The White Squaw

Again her mind wandered, and for two or three hours, refusing to enter the house, she sate muttering to herself the same fancies.

Alice could but sit beside her and listen. Now and then she sought to soothe her, but in vain.

By and bye Sansuta’s voice grew faint. She seemed to lean heavier on the arm of her pale-faced friend, and the lustre of her eye gradually became dimmer.

The change was alarming, and Alice would have risen and called for help, but an imploring glance from Sansuta prevented her.

“Don’t leave me,” she murmured gently.

Her voice was changed; she had recovered reason, and her companion perceived it.

“Do not leave me. I shall not detain you long. I know you now – have known you it seems for years. I know all, for there is peace in my heart towards all, even to those who took his life. Forgiveness has come back with reason, and my last prayers shall be that they who made Sansuta unhappy may be forgiven!”

She spoke in so low a voice that it was with difficulty her companion could hear what she said.

“Kiss me, Alice Rody! Speak to me! Let me hear you say that Sansuta was your friend!”

“Was —is my friend!”

“No – let me say was, for I am about to leave you. The time is come; I am ready! My last prayer is ‘Pity and forgiveness! Pity and – ’”

By the gentle motion of her lips she appeared to be praying.

That motion ceased, and with it her unhappy life!

Alice still continued to hold her in her arms long after her soul had passed into Eternity!

Chapter Thirty Six.

The Burnt Shanty

The ghost of Crookleg did not in any way disturb Cris Carrol, either sleeping or awake.

The worthy backwoodsman believed that he had done a highly meritorious action in for ever disposing of that malevolent individual.

“The infernal black skunk, to be cuttin’ his capers over the bodies of brave men who had laid down their lives in a war he, and sich as he, brought about! It were no more nor an act of justice to send him to everlastin’ perdition, and, if I never done a more valuable thing to society than stickin’ three inches of cold steel atween his two shoulder-blades, I think I desarves the thanks of the hul community.”

This consolation Cris indulged in whenever he thought of that terrible episode upon Tampa hill.

He had returned a few days after the massacre and had found the dead decently buried.

Wacora had commanded it to be done.

The charred ruins of Rody’s house, however, recalled the memory of that eventful night.

For some time after his last visit to Tampa Bay, Cris Carrol had not been seen.

Neither the pale-faces nor the redskins had been able to discover his whereabouts.

The truth is, that the backwoodsman was glad to get away from scenes where so much violence had been done to his feelings.

As he had said, he couldn’t fight against the Indians, and he wouldn’t take up arms against the whites.

“It ain’t in human nature to shoot and stab one’s own sort, even when they’re in the wrong, unless they’d done somethin’ agin oneself; an’ that they hain’t done as regards me. I’ll be eternally dog-goned if I think the red-skins are to blame for rising agin oppression and tyranny, which is what old Rody did to them, to say nothin’ agin him now he’s dead, but to speak the truth, and that’s bad enough for him. No, they war not to blame for what they did, arter his conduct to them – the old cuss; who, bad as he war, had one redeemin’ feature in his karactur, and that war his angeliferous darter. Where kin she have gone a hidin’? Thet puzzles this chile, it do.”

Cris was unaware of Alice’s capture and imprisonment.

As suddenly as he had taken his departure from Tampa, Cris returned to the same neighbourhood. He expected the war to be transferred to a more distant point, and wished still to keep out of the way.

“It’s the durned’st fightin’ I ever heard on,” said he to himself; “first it’s here, then it’s there, and then it ain’t nowhere, till it breaks out all over again, where it was before, and they’re as far off the end as I am from Greenland. Durn it, I never knowed nothin’ like it.”

On his return to Tampa, he found the country around altogether deserted. Most of the buildings and the planter’s house had been destroyed, even his own wretched hut had been burnt to the ground.

“This is what they call the fortun’ of war, I ’spose?” he remarked, as he stood gazing at the ruins. “Wal, it war a ramshackle, crazy ole shanty anyhow, and I allers despised four walls an’ a roof at the best o’ times – still it war ‘home.’ Pshaw!” he added, after a moment’s silence, “what have I to grow molloncholly about, over sich a place as this – calling it ‘home,’ when I still have the Savannas to hunt over an’ sleep upon. If thar’s such a place as home for me that’s it, and no other.”

For all his stoicism, the old hunter sighed as he turned from the blackened spot which marked the site of his former dwelling.

He paused at the bend of the road, where Crookleg had first met Nelatu, to gaze again at his ruined home. Not only paused, but sat down upon the self-same rail that the negro had perched upon, and from gazing upon it, fell to reflecting.

So absorbed was he in his contemplation, that contrary to his usual custom, he took no note of the time, nor once removed his eyes from the subject of his thoughts.

He did not perceive the approach of a danger.

It came in the form of four individuals who had silently and stealthily crept close to the spot where he was sitting. Before he knew of their proximity, he was their prisoner.

“Red-skins!” he exclaimed, struggling to free himself.

His captors smiled grimly at his vain efforts.

“By the eternal! I’m fixed this time! Darn my stupid carcase for not havin’ eyes set in the back o’ my head. Wal, you may grin, old copper-skins, it’s your turn now – maybe, it’ll be mine next. What are you a-doin’ now?”

Without deigning a reply the Indians bound his arms securely behind him.

That done they made signs to him to follow them.

“Wal, gentlemen!” said Cris, “yur about as silent a party as a man might wish to meet, darn me, if you aint. I’m comin’.”

“Much obleeged to you for your escort, which I ked a done without. Thanks to your red-skin perliteness for nothin’. Go ahead, I kin walk without your helpin’ me. Where are ye bound for?”

“To the chief,” answered one of the men.

“The chief! What chief?”

“Wacora.”

Cris uttered an emphatic oath.

“Wacora, eh? If that’s the case, I reckon the days o’ Cris Carrol air drawin’ to a close. The fiercest and most ’vengeful cuss of them all, I’ve heard say. Lead on, I’ll go along with ye willin, but not cheerful. If they kill me like a man I’ll not tremble in a jint; but if it’s the torture – there, go ahead. Don’t keep the party waitin’.”