THE SACRIFICE.
BY MRS. MARY EASTMAN.
Far away in one of the fair valleys of the West, where dark forests frown alike in summer, when the richly clad boughs wave to the passing breeze, and in winter, when the bare maple and thick evergreens are covered with snow,—far away, just on the borders of the valley, close by the huge rocks which rear their heads above the bluffs that hang over the water,—an Indian village, with its many-sized lodges rising here and there, reposed, as it were, without fear from storm, or the sun's heat, or the aggressions of enemies. Sometimes, indeed, the mighty thunder rolled angrily towards it, and the streaked lightning called over and over again, to the many hills around, to rouse up the tardy storm-spirits; but they loved not to linger here. Their voices could be heard in angry murmurs, then they would pass on in the river's course, with many a wild shout, to seek some spot less lovely on which to spend their wrath.
A very few miles below the village, an Indian might be seen, slowly paddling his canoe over the placid waters. The dark lines of his face were fixed in deep thought. His countenance was pale, though the hue of his race was there; his nostrils large, and quivering with the remains of passion; his eyes bright and lustrous, as if with fever; but around his mouth might be traced an expression which seemed to indicate that grief as well as passion was struggling with him. As he slowly touched with his paddle the passive waters, he looked around him with a bewildered air.
Suddenly, he started, as his eye fell upon something that lay in the bottom of the canoe; he raised it: 'twas the arrow of his child. How came it there? and why should the father, forgetting all, as he dropped unconsciously the paddle into the waters, cover his face with both his hands, and while the tears forced their way through his fingers, tremble with remembrances too strong even for him, the Iron Heart, to bear?
All was quiet and peace. Not a voice was heard; even nature's was still. No human eye looked upon the warrior as he wept. Silence and solitude surrounded him. The vast prairie that stretched abroad might have recalled to his mind the unending future, which he was to spend in the society of the honoured dead. The soft vapoury clouds of evening that hung over him, might have told him, as they have told many, that it is not far from the wretched to the land of spirits. The waters, on which his canoe rested almost motionless, might have called to his remembrance, that life was a sea, sometimes troubled and sometimes calm, over which the mortal must pass to reach immortality.
But no such tranquillizing thoughts calmed the tempest which was raging in his bosom; his bare chest heaved with emotion; but at length he raised his head, and taking another paddle from the bottom of his canoe in his right hand, with the other he threw the small arrow that had occasioned him so many painful thoughts, and watching till the waters closed over it, he made his way towards the bend in the river, where lowlands and prairies were no more to be seen, and an hour's time brought him in sight of the village, and soon he was clambering over the rocks towards it.
When he met his friends, there was a stern coldness in his manner, and he replied fiercely to the greeting salutations of his younger wives, and called for his daughter Wenona, whose mother had long since been dead, to prepare him some food.