“A good idea, Mr. Elmsley. So be it. The majority of votes shall decide whether we fight or surrender.”
The votes were accordingly taken, and the result was an equal division—eleven for surrendering and taking the chances of good faith—the other eleven, chiefly the unmarried men, for fighting to the last.
“The casting vote is with you, Mr. Elmsley; that given, we return our answer,” remarked Captain Headley.
“Winnebeg,” said the lieutenant, addressing him for the first time, “one question I would ask you first: know you anything of our wives—are they dead—and where is Mr. McKenzie?”
“They are all alive,” returned the chief with animation—“bad wound, though—Winnebeg help save him himself.”
Human nature could stand no more. Both officers, as if actuated by the same common impulse, met and embraced each other warmly. A mountain weight seemed to be taken from their oppressed hearts, and those two men, who had preserved the most cool and collected courage through the fearful, the appalling scenes of that day, stilling all their more selfish feelings, now suffered the warm tears to gush in silence from their eyes. The men beheld this sight with an emotion little inferior to their own, and many a tear trickled over their faces and moistened and mixed with the dark deposit left by the bitten cartridge, as they too rejoiced in the safety of those brave and noble women.
“There can be no doubt what my decision in this matter will be now,” remarked the lieutenant, when he had a little recovered from his emotion. “The good Winnebeg who has done thus much—saved those most dear to us—cannot want the power to save ourselves. My vote is for the surrender.”
“Winnebeg,” said Captain Headley, with great feeling, “whatever doubts may have existed in our minds as to the propriety of surrendering, they are now wholly removed. We know your worth and humanity, and commit ourselves wholly to your good faith. Indeed, from the moment I saw you coming at the head of this party, after the death of the black-hearted Pee-to-tum, I felt that we were safe from further attack. Still, it was my duty to consult the men who had so bravely fought with me. We consent to become your prisoners, on three conditions—first, that we be suffered to retain our colors, which you see there wrapped round the dying body of Mr. Ronayne, the friend of your son; secondly, that we be permitted to bury our dead comrades; and thirdly, that we be surrendered to the nearest British post at the earliest opportunity.”
Winnebeg, after looking at the spot where the young officer lay, spoke for a few moments with his followers, who did not seem to relish the arrangement, for a good deal of animated conversation ensued between themselves; but at length the point was satisfactorily settled, and the former assented to the conditions of surrender Captain Headley had imposed. To have reposed any faith in the warriors themselves after what had occurred, that officer was now fully sensible would have been an act of madness; but he confidently hoped that, although Winnebeg and the other friendly chiefs might not have had the power to restrain the excitement of their young men in the first outburst of their rage for blood, their influence would to a certain extent be regained, now that the fiercest act in the drama had been played, and the chief actor was no more. The only thing that created uneasiness in him was the apprehension that the severity of their own loss might induce such a desire of vengeance in the minds of the warriors as to cause in them a renewal of their fury, and an utter disregard of the pledges of their leaders. Something however—indeed much—must be left to chance. As prisoners they might and would be saved, if the influence of their sager warriors and their own better feelings prevailed, while, as combatants, every man, without an exception, must have fallen. Moreover, the reason which had decided Lieutenant Elmsley in giving his vote had an equal influence in sustaining himself in the expediency of surrender. Their wives were prisoners, and a reunion with them was not impossible; whereas if they had resolved on defending themselves with the obstinacy of despair, that hope must have been for ever cut off, and the noble women—not to speak of the partners of their brave and humble followers—who had taken so prominent a share in the combat, wounded and sustained only by the faint possibility of a meeting with their husbands, would assuredly be made to undergo a similar fate.
And now commenced the most humiliating part of the movements of the day—the breaking up of the gallant little square, and the return, flanked by their Indian captors, of the remains of the detachment to the fort. In compliance with the wish of Captain Headley, expressed at the suggestion of his men, instead of taking the route selected by Winnebeg in his advance, the party were suffered to return past the wagons. The scene which took place here was one of mingled consolation and despair. Such of the married men as had survived the conflict anxiously sought their wives, many of whom, with pale cheeks and sunken eyes, and hearts nearly crushed by the pitiless murder of their children, still wrung comfort in the midst of their despair, as they gazed once more on the features of those whom they had given up as lost for ever. But then, on the other hand, was the soul's misery complete of the poor women, widowed within the past few hours, who sought eagerly but in vain to distinguish the features of him who alone could console her under a similar bereavement, and who, with tears and sobs, sank back again into the wagon, in all the agony of increased and confirmed despair. It required stern hearts to behold all this unmoved; but the knowledge that their wives had been unharmed, whatever the savage destruction of their children, brought some little relief to the overcharged hearts of such of the married men as had been spared, and in their secret hearts they returned thanks to the Providence that had guarded not only their own lives, but the lives of those most dear to them.