Osceola the Seminole: or, The Red Fawn of the Flower Land

Why was it, when I mentioned his name, coupled with the solemn declaration of my sable groom – why was it that Arens Ringgold started, turned pale, and whispered some words in the ear of his father?

Chapter Thirty One

The Traitor Chiefs

Soon after, I retired from the mess-table, and strolled out into the stockade.

It was now after sunset. Orders had been issued for no one to leave the fort; but translating these as only applicable to the common soldier, I resolved to sally forth.

I was guided by an impulse of the heart. In the Indian camp were the wives of the chiefs and warriors – their sisters and children – why not she among the rest?

I had a belief that she was there – although, during all that day, my eyes had been wandering in vain search. She was not among those who had crowded around the council: not a face had escaped my scrutiny.

I resolved to seek the Seminole camp – to go among the tents of the Micosaucs – there, in all likelihood, I should find Powell – there I should meet with Maümee.

There would be no danger in entering the Indian camp – even the hostile chiefs were yet in relations of friendship with us; and surely Powell was still my friend? He could protect me from peril or insults.

I felt a longing to grasp the hand of the young warrior, that of itself would have influenced me to seek the interview. I yearned to renew the friendly confidence of the past – to talk over those pleasant times – to recall those scenes of halcyon brightness. Surely the sterner duties of the chief and war-leader had not yet indurated a heart, once mild and amiable? No doubt the spirit of my former friend was embittered by the white man’s injustice; no doubt I should find him rancorous against our race; he had reason – still I had no fears that I myself was not an exception to this wholesale resentment.

Whatever the result, I resolved to seek him, and once more extend to him the hand of friendship.

I was on the eve of setting forth, when a summons from the commander-in-chief called me to his quarters. With some chagrin, I obeyed the order.

I found the commissioner there, with the officers of higher rank – the Ringgolds and several other civilians of distinction.

On entering, I perceived that they were in “caucus,” and had just ended the discussion of some plan of procedure.

“The design is excellent,” observed General Clinch, addressing himself to the others; “but how are Omatla and ‘Black Dirt’12 to be met? If we summon them hither, it may create suspicion; they could not enter the fort without being observed.”

“General Clinch,” said the elder Ringgold – the most cunning diplomatist of the party – “if you and General Thompson were to meet the friendly chiefs outside?”

“Exactly so,” interrupted the commissioner. “I have been thinking of that. I have sent a messenger to Omatla, to inquire if he can give us a secret meeting. It will be best to see them outside. The man has returned – I hear him.”

At this moment, a person entered the room, whom I recognised as one of the interpreters who had officiated at the council. He whispered something to the commissioner, and then withdrew.

“All right, gentlemen!” exclaimed the latter, as the interpreter went out; “Omatla will meet us within the hour. Black Dirt will be with him. They have named the ‘Sink’ as the place. It lies to the north of the fort. We can reach it without passing the camp, and there will be no risk of our being observed. Shall we go, General?”

“I am ready,” replied Clinch, taking up his cloak, and throwing it over his shoulders; “but, General Thompson,” said he, turning to the commissioner, “how about your interpreters? Can they be intrusted with a secret of so much importance?”

The commissioner appeared to hesitate. “It might be imprudent,” he replied at length, in a half soliloquy.

“Never mind, then – never mind,” said Clinch; “I think we can do without them. Lieutenant Randolph,” continued he, turning to me, “you speak the Seminole tongue fluently?”

“Not fluently, General; I speak it, however.”

“You could interpret it fairly.”

“Yes, General; I believe so.”

“Very well, then; that will do. Come with us!”

Smothering my vexation, at being thus diverted from my design, I followed in silence – the commissioner leading the way, while the General, disguised in cloak and plain forage cap, walked by his side.

We passed out of the gate, and turned northward around the stockade. The tents of the Indians were upon the southwest, placed irregularly along the edge of a broad belt of “hommocky” woods that extended in that direction. Another tract of hommock lay to the north, separated from the larger one by savannas and open forests of pine timber. Here was the “Sink.” It was nearly half a mile distant from the stockade; but in the darkness we could easily reach it without being observed from any part of the Seminole camp.

