The Land of Bondage: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

That the next day was to be one of great importance was easy to see from the moment it dawned. Towards a belt of pines which grew upon the rise of the hills there were already proceeding groups of Indians, some bearing in their hands the skins of animals and blankets dyed divers colours; banners, too, were being affixed to the trees as though in preparation for some great feast. We noted, also, that many of the Indian women and maidens--with, alas! amongst them some girls and women who were not Indian born, but white women--were finely dressed as though for a gala. As we ate of the food which our guards brought us--though three, at least, of our little band had no appetite for it--the door was darkened by the form of Anuza, and, a moment later, his great body stood within the tent, while we observed that he, too, was now arrayed in all the handsome trappings that bespoke the rank of a great chief. His short-sleeved tunic of dressed deer-skin was ornamented with the polished claws of his totem, the Grizzly Bear; on the shield he bore were the same emblems; even his long black hair, twisted up now like a coronet beneath his plumed bonnet of feathers, was decorated with one claw set in gold. In his wampum belt, fringed and tasselled with bright shells, he carried a long knife and a pair of pistols richly inlaid with silver and ivory-won, doubtless, in some earlier foray with our race--at his back hung down a bleached bearskin cloak to which, by a sash or loop, were suspended his tomahawk and bow. As I gazed on him I understood, if I had never understood before, what our forefathers meant when sometimes they spoke of the Indian as a splendid, or a noble, savage.

Behind him, borne upon a litter by two other Indians, came one the like of whom I had never seen, an old Indian of surely a hundred years of age; his eyes gone and, in their place, nought but the white balls to be observed. His head, with still some few sparse hairs left on it, bent on his breast, his hands were shrivelled like unto those of the mummies of which I have read, and his body, even on so hot a day as this, was enveloped in a great bearskin adorned with the gay plumage of many bright-coloured birds.

As Anuza strode into the tent, or Wigwam, leaving the old man outside in the sun, he made a grave salutation to us all; but it seemed directed to me more especially, and then he said:

"Peace be with you all. And, white maiden," he went on, addressing me, while to my surprise he bent his knee before me, "though death awaits you and yours to-day, yet it shall not claim you while the Bear is by. Nor, had I known that which he, my father, has told me, should the hand of Anuza have been raised against you or your house, or aught within it." While, as he spoke, I gazed wonderingly at him, not knowing what his words might mean.

[CHAPTER XXIII]

DENOUNCED

Yet the explanation or meaning, when it came, was simple indeed. Many years before, nay, more than fifty, when my grandfather, Mark Bampfyld, owned and ruled at Pomfret Manor, his wife strolling in the woods had met and succoured a wounded Indian who had been shot at by some other colonist and had dragged himself to where she found him. Now, at that time the Indian was hated in all Virginia more, perhaps, than he had ever been before or since, for the memory of how he and his had been our firm allies was still fresh in all men's memories, so that their new enmity to us was even more bitterly felt than at any other period. To succour an Indian, therefore, at this period, was to do a thing almost incredible, a thing not to be believed of one colonist by another, and, by the Indian himself, to be regarded as something that could never by any chance occur. Yet this thing my grandmother, Rebecca, had done; she had tended and nursed that savage, who was none other than the father of Anuza now without our tent--himself, also Anuza the Bear--she had sent him forth a well man to return to his own people, and, ere going, he had vowed to her, placing his fingers on the scars of his wounds to give his vows emphasis, that none of his blood or race should ever again injure those of hers.

Yet now was I--who had never heard aught of this before--a captive in his son's hands.

"But, oh! white maiden," said Anuza the younger, while the old, sightless man nodded his head gravely, "had I known aught of this, I would have smitten off my hands or slain myself ere harm should have come to you or yours; yea, even before a tree on your lands should have been hurt or so much as a dog injured. And neither you nor these others are captives to me longer, though I doubt if, even now, Senamee, who is chief over us all, will let you go in peace. For he is as the puma who has the lamb within its jaws when an enemy is in his hands, and he hearkens to the medicine man, who your sister says is but a cheat, and who hates you all."

"But," said Mr. Kinchella and Mary together, "that cheat can be exposed; surely if he is proved no medicine man but only a poor trickster, the chief will not hearken to him."