of the dozen withered crones, who have already been mentioned as having forced themselves into a conspicuous part of the circle. The outcry was excited by a sudden change in the air of Hard-Heart. When the old men turned towards the youth, they saw him standing in the very center of the ring, with his head erect, his eye fixed on vacancy, one leg advanced and an arm a little raised, as if all his 10 faculties were absorbed in the act of listening. A smile lighted his countenance for a single moment, and then the whole man sank again into his former look of dignity and coldness, suddenly re- 15 called to self-possession. The movement had been construed into contempt, and even the tempers of the chiefs began to be excited. Unable to restrain their fury, the women broke into the circle in a body, 20 and commenced their attack by loading the captive with the most bitter revilings. They boasted of the various exploits which their sons had achieved at the expense of the different tribes of the Pawnees. They 25 undervalued his own reputation, and told him to look at Mahtoree, if he had never yet seen a warrior. They accused him of having been suckled by a doe, and of having drunk in cowardice with his moth- 30 er's milk. In short, they lavished upon their unmoved captive a torrent of that vindictive abuse, in which the women of the savages are so well known to excel, but which has been too often described 35 to need a repetition here. The effect of this outbreaking was inevitable. Le Balafré turned away disappointed, and hid himself in the crowd; while the trapper, whose honest features 40 were working with inward emotion, pressed nigher to his young friend, as those who are linked to the criminal by ties so strong as to brave the opinions of men, are often seen to stand about the 45 place of execution to support his dying moments. The excitement soon spread among the inferior warriors, though the chiefs still forbore to make the signal which committed the victim to their 50 mercy. Mahtoree, who had awaited such a movement among his fellows, with the wary design of concealing his own jealous hatred, soon grew weary of delay, and, by a glance of his eye, encouraged the 55 tormentors to proceed. Weucha, who, eager for this sanction, had long stood watching the countenance of the chief, bounded forward at the sig-. nal like a bloodhound loosened from the leash. Forcing his way into the center of the hags, who were already proceeding 5 from abuse to violence, he reproved their impatience, and bade them wait until a warrior had begun to torment, and then they should see their victim shed tears like a woman. Frus The heartless savage commenced his efforts by flourishing his tomahawk about the head of the captive, in such a manner as to give reason to suppose that each blow would bury the weapon in the flesh, while it was so governed as to not touch the skin. To this customary expedient, Hard-Heart was perfectly insensible. His eye kept the same steady, riveted look on the air, though the glittering ax described in its evolutions a bright circle of light before his countenance. trated in this attempt, the callous Sioux laid the cold edge on the naked head of his victim, and began to describe the different manners in which a prisoner might be flayed. The women kept time to his cruelties with their taunts, and endeavored to force some expression of the lingerings of nature from the insensible features of the Pawnee. But he evidently reserved himself for the chiefs, and for those moments of extreme anguish, when the loftiness of his spirit might evince itself in a manner better becoming his high and untarnished reputation. The eyes of the trapper followed every movement of the tomahawk with the interest of a real father, until at length, unable to command his indignation, he exclaimed,— My son has forgotten his cunning. This is a low-minded Indian, and one easily hurried into folly. I cannot do the thing myself, for my traditions forbid a dying warrior to revile his persecutors, but the gifts of a red-skin are different. Let the Pawnee say the bitter words and purchase an easy death. I will answer for his success, providing he speaks before the grave men set their wisdom to back the folly of this fool.' The savage Sioux, who heard his words without comprehending their meaning, turned to the speaker and menaced him with death for his temerity. 'Aye, work your will,' said the unflinching old man; 'I am as ready now as I shall be to-morrow. Though it would be a 5 death that an honest man might not wish bloody weapon, he darted through the opening left by the frightened women, and seemed to descend the declivity at a single bound. Had a bolt from heaven fallen in the. midst of the Teton band it would not have occasioned greater consternation than this act of desperate hardihood. A shrill plaintive cry burst from the lips of all the women, and there was a moment that even the oldest warriors appeared to have lost their faculties. This stupor endured only for the instant. It was succeeded by a yell of revenge, that burst from a hundred 15 throats, while as many warriors started forward at the cry, bent on the most bloody retribution. But a powerful and authoritative call from Mahtoree arrested every foot. The chief, in whose countenance disappointment and rage were struggling with the affected composure of his station, extended an arm towards the river, and the whole mystery was explained. 'Hard-Heart!' shouted the Sioux, turning in his fury, and aiming a deadly blow at the head of his victim. His arm fell into the hollow of the captive's hand. For a single moment the two stood, as if 20 entranced in that attitude, the one paralyzed by so unexpected a resistance, and the other bending his head, not to meet his death, but in the most intense attention. The women screamed with triumph, 25 for they thought the nerves of the captive had at length failed him. The trapper trembled for the honor of his friend; and Hector, as if conscious of what was passing, raised his nose into the air, and ut- 30 tered a piteous howl. But the Pawnee hesitated only for that moment. Raising the other hand, like lightning, the tomahawk flashed in the air, and Weucha sank to his feet, brained 35 to the eye. Then cutting a way with the Hard-Heart had already crossed half the bottom which lay between the acclivity and the water. At this precise moment a band of armed and mounted Pawnees turned a swell, and galloped to the margin of the stream, into which the plunge of the fugitive was distinctly heard. A few minutes sufficed for his vigorous arm to conquer the passage, and then the shout from the opposite shore told the humbled Tetons the whole extent of the triumph of their adversaries. (1827) FITZ-GREENE HALLECK (1790-1867) The early years of the Republic produced few poets, and amid the general crudeness of the time and the real hunger for culture and for beauty the few poets that did appear were, as we see to-day, extravagantly over-rated. Undoubtedly the most over-rated of them all, not even excepting Willis and Percival, was Fitz-Greene Halleck, for a generation placed among the leaders of the American choir of singers. Slowly yet steadily has his fame decreased until to-day he holds but a hazardous place in the anthologies by reason of his once widely declaimed 'Marco Bozzaris' and the first stanza of his tribute to Drake. It is conventional to classify him with the Knickerbockers,' but he was of old Puritan stock, like Bryant, a native of Connecticut, and he spent almost the first quarter of a century of his life and nearly the last quarter of a century of it in the New England environment to which he belonged. During his active middle years he was in New York City, a clerk in the establishment of John Jacob Astor, arriving there in 1813 some five years after Irving and Paulding had amused the city with their Salmagundi papers. The newness and the excitement of his first years in the metropolis and the enthusiasm of his new-found city friend, young Dr. Drake, stimulated him into a short period of poetic creation. With Drake he contributed a series of poetic effusions, signed Croaker' and 'Croaker & Co.,' to the New York Evening Post, a sort of poetic Salmagundi, the remarkable vogue of which bears testimony to the poetic leanness of the time. Spurred by the high spirits and the eager enthusiasm of his young friend Drake, he wrote his martial song 'Marco Bozzaris,' contributed the last stanza to Drake's 'American Flag,' and after the untimely death of the young poet mourned him in a quatrain that has passed into the universal currency of quotation. His once greatly admired Alnwick Castle, his Burns' with a few distinctive lines, and his 'Fanny' that was published in more than one edition before its early readers were satisfied, all seem lifeless and tawdry to-day. Halleck's last years were barren of literary product. In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, 90 95 The heartless luxury of the tomb; But she remembers thee as one Long loved and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babe's first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch and cottage bed; Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears; And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys, And even she who gave thee birth, Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, 100 105 |