We soon arrived upon the ground. The chiefs were before us. We found them standing under the shadows of the trees by the edge of the pond.

My duty now began. I had little anticipation that it was to have been so disagreeable.

“Ask Omatla what is the number of his people – also those of Black Dirt, and the other chiefs who are for us.”

I put the question as commanded.

“One-third of the whole Seminole nation,” was the ready reply.

“Tell them that ten thousand dollars shall be given to the friendly chiefs, on their arrival in the west, to be shared among them as they deem best – that this sum is independent of the appropriation to the whole tribe.”

“It is good,” simultaneously grunted the chiefs, when the proposition was explained to them.

“Does Omatla and his friends think that all the chiefs will be present to-morrow?”

“No – not all.”

“Which of them are likely to be absent?”

“The mico-mico will not be there.”

“Ha! Is Omatla sure of that?”

“Sure. Onopa’s tents are struck: he has already left the ground.”

“Whither has he gone?”

“Back to his town.”

“And his people?”

“Most of them gone with him.”

For some moments the two generals communicated together in a half whisper. They were apart from me: I did not not hear what they said. The information just acquired was of great importance, and seemed not to discontent them.

“Any other chief likely to be absent to-morrow?” they asked, after a pause.

“Only those of the tribe of ‘redsticks.’”13

“Hoitle-mattee?”

“No – he is here – he will remain.”

“Ask them if they think Osceola will be at the council to-morrow.”

From the eagerness with which the answer was expected, I could perceive that this was the most interesting question of all. I put it directly.

“What!” exclaimed the chiefs, as if astonished at the interrogatory. “The Rising Sun! He is sure to be present: he will see it out!”

“Good!” involuntarily ejaculated the commissioner, and then turning to the General, he once more addressed him in a low tone. This time, I overheard what passed between them.

“It seems, General, as if Providence was playing into our hands. My plan is almost sure to succeed. A word will provoke the impudent rascal to some rudeness – perhaps worse – at all events, I shall easily fix a pretext for shutting him up. Now that Onopa has drawn off his following, we will be strong enough for any contingency. The hostiles will scarcely outnumber the friendly, so that there will no chance of the rascals making resistance.”

“Oh! that we need not fear.”

“Well – with him once in our power the opposition will be crushed – the rest will yield easily – for, beyond doubt, it is he that now intimidates and hinders them from signing.”

“True,” replied Clinch in a reflective tone; “but how about the government, eh? Will it endorse the act, think you?”

“It will – it must – my latest dispatch from the President almost suggests as much. If you agree to act, I shall take the risk.”

“Oh, I place myself under your orders,” replied the commander-in-chief, evidently inclined to the commissioner’s views, but still not willing to share the responsibility. “It is but my duty to carry out the will of the executive. I am ready to coöperate with you.”

“Enough then – it shall be done as we have designed it. Ask the chiefs,” continued the speaker, addressing himself to me, “ask them, if they have any fear of signing to-morrow.”

“No – not of the signing, but afterwards.”

“And what afterwards?”

“They dread an attack from the hostile party – their lives will be in danger.”

“What would they have us do?”

“Omatla says, if you will permit him and the other head chiefs to go on a visit to their friends at Tallahassee, it will keep them out of danger. They can stay there till the removal is about to take place. They give their promise that they will meet you at Tampa, or elsewhere, whenever you summon them.”

The two generals consulted together – once more in whispers. This unexpected proposal required consideration.

Omatla added:

“If we are not allowed to go to Tallahassee, we cannot, we dare not, stay at home; we must come under the protection of the fort.”

“About your going to Tallahassee,” replied the commissioner, “we shall consider it, and give you an answer to-morrow. Meanwhile, you need not be under any apprehension. This is the war-chief of the whites; he will protect you.”

“Yes,” said Clinch, drawing himself proudly up. “My warriors are numerous and strong. There are many in the fort, and many more on the way. You have nothing to fear.”

“It is good!” rejoined the chiefs. “If troubles arise, we shall seek your protection; you have promised it – it is good.”

