A wonderful interest, too, was concentrated in the personal traits of Metamora himself as an individual; so true to his word, so faithful to his friend, so devoted to his wife and child, so proud of his land and his fathers, so fearless of his foe, so reverential before his God. "To his friend Metamora is like the willow,—he bends ever at the breath of those that love him. To others he is an oak. Until with your single arm you can rive the strongest tree of the forest from its earth, think not to stir Metamora when his heart says No."
In the earliest scene with his wife, when ready to start on a hunt, he lingered, and directed her to take her child from its couch on the earth. He then lifted it in his hands, and stood for several seconds in an attitude so superbly defined in its outlines of strength and grace that several pictures of it were published at the time. He asked, with a look of fondness, suppressing his stern reserve, "Dost thou not love this little one, Nahmeokee?" "Ah, yes!" she replied. He then continued, in a caressing murmur like the runneling music of a brook, "When first his little eyes unclosed, thou saidst that they were like to mine." The expression of human love was so simple and complete, and so exquisitely set in the wild seclusion of nature, suggestive of the self-sufficingness of this little nest of affection embosomed in the wood and forgetful of all else in the world, that it made many a soft heart beat fast with an aching wish that stayed long after the scene was gone.
In a later scene he describes to his wife a vision he has had in the night. He relates it in a rich, subdued undertone, waxing intenser, and giving the hearer a mixed feeling of mysterious reverie and prophetic inspiration. "Nahmeokee, the power of dreams has been on me, and the shadows of things to be have passed before me. My heart is big with great thoughts. When I sleep, I think the knife is red in my hand and the scalp of the white man is streaming." Here he gave an additional height to his figure, a slight downward inclination to his head and eyes, dropped his left arm listlessly, and, while the two halves of his whole form were seen finely distinguished along the median line, with his right hand, extended to its fullest distance straight from the shoulder, grasped his bow, which stood perfectly erect from the ground. It was a posture of beautiful artistic precision and meaning, expressive of reflection with a quality of earnest listening in it, as if waiting for a reply. The words of Nahmeokee, not fitting his mood, slightly ruffled his temper, and then, with a crisp tone of voice which in its change of quality and accent was so unexpected that it was like a sudden sweep of the wind that rustles the dry leaves and hums through the wood, he said, "Yes, when our fires are no longer red in the high places of our fathers,—when the bones of our kindred make fruitful the fields the stranger has planted amid the ashes of our wigwams,—when we are hunted back like the wounded elk far towards the going down of the sun,—our hatchets broken, our bows unstrung, and our war-whoops hushed,—then will the stranger spare; for we shall be too small for his eye to see!"
The controversy between the natives and the new settlers having reached a perilous height, the latter dispatch a messenger asking Metamora to meet them in council. Very angry, and deeming all talk useless, he yet concludes to go. Unannounced, abruptly, he makes his peremptory appearance amidst them. Settling strongly back on his right leg, his left advanced at ease with bent knee, his right side half presented, his face turned squarely towards them, he says, with Spartan curtness, and in a manner not insolent, and yet indescribably defiant, "You sent for me, and I have come." His action was so wonderfully expressive in speaking these few words that they became a popular phrase, circulating in the mouths of men in all parts of the country.
The same result also followed in another and simpler scene. He had promised to meet the English at a certain time and place. They demanded of him, "Will you come?" By mere force of manner he gave an immense impressiveness to the simple reply, "Metamora cannot lie." The very boys in the streets were seen trying to imitate his posture and look, swelling their little throats to make the words sound big, as they repeated, "Metamora cannot lie."
In an interview with the English, after deadly hostilities have begun to rage, Aganemo, a subject of Metamora, who, for some supposed wrong, has turned against him, is called in, and bears testimony against his chief and his tribe. Metamora cries, "Let me see his eyes;" and, going close in front of him, addresses the cowering recreant: "Look me in the face, Aganemo. Thou turnest away. The spirit of a dog has entered thee, and thou crouchest. Dost thou come here with a lie in thy heart to witness against me? Thine eye cannot rest on thy chieftain. White men, can he speak words of truth who has been false to his nation and false to his friends?" Fitz Arnold says, "Send him hence." Metamora interposes with an imperial mien full of dread import, "I will do that," and strikes him dead on the spot, exclaiming, "Slave of the whites, follow Sassamon,"—Sassamon being the name of another traitor whom he had previously slain in the midst of his own braves.
Fitz Arnold orders his men to seize the high-handed executioner of their witness. Towering alone in solitary and solid grandeur, with accents and gestures whose impassioned sincerity painted every thought as a visible reality and made the excited audience lean out of their seats, Metamora hurled back his electric defiance:
"Come! my knife has drunk the blood of the traitor, but it is not satisfied. Men of the pale race, beware! The mighty spirits of the Wampanoags are hovering over your heads. They stretch their shadowy arms and call for vengeance. They shall have it. Tremble! From East to West, from the South to the North, the tribes have roused from their slumbers. They grasp the hatchet. The pale-faces shall wither under their power. White men. Metamora is your foe!"
The soldiers level their guns at him. He suddenly seizes a white man and places him before himself. The living shield thus extemporized falls, perforated with bullets. Metamora hurls his tomahawk to the floor, where it sticks quivering, while he cries, "Thus do I defy your power!" and darts away, leaving them dumb with astonishment.
The pathos with which Forrest rendered portions of the play of Metamora was one of its most remarkable excellences and one of his most distinctive trophies as a dramatic artist. No theory of the passions or mere mechanical drill in their expression can ever teach a man to be pathetic. Only a disagreeable mockery of it can thus come. Pathos is the one particular affection that knows no deceit, but comes in truth direct from the soul and goes direct to the soul. It may lie dormant in us, as music lies in the strings of a silent harp, till a touch gives it life. Speaking more or less in all, it speaks most in those who cherish it most; and when it speaks it is felt by all,—red man and white man, barbarian and philosopher. The pathos of Metamora was not like that of Damon when he parted with his family to go to his execution, not like that of Brutus when he sentenced his son to death, not like that of Virginius when he slew his daughter. It was a pathos without tears or gesture. The Indian warrior never weeps. It was almost solely a pathos of the voice, and was as broad and primitive as the unperverted faith and affection of man. The supreme example of this quality in the play was finely set off by the contrast that immediately foreran it, its soft, sad shades following a scene of lurid fury and grandeur.