The Prophet left Girty’s side and walked to the middle ground. His single eye threw fierce glances at the three prisoners, calmly awaiting their doom, and he knew that they were in his power. His sorcery could doom them to any death desirable.
He drew a small bundle of sticks, tied with deer-thongs, beneath his long robe, and spread them upon the ground, each the distance of several inches from its neighbors. Then after mumbling some gibberish with upturned face, and hands crossed upon his breast, he applied fire to the first stick. It burned freely, and was soon consumed. Another and another followed it to an ashy state, until every stick, save one, was consumed, and the last stubbornly refused to burn!
All eyes were centered upon the Prophet, during this heathenish specimen of his sorcery, and around the lips of Tecumseh played a smile of contempt.
In the great Shawnee’s mind there always existed a disbelief in sorcery, and at times he was outspoken against the black arts his brother practiced. But, in a convocation of his chiefs and warriors, he never dared to declaim against Laulewasikaw.
After several efforts—persistent ones they seemed to all save the prisoners—to fire the last and stubborn stick, the Prophet rose to his feet.
“The great Prophet of the Manitou will speak the doom of the pale lips, and their brother, the red traitor. The Manitou speaks through Laulewasikaw: ‘The skin must be torn from their bodies, when the Manitou’s lights appear, and then they must burn!’”
This terrible doom sent a thrill to every heart beneath the roof of the council-house, and drew a shriek from Eudora’s bloodless lips.
“My God!” cried Fairfax with pallid cheeks—for well might that sentence, which even Tecumseh could not affect, drive the color from the bravest face. “Flayed alive, and then burned!”
All knew that such a doom had resulted from Laulewasikaw’s brief conversation with the renegade.
Tecumseh made an effort to throw it aside. He argued eloquently against its brutality, but all to no effect. He reminded his braves that since he became a chief no prisoner had died at the stake, and to sustain his honour, he hoped that their votes would sustain him.