“Ask the chiefs,” said the commissioner, to whom a new question had suggested itself – “ask them if they know whether Holata Mico will remain for the council of to-morrow.”

“We cannot tell now. Holata Mico has not declared his intention. We shall soon know it. If he designs to stay his tents will stand till the rising of the sun; if not, they will be struck before the moon goes down. The moon is sinking – we shall soon know whether Holata Mico will go or stay.”

“The tents of this chief are not within sight of the fort?”

“No – they are back among the trees.”

“Can you send word to us?”

“Yes, but only to this place; our messenger would be seen entering the fort. We can come back here ourselves, and meet one from you.”

“True – it is better so,” replied the commissioner, apparently pleased with the arrangement.

A few minutes passed, during which the two generals communicated with each other in while whispers, the chiefs stood apart, silent and immobile as a pair of statues.

The commander-in-chief at length broke the silence:

“Lieutenant! you will remain upon the ground till the chiefs return. Get their report, and bring it direct to my quarters.”

Salutations were exchanged; the two generals walked off on the path that led to the fort, while the chiefs glided silently away in the opposite direction. I was left alone.

Chapter Thirty Two

Shadows in the Water

Alone with my thoughts, and these tainted with considerable acerbity. More than one cause contributed to their bitterness. My pleasant purpose thwarted – my heart aching for knowledge – for a renewal of tender ties – distracted with doubts – wearied with protracted suspense.

In addition to these, my mind was harassed by other emotions I experienced disgust at the part I had been playing. I had been made the mouth-piece of chicanery and wrong; aiding conspiracy had been the first act of my warlike career; and although it was not the act of my own will, I felt the disagreeableness of the duty – a sheer disgust in its performance.

Even the loveliness of the night failed to soothe me. Its effect was contrary; a storm would have been more congenial to my spirit.

And it was a lovely night. Both the earth and the air were at peace.

Here and there the sky was fleeced with white cirrhi, but so thinly, that the moon’s disk, passing behind them, appeared to move under a transparent gauze-work of silver, without losing one ray of her effulgence. Her light was resplendent in the extreme; and, glancing from the glabrous leaves of the great laurels, caused the forests to sparkle, as though beset with a million of mirrors. To add to the effect, fire-flies swarmed under the shadows of the trees, their bodies lighting up the dark aisles with a mingled coruscation of red, blue and gold – now flitting in a direct line, now curving, or waving upward and downward, as though moving through the mazes of some intricate cotillon.

In the midst of all this glittering array, lay the little tarn, shining, too, but with the gleam of plated glass – a mirror in its framework of fretted gild.

The atmosphere was redolent of the most agreeable perfumes. The night was cool enough for human comfort, but not chill. Many of the flowers refused to close their corollas – for not all of them were brides of the sun. The moon had its share of the sweets. The sassafras and bay-trees were in blossom, and dispensed their odours around, that, mingling with the aroma of the aniseed and the orange, created a delicious fragrance in the air.

There was a stillness in the atmosphere, but not silence. It is never silent in the southern forests by night. Tree-frogs and cicadas utter their shrillest notes after the sun has gone out of sight, and there is a bird that makes choice melody during the moonlight hours – the famed mimic of the American woods. One, perched upon a tall tree that grew over the edge of the pond, appeared trying to soothe my chafed spirit with his sweet notes.

I heard other sounds – the hum of the soldiery in the fort, mingling with the more distant noises from the Indian camp, now and then some voice louder than the rest, in oath, exclamation, or laughter, broke forth to interrupt the monotonous murmur.

How long should I have to wait the return of the chiefs? It might be an hour, or two hours, or more? I had a partial guide in the moon. They said that Holata would depart before the shining orb went down, or not at all. About two hours, then, would decide the point, and set me free.

I had been standing for half the day. I cared not to keep my feet any longer; and choosing a fragment of rock near the water’s edge, I sat down upon it:

My eyes wandered over the pond. Half of its surface lay in shadow; the other half was silvered by the moonbeams, that, penetrating the pellucid water, rendered visible the white shells and shining pebbles at the bottom. Along the line where the light and darkness met, were outlined several noble palms, whose tall stems and crested crowns appeared stretching towards the nadir of the earth – as though they belonged to another and a brighter firmament beneath my feet. The trees, of which these were but the illusory images, grew upon the summit of a ridge, which, trending along the western side of the pond, intercepted the rays of the moon.

