Burl

by Morrison Heady

An' I hope to gain de promis' lan',
Halle—halleluyah!
An' I hope to gain de promis' lan',
Yes, I do!
Glory, glory, halle—halleluyah!
Glory, glory! Yes, I do!

The death-pile kindled, the smoke of its burning in dense black volumes enveloped the victim. Linked in a horrible circle around it, whooping and yelling and singing their war-songs, leaping and whirling and dancing their war-dance, clashing together their hatchets and war-clubs, waving above them the scalps of their foemen, went the barbarians merry as demons. And strong and clear, with never a quaver, still was heard above the confusion the hymning voice of the smoke-hid victim. But louder and higher than all, it is coming, ringing from far like the blast of a trumpet—a voice so stern, abrupt, and imperious that forthwith ceases the fiendish fandango. Up dashes a warrior mounted on horseback, leaps to the ground, and now at the death-pile seizes the fagots and scatters them broadcast, stamping upon them with moccasined feet to smother the flames till all is extinguished.

The savages—erst so active and lively—taken aback at his sudden appearance, now stood sullenly huddled together, somewhat apart in the gloom of the dingle. The fire extinguished, the chieftain—for such his dress and bearing bespoke him—wrathfully, scornfully, sternly rebuked them for their unmanly and barbarous treatment of a defenseless man and a captive.

In the course of his experience as trader and agent among the Indians, Captain Reynolds had picked up quite a smattering of several Indian tongues, which now enabled him to understand perfectly what the chief was saying. Even had he not been possessed of this knowledge, he could have readily followed the drift of the speaker's words by noting his gestures, looks, and the tones of his voice, so distinct and forcible were they, and so pointed with meaning.

The appearance of this man was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its unflinching brightness; his face, in its European regularity of feature and clearness of outline, eminently handsome, showing in its lines the energy and intelligence of a great mind, true to itself and to the best impulses of human nature. He was dressed in the peculiar and picturesque costume of his people, made magnificent by fineness of material and the richness of decoration. Besides the usual Indian weapons, all of polished steel and silver-mounted, he wore a handsomely hilted English broad-sword, though less as an ornament than as a badge of rank, or mark of distinction.

Word having reached him that Black Thunder and his party had fallen behind the line of march, and to what bloody-minded intent their whoops and yells, heard in that direction, plainly enough attested, the chief, prompt to the call of humanity, had galloped back, as just described, to arrest and rebuke a proceeding so inhuman and so unwarrior-like. His rebuke ended, he turned to take a look at the prisoner whom he had rescued from the flames, but of whom he had as yet seen nothing, the smoke at the moment of his coming up still hovering heavily over the death-pile.

The Big Black Brave with a Bushy Head still stood bound to the tree, yet without the mark or even the smell of fire upon his person, excepting a slight singeing of his fleecy locks and bear-skin cap, not to mention a smart watering at the eyes, the effect of the smoke. Ah—smoke! I find that I have unwittingly made an important omission, for which I owe you an apology, kind and sympathetic reader. I should have told you that a heavy shower of rain had fallen but a few hours before the kindling of the death-pile, which, as needs must, had left the brush-wood in better condition for heavy smoking than for lively combustion. Had I mentioned this circumstance in its proper place, I should have spared your tender sensibilities somewhat by giving you something contingent to catch at as suggestive of possible intervention. But to return.

The instant the chief, with a sweep of his eagle-like eye, had scanned those huge, grotesque proportions, he threw up his hand with a gesture of surprise, and a look of recognition lighted up his handsome face. Whereupon, as if needing nothing more to tell him who had been the prime mover in the day's outrage, and the base motive that had led to its perpetration, he turned abruptly upon Black Thunder, where sullen and lowering, his giantship stood with folded arms apart from the rest, and flung at him a rebuke so withering in its scorn, so burning in its generous indignation, that the big barbarian quailed from before it, daunted and abashed. Then, without further ado, the chief went, and cutting the thongs of buffalo-hide which bound the captive to the tree, set him at liberty, and with a wave of his hand in the direction whence the American army was approaching, said in English, "Go."

To be thus jerked back by the skirts, so to speak, from the open jaws of death by a single savage had proved more confounding to the steadfast mind of Big Black Burl than when but a few minutes before he was dragged thither by twenty, insomuch that ever since the unexpected surcease of the fiendish frolic he had continued to stare about him in a state of bewilderment not unlike that twilight fog of thought and sense through which he was wont to pass from sound asleep to wide awake. But no sooner did he feel that he was foot-loose and hand-loose again than he was all his own collected self once more, and to the welcome gesture and friendly word thus answered: "I yi, my larky! Much obleeged to you fur puttin' out de fire, but smoke me ag'in ef you ketch me gwine 'way from dis holler widout Mars'er Bushie," giving a side-long roll of his big black thumb toward his young master.

How much of this speech the chief really understood were hard to say; but having heard it, he turned, and for a few moments earnestly regarded the young Kentuckian where, in delighted surprise at the unlooked-for turn their ugly adventure had taken, he had stood the while, and now, with the liveliest interest, was awaiting the upshot. Then, as if comprehending fully the circumstances of the case, the chief ordered Black Thunder to restore both prisoners their arms and accouterments, and whatever else had been taken from them—a command sullenly but promptly obeyed. All being ready, their deliverer, speaking again in English, but this time addressing himself to the white man, said, "Follow me!" and, setting his face westward, led the captives from the spot. To avoid the risk he must run of falling in with the American scouts or pickets, their guide ascended at once into the upland forest, through whose shadows lay not only their most secret but shortest route. As they gained the summit of the steep overlooking the dingle where his death-pile had been kindled, the Fighting Nigger—the Preaching Nigger fast asleep within him—made a momentary pause. Waving his bear-skin war-cap loftily over his head, he sent down to Black Thunder, triumphantly and defiantly, his old war-cry, so often heard in the stormy days of long-ago in the land of the Dark and Bloody Ground, now filling those Canadian wilds with gigantic echoes which, flying affrightedly hither and thither, for full three minutes thereafter kept hill-top saying to hill-top, dingle to dingle, "I yi, you dogs!"