A REFUGEE'S STORY.
On the margin of a bright blue western stream stood a small fort, surrounding the dwellings of some hunters who had penetrated thus far into the vast wilderness to pursue their calling. The huts they raised were rude and lowly, and yet the walls surrounding them were high and lofty. Piles of arms filled their block house, and a constant guard was kept. These precautions were taken to protect them from the Indians, whose ancient hunting grounds they had intruded on, and whose camp was not far distant. Deadly dealings had passed between them, but the whites, strong in number and in arms, heeded little the settled malice of their foes, and after taking the usual precautions of defence, carried on their hunting, shooting an Indian, or ought else that came across them, while the others, savage and unrelenting, kept on their trail in hope of vengeance.
Strange was it, that in an atmosphere dark as this, the light of love should beam. Leemah, a beautiful Indian girl, met in the forest a young white hunter. She loved, and was beloved in return. The roses of the few summers she had lived glowed warm upon her cheek, and truth flashed in the guileless light of her deep dark eyes—but Leemah was already a bride, betrothed in childhood to a chieftain of her tribe; he had now summoned her to his dwelling, and her business in the forest was collecting materials for her bridal store of box and basket. Her sylph-like form of arrowy grace was arrayed in his wedding gifts of costly furs, and glittering bright with bead and shell. But few were the stores that Leemah gathered for her Indian chief. The burning noon was passed with her white love in the leafy shade—there she brought for him summer berries, and gathered for him the water cup flower, with its cooling draught of fragrant dew. Her time of marriage came, and at midnight it was to be celebrated with torch light and dance. The other hunters knew the love of Silas for the gem of the wilderness, and readily offered their assistance in his project of gaining her. To them, carrying off an Indian girl was an affair of light moment, and at dark of night, with their boat and loaded rifles, they proceeded up the stream towards the Indian village. As they drew near, the wild chaunt of the bridal song was heard, and as all silently they approached the shore, the red torch light gleamed out upon the scene of mystic splendour. The chieftains of the tribe in stately silence stood around. The crimson beams lit up the plumes upon their brow, and showed in more awful hues the fearful lines of their painted faces, terrible at the festival as on the field of battle. The squaws, in their gayest garb, with mirrors flashing on their breasts, and beads all shining as they moved, danced round the betrothed; and there she stood, the love-lorn Leemah, her black hair all unbraided, and her dark eyes piercing the far depths of night, as if looking for her lover. Nor looked she long in vain, for suddenly and fearlessly Silas sprung upon the shore, dashed through the circle, and bore off the Indian bride to his bark. Then rose the war-shout of her people, while pealed among them the rifles of the hunters. Again came the war-whoop, mingled with the death shriek of the wounded. A hunter stood up and echoed them in mockery, but an arrow quivered through his brain and he was silent, while the stream grew covered with shadowy canoes, filled with dark forms shouting for revenge. On came they with lightning's speed, and on sped the hunters knowing now that their only safety was in flight. On dashed they through the waters which now began to bear them forward with wondrous haste. A thought of horror struck them: they were in the rapids, while before them the white foam of the falls flashed through the darkness. The tide had ebbed in their absence, and the river, smooth and level when full, showed all across it, at the flood, a dark abyss of fearful rocks and boiling surf. This they knew, but it was now too late to recede; the dark stream bore them onward, and now even the Indians dare not follow, but landed and ran along the shore shouting with delight at their inevitable destruction. It was a moment of dread, unutterable horror to Silas and his comrades. Their bark whirled round in the giddy waves—then was there a wild plunge—a fearful shock—a shriek of death, and the flashing foam gathered over them, while loudly rang the voices from the shore. But suddenly, by some mighty effort, the boat was flung clear of the rocks and uninjured into the smooth current of the lower stream. A few strokes of the oar brought them to the fort, which they entered; and heard the Indians howling behind them like wolves baffled of their prey. But they and the dangers they had so lately passed were alike forgotten in the night's carousal; and, when the season was ended, they returned to their homes in the settlements, enriched with the spoils they had gained in hunting, and Silas with his treasured pearl of the prairie.
But here, some months after they returned, and while, his heart was yet brightened with her smiles, a dark shade passed over her sunny brow, and she vanished from his home. An Indian of her tribe was said to have been lingering near the village, and she no doubt had joined him and returned to her kindred. Other tidings of her fate Silas heard not. Alas! she knew the undying vengeance of her people, and by giving herself up to them thought to shield him from their hatred.
