“These are but the notes of singing–birds. Mahéga waits for the choice of Olitipa,—she becomes his wife, or the fire is kindled at the feet of Wingenund.”
Prairie–bird cast an anxious glance athwart the blue vault above; not a cloud was in the sky, and the sun shone with the full brightness of an American July. She would not yet abandon hope, but, making a strong and successful effort to maintain her composure, she said in a firm, impressive tone, “Mahéga, let there be a bargain between us; you seek Olitipa for a wife; if it be the will of the Great Spirit, she will submit, and her brother’s life will be spared; but if the Great Spirit is displeased, and shows his anger by drawing a cloak over the face of that bright sun in the heavens, Mahéga will obey His will, and let the brother of Olitipa go away unhurt.—Is Mahéga content that it shall be so?
“He is,” replied the chief, “if the sign be such as he and the Osage warriors may look upon with wonder; not a mist, or dark cloud.”
“It will be such as will make Mahéga tremble,” replied the maiden with dignity. “Warriors of the Washashe, you have heard the treaty. Before the sun has reached yon western peak, the answer of the Great Spirit will be known.” Having thus spoken, she withdrew into the tent, leaving the Osages gazing upon each other with undisguised awe and amazement.
The maiden threw herself upon her couch in an agony of suspense, greater than can be described! It was terrible to think that her every hope of escaping from the dreadful alternative, was staked upon a sentence in an almanack, of the correctness of which she had not the slightest power to judge. Even the well–intentioned attempts at consolation made by her affectionate Lita were of no avail; her unhappy mistress entreated her to remain at the door of the tent, and report whatever might occur; within and without a profound stillness reigned. The prisoner stood motionless by the sapling to which he was bound; Mahéga smoked his pipe in the full confidence of anticipated triumph, surrounded by his warriors, who, less sceptical, or more superstitious than their chief, looked and listened, expecting some confirmation of the last words of Prairie–bird.
Although the sun could not be opposite the rock which she had pointed out for nearly three hours, of which not a fourth part had yet elapsed, the anxious girl began to imagine that hope was at an end. Visions of future degradation and misery shot through her brain; she tore from her hot brow the fillet that confined her hair, which floated in glossy luxuriance over her shoulders. The reproaches of Reginald Brandon rung in her ears. The loathed embrace of Mahéga crept over her shuddering frame! At this crisis her eye fell upon the handle of the sharp knife concealed in her bosom; she drew it forth; the triumph of the powers of Evil seemed at hand, when a cry of surprise and terror from Lita recalled her wandering senses. She sprang to the door; visible darkness was spreading over the scene, and the terrified Osages were looking upward to the partially obscured disk of the sun, over the centre of which an opaque circular body was spread; a brilliant ring being left around its outer ridge.[58]
Prairie–bird gazed upon the wondrous spectacle like one entranced; the late fearful struggle in her breast had given a supernatural lustre to her eye; her frame was still under high nervous excitement, and as, with long hair floating down her back, she pointed with one hand to the eclipsed sun, and with the other to Mahéga, well might the savage imagine that he saw before him a prophetess whose will the Spirit of Fire must obey. Under the influence of awe and dread, which he strove in vain to conceal, he moved forward, and said to her, “It is enough! let Olitipa speak to the Great Spirit that the light may come again.”
The sound of his voice recalled the mind of Prairie–bird to a consciousness of what had passed. She answered not, but with a gesture of assent motioned to him to withdraw, and supporting herself against one of the trees that grew in front of her tent, she knelt beside it, and, veiling her face in the redundant tresses of her hair, found relief in a flood of tears. Overwhelmed by a sense of the merciful interposition by which she and her brother had been saved, and by a feeling of deep contrition for the sudden impulse of self–destruction to which, in a moment of mental agony, she had yielded, she thought neither of the continuance nor the withdrawing of the dark phenomenon of external nature, but of the evil gloom which had for the time eclipsed the light of grace in her heart, and the tears which bedewed her cheek were tears of mingled penitence and gratitude.
Still, Nature held on her appointed course; after a few minutes the moon passed onward in her path, and the rays of the sun, no longer intercepted, again shed their brightness over earth and sky.
The Osages, attributing these effects to the communing of Prairie–bird with the Great Spirit, stood in silent awe as she arose to retire to her tent, and her secret humiliation became, in their eyes, her triumph.