Nothing, however, was suggested during the interview that followed, which gave the remotest hope that anything they could say or do would influence the savage chief in favour of his prisoners. Indeed, even if he had been mercifully disposed, the anger of his people against the seamen—especially the relatives of Little Beaver and those who had been wounded during the attack on Wagtail settlement—would have constrained him to follow out what he believed to be the course of justice.
When the final meeting between the visitors and the chief took place, the latter was surrounded by his principal warriors.
“Hendrick,” he said, in reply to a proposal that execution should be at least delayed, “the name of the white hunter who has mated with the Bethuck girl is respected everywhere, and his wishes alone would move Bearpaw to pardon his paleface foes, but blood has been shed, and the price of blood must be paid. Hendrick knows our laws—they cannot be changed. The relations of Little Beaver cry aloud for it. Tell your paleface friends that Bearpaw has spoken.”
When this was interpreted to Paul Burns a sudden thought flashed into his mind, and standing forth with flushed countenance and raised arm, he said—
“Hendrick, tell the chief of the Bethucks that when the Great Spirit formed man He made him without sin and gave him a just and holy law to obey; but man broke the law, and the Great Spirit had said that the price of the broken law is death. So there seemed no hope for man, because he could not undo the past, and the Great Spirit would not change His law. But he found a way of deliverance. The Great Spirit himself came down to earth, and, as the man Jesus Christ, paid the price of the broken law with His own blood, so that guilty, but forgiven, man might go free. Now, if the Great Spirit could pardon the guilty and set them free, would it be wrong in Bearpaw to follow His example?”
This was such a new idea to the Indian that he did not at first reply. He stood, with folded arms and knitted brow, pondering the question. At last he spoke slowly—
“Bearpaw knows not the thing about which his paleface brother speaks. It may be true. It seems very strange. He will inquire into the matter hereafter. But the laws that guide the Great Spirit are not the laws that guide men. What may be fit in Him, may not be fit in them.”
“My dark-skinned brother is wrong,” said Hendrick. “The law that guides the Great Spirit, and that should guide all His creatures, is one and the same. It is the law of love.”
“Was it love that induced the palefaces to kill Little Beaver and steal Rising Sun?” demanded the chief fiercely.
“It was not,” replied Hendrick; “it was sin; and Bearpaw has now an opportunity to act like the Great Spirit by forgiving those who, he thinks, have sinned against him.”