Again the time of hunting came, and the same party occupied the fort in the wilderness. As yet they had been unmolested by the Indians: they even knew not of their being in the neighbourhood, yet still a form of guarding was kept up, and Silas and a comrade held the night-watch in the block house. The others had fallen asleep, and Silas, as he sat with half-closed eyes, fancied he saw before him his lost love, Leemah; he started as he thought from a dream, but 'twas real, and 'twas her own cool fingers pressed his brow—by the clear fire light he saw her cheek was deadly pale, but her eyes were flashing like sepulchral lamps, and a white-browed babe slept upon her bosom. In a deep thrilling whisper she bade him rise and follow her. Wondering how she had found entrance, he obeyed, and she led him outside the walls of the fort; a murmuring sound as of leaves stirred by the wind was heard.
'Tis the coming of the Red Eagle, said Leemah, his beak is whetted for the blood draughts; here enter, and if your own life or Leemah's be dear, keep still;—as she spoke she parted aside the young shoots which had sprung tip from the root of a tree, and twined like an arbour about it. Her deep earnestness left no time for speculation; he entered the recess, and hardly had the flexile boughs sprung back to their places, when the fleet footsteps of the Indians came nearer, and the fort was surrounded by them; the building was fired, and then their deadly yell burst forth, while the unfortunate inmates started from sleep at the sound of horror. Mercy for them there was none; the relentless savage knew it not; but the shout of delight rose louder as they saw the flames dance higher o'er their victims; and Silas looked on all—but Leemah's eye was on his—he knew his slightest movement was death to her as well as to himself. Like a demon through the flame leaped the ghastly form of the Red Eagle, (he to whom Leemah had been espoused) and with searching glance glared on his victims, but saw not there the one he sought with deeper vengeance than the others—'twas Silas he looked for; and, with the speed of a winged fiend, he bounded to where Leemah stood, and accused her of having aided in his escape. She acknowledged she had, and pointed to the far-off forest as his hiding place. In an instant his glittering tomahawk cleft the hand she raised off at the wrist. Silas knew no more. Leemah's hot blood fell upon his brow, and he fainted through excess of agony, but like Mazeppa, he lived to repay the Red Eagle in after-years for that night of horror—when his eyes had been blasted with the burning fort, his ears stunned with the shrieks of his murdered friends, and his brain scorched through with Leemah's life blood.
Long years after, when he had forsaken the hunter's path, and fought as a loyalist in the British ranks, among their Indian allies who smoked with them the pipe of peace and called them brothers, was one, in whose wild and withered features he recalled the stern Red Eagle; blood called for blood; he beguiled the Indian now with copious draughts of the white man's fire-water, and he and another (brother of one of the murdered hunters) killed him, and placing him in his own canoe with the paddle in his hand, sent the fearful corpse down the rapid stream, bearing him unto his home. The wild dog and wolf howled on the banks as it floated past, and the raven and eagle hovered over it claiming it as their prey. The tribe, at the death of their Sagamore, withdrew from their allies, and, following the track of the setting sun, waged war indiscriminately with all.
And long after, though more than half a century had elapsed since the death of the Red Eagle, and when the snows of eighty winters had whitened the dark tresses of the young hunter, and bowed the tall form of the loyalist soldier; when he who had trod the flowery paths of the prairie, and slept in the orchard bowers by the blue stream of the Hudson, had, for love of England's laws, become a refugee from his native land; and when here, in New Brunswick, he beheld raised around him a happy and comfortable home—his house, which had always been freely opened to religious worship, and in which had been held the prayer-meetings of the baptists and love-feasts of the methodists, became one day transformed into a catholic chapel.
A bishop of the Romish church was passing through the province, and his presence in this sequestered spot was an event of unwonted interest; many who had forgotten the creed of their fathers returned to the faith of their earlier days, and among the most fervent of those assembled, there was a small group of Milicete Indians from the woods hard by. With the idolatrous devotion of their half savage nature they fell prostrate before the priest. Among them was an ancient woman, but not of their tribe, who, while raising her head in prayer, or in crossing herself, Silas observed she used but one hand—the other was gone. This circumstance recalled to light the faded love-dream of his youth. He questioned her and found her to be Leemah, his once beautiful Indian bride, who had wandered here to escape the dark tyranny of her savage kindred. She died soon after, and "she sleeps there," said the old man, pointing to where a white cross marked a low grassy mound before us, and time had not so dried up his heart springs but I saw a tear drop to her memory.