In a loud and bitter voice he exclaimed, “Thy father knows thee no more,”—and once more came to the ears of the victim the melancholy chorus of the multitude—“He knows thee no more, he knows thee no more.” Sanutee turned quickly away as he had spoken; and as if he suffered more than he was willing to show, the old man rapidly hastened to the little mound where he had been previously sitting, his eyes averted from the further spectacle. Occonestoga, goaded to madness by these several incidents, shrieked forth the bitterest execrations, until Enoree-Mattee, preceding Malatchie, again approached. Having given some directions in an under-tone to the latter, he retired, leaving the executioner alone with his victim. Malatchie, then, while all was silence in the crowd,—a thick silence, in which even respiration seemed to be suspended,—proceeded to his duty; and, lifting the feet of Occonestoga carefully from the ground, he placed a log under them—then addressing him, as he again bared his knife which he stuck in the tree above his head, he sung—
“I take from thee the earth of Yemassee—
I take from thee the water of Yemassee—
I take from thee the arrow of Yemassee—
Thou art no longer a Yemassee—
The Yemassee knows thee no more.”
“The Yemassee knows thee no more,” cried the multitude, and their universal shout was deafening upon the ear. Occonestoga said no word now—he could offer no resistance to the unnerving hands of Malatchie, who now bared the arm more completely of its covering. But his limbs were convulsed with the spasms of that dreadful terror of the future which was racking and raging in every pulse of his heart. He had full faith in the superstitions of his people. His terrors acknowledged the full horrors of their doom. A despairing agony which no language could describe had possession of his soul.
Meanwhile, the silence of all indicated the general anxiety; and Malatchie prepared to seize the knife and perform the operation, when a confused murmur arose from the crowd around; the mass gave way and parted, and, rushing wildly into the area, came Matiwan, his mother, the long black hair streaming, the features, an astonishing likeness to his own, convulsed like his; and her action that of one reckless of all things in the way of the forward progress she was making to the person of her child. She cried aloud as she came, with a voice that rang like a sudden death-bell through the ring.
“Would you keep a mother from her boy, and he to be lost to her for ever? Shall she have no parting with the young brave she bore in her bosom? Away, keep me not back—I will look upon him, I will love him. He shall have the blessing of Matiwan, though the Yemassee and the Manneyto curse.”
The victim heard, and a momentary renovation of mental life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out in the simple exclamation which fell from his lips:
“Oh, Matiwan—oh, mother!”
She rushed towards the spot where she heard his appeal, and thrusting the executioner aside, threw her arms desperately about his neck.
“Touch him not, Matiwan,” was the general cry from the crowd; “touch him not, Matiwan,—Manneyto knows him no more.”
“But Matiwan knows him—the mother knows her child, though Manneyto denies him. Oh, boy—oh, boy, boy, boy.” And she sobbed like an infant on his neck.