“Nine white men in all—with their women and children. Of the blacks, about five times as many—men, squaws, and papooses.”
“No matter for them: they won’t resist. Describe the whites.”
“The chief of the caravan, a man of middle age—a planter. Waboga well knows his kind. He remembers them when a boy dwelling beyond the Big river—in the land of which his people have been despoiled.”
“A planter. Any family with him?”
“A son who has seen some twenty-four summers—like the father in everything but age; a daughter, grown to a woman—not like either. She is fair as a flower of the prairie.”
“It is she—it is they!” muttered the chief to himself, his eyes glistening in the moonlight with an expression at once triumphant and diabolical. “Oh! ’twill be a sweet revenge!”
“Of the other whites,” continued the Choctaw, “one is a tall man, who has much to do with the management. He acts under the orders of the planter. He carries a great whip, and often uses it on the shoulders of the black slaves.”
“He shall have his punishment, too. But not for that. They deserve it.”
“The other six white men are—”
“No matter; only tell me how they are armed. Will they make resistance?”