“But the British are getting active,” the boys were told; “they are sending in supplies to the redskins; and the Spaniards are helping them.”
This condition of affairs held during the fall; the boys saw the winter come and spring show itself in its thousands of green shoots and blooms, and still they were forced to remain at Mobile.
The whole Indian country was surcharged with the madness excited in the people by the religious frenzies of the Prophet, who in turn was directed by the shrewd mind of Tecumseh. But some of the tribes through whose country he passed, like the Cherokees, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, turned a deaf ear to his plotting, for they had the wisdom to see that his plans could not succeed. But the others gave the Shawnees their attention, for with England’s aid they felt that they could finally overthrow the other white men.
During the fall while the boys were safe in Mobile, the news came that Tecumseh and the Prophet had visited Toockabatcha, the great village of the Creeks. There were fully five thousand warriors of that nation assembled in the town; the Shawnee chief and the magician, painted and bedecked with all the trappings of savage custom, made their last great appeal. The British officers had told the Prophet that a comet was to appear—giving him the exact time; and the wily savage now used this information to good advantage. Rising before the assembled Creeks in all the impressiveness of paint and ornaments, he proclaimed:
“The Great Spirit will give you a sign. And when that sign comes, the Muscogee must take the war-path. You will see the arm of Tecumseh, the great chief, in the sky. It will be of fire and will be held out to destroy the paleface.”
This prediction made a great impression upon the superstitious Creeks. A saying of Tecumseh, which that leader had probably not meant to be taken literally, also caused great excitement among the savages. A Creek chief known to the white settlers of Alabama as “Big Warrior” had refused to believe that the Great Spirit had sent Tecumseh among them. With upraised hand the Shawnee had said to him:
“You do not believe me, chief of the Muscogees; you think I speak with a crooked tongue. But you shall believe. When I leave your country I will go to Detroit; when I reach there I will stamp my foot upon the earth; and the wigwams of this village will tremble.”
Unquestionably what Tecumseh meant was that the effects of the war which would begin upon his reaching the region of the Great Lakes would be felt as far as Toockabatcha; nevertheless a strange thing is said to have happened. About the time in which he must have reached Detroit, a sharp shock of earthquake shook almost the whole of the Creek country; and the wigwams of Toockabatcha did, indeed, reel and tremble. Instantly the Indians recalled the Shawnee’s words and were filled with fear.
“Tecumseh has reached Detroit!” they cried. “He has struck the earth with his foot and it has trembled.”
This was in December, 1812, and the entire Gulf region was affected by this earth tremor. At about the same time the predicted comet appeared in the sky; and the credulity of the Creeks at once saw in it the fiery arm of Tecumseh.