Elkswatawa

by James Strange French

Yanatah cast his eyes upon the ground, and was silent. “Speak,” said the Prophet, “whence these cries of murder in the air? Who dares lift the tomahawk? Shall battle rage, and I not know it; I, the chosen of the Great Spirit? Speak!”

Yanatah paused for an instant, then nerving himself for the effort, looked the Prophet in his mighty face, and spoke: “Chosen of the Great Spirit, listen! A brother, dear to my heart, was slain by the whites. I sought their wigwams, and demanded his murderer. They gave me promises. I went again; they laughed me to scorn. His blood cried for vengeance, and I sought it.” He was then silent, and the Prophet's visage assumed rather a gentler aspect, and he said: “Thou hast done wrong, Yanatah; the hatchet is buried; the Prophet of the Great Spirit will tell the red men when to strike;” then, pausing for a moment, he continued: “Did no pale face escape?”

“Not one,” answered Yanatah, “darkness was over the land; yet a captive lives, and is here, a slave for my mother, who weeps for her son.”

“It is well,” said the Prophet; then pausing again, and rolling his eyes toward heaven, and muttering with his lips that those before him might see he held converse with the Great Spirit, he continued with renewed energy, “Yanatah, take thy band and away, far, far from our camp. Blood red are thy steps, and the whites follow on, like hounds on the track. Be seen no more, till a runner from the Prophet calls thee to battle. Away!—”

At this speech, surprise sat upon the countenances of Yanatah and his band. The Prophet had told them that they were pursued; though merely a random assertion, the truth of which he feared, and uttered only to serve his own purpose. They believed it, and were unable to account for the manner in which he had received his information; in silence they gazed at each other for a moment, when Yanatah, desirous to know what was to become of the prisoner, pronounced the words “the captive?” in an inquiring tone, for he durst not directly ask the question. “Remains with me,” said the Prophet sternly. “Let her be brought before me. Away. An hour hence, Yanatah must be without our camp.”

There was no reply, and bowing humbly, they left his presence.

In the great excitement of the moment, the prisoner had been in a measure forgotten, and when she first arrested public attention, “Red Sky of the morning” was seen leaning over her, arranging her dress, and doing many little offices of kindness. So resigned was she, so worn with fatigue and suffering, that even the savages, upon beholding her, manifested some slight feelings of sympathy, and the desire which many cherished when she first entered the camp, of seeing her brought to the stake, passed away.

When the order was given that she should be brought before the Prophet to be disposed of by him, Miskwa, who felt assured that, as he had always inculcated peace, he would not adjudge her to death, started to his tent to entreat him to give her the prisoner for a slave. But upon approaching near enough to catch a glimpse of his dark and lowering countenance, she abandoned the idea, and returning, sought her mother and begged her to prefer the request.

No one in the camp possessed more power than Netnokwa, and no one in the camp in making a request, was more likely to succeed. Yet she saw at a glance the difficulty in which the Prophet was placed. He could not order the captive to death; it would not be in accordance with the doctrines he now preached. He could not send her to the settlements; she would tell her story, and excite the whites to immediate war; all trace of the massacre must be concealed, and she knew not that under these circumstances the Prophet would be willing to trust the prisoner out of his own immediate sight. With a knowledge of these things, she accompanied the maiden and stood with her alone in the presence of the Prophet. The captive now, weeping bitterly, neither looked up nor spoke; the world for her had no joys; her life was in the past. She sobbed as if her heart would burst; yet the Prophet regarded her not, but in his own tongue carried on a hurried dialogue with Netnokwa. Not knowing the object of her visit, aware of the influence she wielded, and also of her connexion with Tecumseh, he began to explain to her the difficulty in which he was situated, the necessity there was for concealment, and his fears that the captive would be searched for by the whites; founding them on the sudden disappearance of Begwa, a thing almost inexplicable on any other supposition than that the whites were now on their steps. Saying this, he paid a compliment to the wisdom and experience of Netnokwa, and asked her what was best to be done. She stated the wishes of her daughter, and added, that should the captive be given to her, they would set out with the first light of day, and in the distant regions to which they were journeying there would be no probability of her being discovered. At this piece of intelligence, a feeling of pleasure was manifest in the countenance of the Prophet, and again turning to Netnokwa, he hinted the ease with which the maiden, when far away, might meet with a secret death. Netnokwa seemed not to understand, and suppressed her feelings, whatever they were. The death of the captive the Prophet could have required of Yanatah, and his request would willingly have been complied with; but he feared that the act, if intrusted to him, would be viewed as a license for the commission of any other crime his passions might suggest.

Being foiled in the attempt he had made to make Netnokwa connive at the death of the prisoner, he yielded her up without annexing thereto any condition; for it saved him the trouble of devising some other mode to get rid of her, and he was also satisfied that, provided Netnokwa and her daughter set out sufficiently early, it was the best plan that could possibly be adopted.