As Anstice bade him farewell, she whispered in his ear: "Remember, Irwin, a double wedding, or none."
DOUGLASS FULFILS HIS MISSION
In spite of the undisguised treachery by which Coacoochee had been made a prisoner and hurried from the country, the act was hailed with joy by unthinking people all over the Territory. These cared not how their enemy was got rid of, so long as they were at liberty to seize his lands and enslave the negroes among his followers. There were many others who were making too good a thing out of the war to care to have it end. From these classes, therefore, arose a mighty clamor, when it became known that General Worth was determined to bring back the young war-chief; and for a time there was no man in the country so bitterly abused and reviled as he.
To the fearless soldier, strong in the rectitude of his convictions, and planning far ahead of the present, this storm of words, prompted by ignorance, malice, and selfish interests, was but as the idle whispering of a passing breeze. He cared not for it; and if he had, his attention was too immediately and fully occupied by matters of pressing importance to permit him to notice it.
As the general had foreseen, the outrage perpetrated upon their most beloved chieftain caused the Seminole warriors to spring to their arms with redoubled fury. Even as a smouldering brush-heap is fanned into leaping flames by a sudden fitful gust, so the spirit of revenge, burning deep in Indian hearts, was now allowed to blaze forth without restraint. Small war-parties sallied forth from every swamp and hammock, burning and killing in all directions. Nimbly eluding pursuit, these could neither be destroyed nor captured; and through their fierce acts of vengeance, the citizens of Florida were given bitter cause to regret the taking away of Coacoochee. Such chiefs as remained, bound themselves by a solemn covenant to hold no further intercourse with the treacherous white man, but to fight him to the bitter end, and to put to death any messenger, red, black, or white, whom he might send to them under pretence of desiring peace.
It was now summer, the season of heat, rain, fevers, and sickness. Heretofore, during the summer months, the Indians had rested quietly in their villages, and cultivated the crops that should furnish food for the campaign of the succeeding winter. Heretofore, at this season, the soldiers had been withdrawn from the deadly interior, and allowed to recuperate in the health-giving sea-breezes of the coast.
Now all this was changed. While sympathizing with the wronged and outraged Indians, General Worth's loyalty to his government was too strong to permit his feelings to interfere in the slightest with the full performance of his duty. The time for an active summer campaign had arrived, and the new commander was the very man to conduct such a one with the utmost vigor. The Indians who had taken to the war-path quickly found, to their sorrow, that the whites had done the same thing.
From every post in Florida detachments of troops scoured the neighboring territory, carrying desolation and dismay into every part of the country known, or supposed, to be occupied by the enemy. No hammock was so dense, and no swamp so trackless, that the white soldier did not penetrate it. During the month of June thirty-two cornfields of from five to twenty acres each were despoiled of their growing crops, and as many Indian villages were destroyed. Even the watery fastnesses of the widespread Everglades were invaded by a boat expedition from Fort Dallas, which destroyed crops and orchards on many a fertile island that the Indians had fondly believed no white man would ever discover. During this same month of June, more than three thousand men, stricken by fevers and kindred disease encountered in the swamps, were enrolled on the sick list of General Worth's little army.