The scene of the Red Eagle’s surrender is worthy a great artist. In the forests of Alabama. Sentinels—soldiers. The marquee of General Jackson. Big Warrior, a scalawag Creek, sunning himself by the door. Riding through the forest on the same gray, half-thoroughbred horse that leaped the bluff with him at the Holy Ground the Red Eagle comes to give himself up, that his starving people might live. Tell me not this was martyrdom and patriotism of the highest, for well did he know what they thought of him, “the butcher of Ft. Mims,” and easily could he have escaped and gone in to the British in Florida, as many of his comrades had done.
But if he had gone who would protect and plead for the starving women and children? Besides, he had found out the British and the Spaniards, and he hated their ways. He knew that his life alone would atone for it all, and so he rode up to surrender and be shot for his people. A deer crosses his path. He kills it with his rifle and flings it over the pommel of the saddle. Some sentinels stop him. One points out the General’s tent, but none suspects it is he, else he had not lived to reach the door.
Astonished, dumbfounded, Big Warrior rubs his eyes and looks. Is he asleep? Can it be—can it be—
“Ha, Bill Weatherford! Have we got you at last?”
Weatherford looked at him. “You traitor, speak not to me, or I will put a ball through your heart.”
General Jackson heard, and, furious, stalked out with Hawkins at his heels. “How dare you, sir, ride up to my tent, having murdered the women and children of Ft. Mims?”
Soldiers near by sprang up with bitter oaths. Not one but would have given an arm for the honor of killing him. A dozen guns leap up in the wild shout and babble for precedence, but Weatherford sits and calmly looks into their muzzles, while Jackson waves his hand and says: “Silence, and let him speak!”
“I am not afraid of you, General Jackson—I fear no man, for I am a Creek warrior. I have nothing to ask for myself. Kill me if you wish. I come to plead for the women and children starving in the woods. Their fields are destroyed, their homes gone, their cribs empty. They have nothing to eat. Send out your men and bring them in. I did all I could to stop the massacre at Ft. Mims. I am done fighting. My warriors all are killed. Kill me now, if you wish, but save the remnant of our noble race.”
“Kill him! Kill him!” shouted the soldiers, as their guns came up again. But as he spoke Jackson had seen and understood. Over the head of the chief he saw, over the clamoring, cursing troops who begged for his blood, over the past, over Ft. Mims, over all—to Pensacola—to the British sheltered there, waiting to march into his land to plunder and burn; to the Spanish, two-faced and deceitful, urging them on.