I sat for some time gazing into this counterpart of heaven’s canopy, with my eyes mechanically tracing the great fan-like fronds.

All at once, I was startled at perceiving a new image upon the aqueous reflector. A form, or rather the shadow of one, suddenly appeared among the trunks of the palms. It was upright, and evidently human, though of magnified proportions – beyond a doubt, a human figure, yet not that of a man.

The small head, apparently uncovered, the gentle rounding of the shoulders, the soft undulation of the waist, and the long, loose draping which reached nearly to the ground, convinced me that the shadow was that of a woman.

When I first observed it, it was moving among the stems of the palm-trees; presently it stopped, and for some seconds remained in a fixed attitude. It was then I noted the peculiarities that distinguish the sex.

My first impulse was to turn round, and, if possible, get a sight of the figure that cast this interesting shadow. I was myself on the western edge of the pond, and the ridge was behind me. Facing round I could not see the summit nor yet the palms. Rising to my feet, I still could not see them: a large live-oak, under which I had seated myself, intercepting my view.

I stepped hastily to one side, and then both the outline of the ridge and the palm-trees were before my eyes; but I could see no figure, neither of man nor woman.

I scanned the summit carefully, but no living thing was there; some fronds of the saw-palmetta, standing along the crest, were the only forms I could perceive.

I returned to where I had been seated; and, placing myself as before, again looked upon the water. The palm shadows were there, just as I had left them; but the image was gone.

There was nothing to be astonished at. I did not for a moment believe myself under any delusion. Some one had been upon the ridge – a woman, I supposed – and had passed down under the cover of the trees. This was the natural explanation of what I had seen, and of course contented me.

At the same time, the silent apparition could not fail to arouse my curiosity; and instead of remaining seated, and giving way to dreamy reflections, I rose to my feet, and stood looking and listening with eager expectation.

Who could the woman be? An Indian, of course. It was not probable that a white woman should be in such a place, and at such an hour. Even the peculiar outlines of the shadow were not those that would have been cast by one habited in a garb of civilisation: beyond a doubt, the woman was an Indian.

What was she doing in that solitary place, and alone?

These questions were not so easily answered; and yet there was nothing so remarkable about her presence upon the spot. To the children of the forest, time is not as with us. The hours of the night are as those of the day – often the hours of action or enjoyment. She might have many a purpose in being there. She might be on her way to the pond for water – to take a bath; or it might be some impassioned maiden, who, under the secret shadows of this secluded grove, was keeping assignation with her lover.

A pang, like a poisoned arrow, passed through my heart: “might it be Maümee?”

The unpleasantness which this conjecture caused me is indescribable. I had been all day the victim of dire suspicions, arising from some half-dozen words, casually dropped from the lips of a young officer, and which I had chanced to overhear. They had reference to a beautiful girl among the Indians, apparently well-known at the fort; and I noticed that the tone of the young fellow was that of one either triumphant or boasting. I listened attentively to every word, and watched not only the countenance of the speaker, but those of his auditory – to make out in which of the two categories I should place him. His vanity appeared to have had some sacrifice made to it – at least by his own statement; and his listeners, or most of them, agreed to concede to him the happiness of a bonne fortune. There was no name given – no hint that would enable me to connect the subject of the conversation with that of my own thoughts; but that the girl was an Indian, and a “beauty,” were points, that my jealous heart almost accepted as sufficient for identification.

I might easily have become satisfied. A word, a simple question, would have procured me the knowledge I longed for; and yet I dared not say that word. I preferred passing long hours – a whole day – upon the rack of uncertainty and suspicion.

Thus, then, was I prepared for the painful conjectures that sprang into my thoughts on beholding that mirrored form.

The pain was of short duration; almost instantaneous was the relief. A shadowy figure was seen gliding around the edge of the pond; it emerged into the open moonlight, not six paces from where I stood. I had a full and distinct view of it. It was a woman – an Indian woman. It was not Maümee.

