“Seek me?”
“No—I have found you.”
“And what want you with me?”
“Only to save your life, your young of life, pretty mico—your fair life—your precious life—ah! precious to her, poor bird of the forest! Ah! there was one precious to me—long, long ago. Ho, ho, ho!
“O why did I trust in a pale-faced lover?
Ho, ho, ho! (Literally, Yes, yes, yes!)
Why did I meet him in the wild woods’ cover?
Ho, ho, ho!
Why did I list to his lying tongue,
That poisoned my heart when my life was young?
Ho, ho, ho!
“Down, chitta mico!” (Note 1) she cried, interrupting the strain, and addressing herself to the rattlesnake, that at my presence had protruded his head, and was making demonstrations of rage—“down, great king of the serpents! ’tis a friend, though in the garb of an enemy—quiet, or I crush your head!”
“I-e-ela!” she exclaimed again, as if struck by some new thought; “I waste time with my old songs; he is gone, he is gone! they cannot bring him back. Now, young mico, what came I for? what came I for?”
As she uttered these interrogatives, she raised her hand to her head, as if to assist her memory.
“Oh! now I remember. Hulwak (it is bad). I lose time. You may be killed, young mico—you may be killed, and then—Go! begone, begone, begone! back to the topekee (fort). Shut yourself up; keep among your people: do not stray from your blue soldiers; do not wander in the woods! Your life is in danger.”
All this was spoken in a tone of earnestness that astonished me. More than astonished, I began to feel some slight alarm, since I had not forgotten the attempted assassination of yesterday. Moreover, I knew that there were periods when this singular woman was not positively insane. She had her lucid intervals, during which she both talked and acted rationally, and often with extraordinary intelligence. This might be one of those intervals. She might be privy to some scheme against my life, and had come, as she alleged, to defeat it.