stealing back to the door, beckoned him to follow. He did so, planting his foot at every step gradually on the floor from the point to the heel, and pausing between, until he was out of the cabin. His heart bounded within him when he found himself standing in the free air and the white moonlight, with his limbs unbound. He beheld his old acquaintance, the stars, as bright and twinkling as ever, and saw with rapture the same river which rolled its dark and massy waters beside the dwelling of his father. They took a path which led westward through the woods, and, after following it for the distance of a bowshot, the maiden turned aside, and took, from a thick clump of cedars, a bow, a spear, and a well-filled quiver of arrows, which she put into his hands. She next handed him a wolf-skin mantle, which she motioned him to throw over his shoulder, and placed on his head a kind of cap on which nodded a tuft of feathers, which it may be remembered she had plucked from the wings of the eagle his sentinel had so lately killed. They then proceeded rapidly but in silence. It was not long before they heard the small waves of the river tapping the shore; they descended a deep bank, and the broad water lay glittering before them in the moonlight. A canoe—his own canoe—he knew it at a glance—lay moored under the bank, and rocking lightly on the tide. They entered it; the warrior took one oar, the maiden another; they pushed off from the shore, and were speedily on their way down the river.

They glided by the shore, past the steep bank covered with tall trees, and past where the moonlight dimly showed, embosomed among the mountains, a woody promontory, round which the river turned and disappeared from view.