Chapter Thirty Three

Haj-Ewa

I saw before me a woman of middle age – somewhere between thirty and forty – a large woman, who once possessed beauty – beauty that had been abused. She was the wreck of a grand loveliness, whose outlines could not be effaced – like the statue of some Grecian goddess, broken by Vandal hands, but whose very fragments are things of priceless value.

Not that her charms had departed. There are men who affect to admire this ripe maturity; to them, she would have been a thing of peerless splendour. Time had made no inroad upon those large rounded arms, none upon the elliptical outlines of that noble bust. I could judge of this – for it was before my eyes, in the bright moonlight, nude, from neck to waist, as in the hour of infancy. Alone the black hair, hanging in wild dishevelment over the shoulders, formed a partial shrouding. Nor had time laid a finger upon this: amidst all that profusion of rich raven clusters, not a strand of silver could be detected.

Time could not affect, nor had it, that fine facial outline. The moulding of the chin; the oval of those lips; the aquiline nose, with its delicate spirally curved nostril; the high, smooth front; the eye – the eye – what is it? why that unearthly flash? that wild unmeaning glance? Ha! that eye – Merciful heavens! the woman is mad!

Alas! it was true – she was mad. Her glance would have satisfied even a casual observer, that reason was no longer upon its throne. But I needed not to look at her eye; I knew the story of her misfortunes, of her wrongs. It was not the first time I had looked upon that womanly form – more than once I had stood face to face with Haj-Ewa (Note 1), the mad queen of the Micosaucs.

Beautiful as she was, I might have felt fear at her presence – still worse than fear, I might have been terrified or awed – the more so on perceiving that her necklace was a green serpent; that the girdle around her waist, that glittered so conspicuously in the light of the moon, was the body of an enormous rattlesnake, living and writhing!

Yes, both were alive – the smaller serpent wound about her neck, with its head resting upon her bosom; the more dangerous reptile knotted around her waist, its vertebrated tail hanging by her side, while its head, held in her hand, protruding through her fingers, exhibited a pair of eyes that scintillated like diamonds.

On the head of Haj-Ewa was no other covering than that which nature had provided for it; but those thick black clusters afforded ample protection against sun and storm. On her feet she wore moccasins, but those were hidden by the long “hunna,” that reached to the ground. This was the only garment she wore. It was profusely adorned with beads and embroidery – with the bright plumage of the green parroquet – the skin of the summer-duck, and the for of various wild animals. It was fastened round her waist, though not by the girdle already described.

Truly, I might have felt terror, had this singular appearance been new to me. But I had seen all before – the green snake, and the crotalus, the long hanging tresses, the wild flash of that maniac eye – all before, all harmless, all innocuous – at least to me. I knew it, and had no fear.

“Haj-Ewa!” I called out, as she advanced to where I was standing.

“I-e-ela!” (an expression of astonishment, usually lengthened out into a sort of drawl) exclaimed she with a show of surprise.

“Young Randolph! war-chief among the pale-faces! You have not then forgotten poor Haj-Ewa?”

“No, Ewa, I have not. What seek you here?”

“Yourself, little mico.”

“Seek me?”

“No – I have found you.”

“And what want you with me?”

“Only to save your life, your young of life, pretty mico – your fair life – your precious life – ah! precious to her, poor bird of the forest! Ah! there was one precious to me – long, long ago. Ho, ho, ho!

“O why did I trust in a pale-faced lover?Ho, ho, ho! (Literally, Yes, yes, yes!)Why did I meet him in the wild woods’ cover?Ho, ho, ho!Why did I list to his lying tongue,That poisoned my heart when my life was young?Ho, ho, ho!

“Down, chitta mico!”14 she cried, interrupting the strain, and addressing herself to the rattlesnake, that at my presence had protruded his head, and was making demonstrations of rage – “down, great king of the serpents! ’tis a friend, though in the garb of an enemy – quiet, or I crush your head!”

“I-e-ela!” she exclaimed again, as if struck by some new thought; “I waste time with my old songs; he is gone, he is gone! they cannot bring him back. Now, young mico, what came I for? what came I for?”