Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text ation, where he would not shrink
from death; and, as the shout reached his ears, he shouted back his
defiance, raised his head loftily in air, and with the most perfect
composure, commenced singing his song of death, the song of many
victories.
"Wherefore sings he his death-song?" was the cry from many
voices,--"he is not to die!"
"Thou art the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," cried Malatchie to the
captive, "thou shalt sing no lie of thy victories in the ear of
Yemassee. The slave of Opitchi-Manneyto has no triumph"--and the words
of the song were effectually drowned, if not silenced, in the
tremendous clamor which they raised about him. It was then that
Malatchie claimed his victim--the doom had been already given, but the
ceremony of expatriation and outlawry was yet to follow, and under the
direction of the prophet, the various castes and classes of the nation
prepared to take a final leave of one who could no longer be known
among them. First of all came a band of young marriageable women, who,
wheeling in a circle three times about him, sang together a wild
apostrophe containing a bitter farewell, which nothing in our language
could perfectly embody.
"Go,--thou hast no wife in Yemassee,--thou hast given no lodge to the
daughter of Yemassee,--thou hast slain no meat for thy children. Thou
hast no name--the women of Yemassee know thee no more. They know thee
no more."
And the final sentence was reverberated from the entire assembly,
"They know thee no more, they know thee no more."
Then came a number of the ancient men,--the patriarchs of the nation,
who surrounded him in circular mazes three several times, singing as
they did so a hymn of like import.
"Go--thou sittest not in the council of Yemassee--thou shalt not
speak wisdom to the boy that comes. Thou hast no name in Yemassee--the
fathers of Yemassee, they know thee no more."
And again the whole assembly cried out, as with one voice, "They know
thee no more, they know thee no more."
These were followed by the young warriors, his old associates, who
now, in a solemn band, approached him to go through a like
performance. His eyes were shut as they came, his blood was chilled in
his heart, and the articulated farewell of their wild chant failed
seemingly to reach his ear. Nothing but the last sentence he heard--
"Thou that wast a brother,
Thou art nothing now,
The young warriors of Yemassee,
They know thee no more."
And the crowd cried with them, "They know thee no more."
"Is no hatchet sharp for Occonestoga?" moaned forth the suffering
savage. But his trials were only then begun. Enoree-Mattee now
approached him with the words, with which, as the representative of
the good Manneyto, he renounced him,--with which he denied him access
to the Indian heaven, and left him a slave and an outcast, a miserable
wanderer amid the shadows and the swamps, and liable to all the doom
and terrors which come with the service of Opitchi-Manneyto.
"Thou wast the child of Manneyto,"
sung the high priest in a solemn chant, and with a deep-toned voice
that thrilled strangely amid the silence of the scene,
"Thou wast the child of Manneyto
He gave thee arrows and an eye,--
Thou wast the strong son of Manneyto,
He gave thee feathers and a wing,--
Thou wast a young brave of Manneyto,
He gave thee scalps and a war-song,--
But he knows thee no more--he knows thee no more."
And the clustering multitude again gave back the last line in wild
chorus. The prophet continued his chant:
"That Opitchi-Manneyto!--
He commands thee for his slave--
And the Yemassee must hear him,
Hear, and give thee for his slave--
They will take from thee the arrow,
The broad arrow of thy people,--
Thou shalt see no blessed valley,
Where the plum-groves always bloom--
Thou shalt hear no songs of valour,
From the ancient Yemassee--
Father, mother, name, and people,
Thou shalt lose with that broad arrow,
Thou art lost to the Manneyto,--
He knows thee no more--he knows thee no more."
The despair of hell was in the face of the victim, and he howled
forth, in a cry of agony that for a moment silenced the wild chorus of
the crowd around, the terrible consciousness in his mind of that
privation which the doom entailed upon him. Every feature was
convulsed with emotion; and the terrors of Opitchi-Manneyto's dominion
seemed already in strong exercise upon the muscles of his heart, when
Sanutee, the father, silently approached him, and with a pause of a
few moments, stood gazing upon the son from whom he was to be
separated eternally-- . . .
. . . . .
In a loud and bitter voice he exclaimed, "Thy father knows thee no
more,"--and once more came to the ears of the victim the melancholy
chorus of the multitude--"He knows thee no more, he knows thee no
more." Sanutee turned quickly away as he had spoken; and as if he
suffered more than he was willing to show, the old man rapidly
hastened to the little mound where he had been previously sitting, his
eyes averted from the further spectacle. Occonestoga, goaded to
madness by these several incidents, shrieked forth the bitterest
execrations, until Enoree-Mattee, preceding Malatchie, again
approached. Having given some directions in an under-tone to the
latter, he retired, leaving the executioner alone with his victim.
Malatchie, then, while all was silence in the crowd,--a thick silence,
in which even respiration seemed to be suspended,--proceeded to his
duty; and, lifting the feet of Occonestoga carefully from the ground,
he placed a log under them--then addressing him, as he again bared his
knife which he stuck in the tree above his head, he sung--
"I take from thee the earth of Yemassee--
I take from thee the water of Yemassee--
I take from thee the arrow of Yemassee--
Thou art no longer a Yemassee--
The Yemassee knows thee no more."
"The Yemassee knows thee no more," cried the multitude, and their
universal shout was deafening upon the ear. Occonestoga said no word
now--he could offer no resistance to the unnerving hands of Malatchie,
who now bared the arm more completely of its covering. But his limbs
were convulsed with the spasms of that dreadful terror of the future
which was racking and raging in every pulse of his heart. He had full
faith in the superstitions of his people. His terrors acknowledged
the full horrors of their doom. A despairing agony which no language
could describe had possession of his soul.
Meanwhile, the silence of all indicated the general anxiety; and
Malatchie prepared to seize the knife and perform the operation, when
a confused murmur arose from the crowd around; the mass gave way and
parted, and, rushing wildly into the area, came Matiwan, his mother,
the long black hair streaming, the features, an astonishing likeness
to his own, convulsed like his; and her action that of one reckless of
all things in the way of the forward progress she was making to the
person of her child. She cried aloud as she came, with a voice that
rang like a sudden death-bell Previous Next |