The White Squaw

Thus reflecting, he walked on towards the house tenanted by his captive.

On arriving at the place he found she was not there; but some children playing near told him she had gone into the woods, and pointed in the direction she had taken.

The young chief hesitated about following her. He was unwilling to thrust himself into her presence at a time she had, perhaps, devoted to self communion and repose.

Turning in another direction, he wandered for some time purposelessly, taking no note of the locality, until he had reached the belt of the woods which Alice had herself traversed on her road to the old ruin. Wacora, however, entered it at some distance farther off from the skirts of the town.

Once under the shadow of the trees he abated his pace, which, up to this time, had been rapid. Now walking with slow step, and abstracted air, he finally stopped and leant against a huge live oak, his eyes wandering afar over the sylvan scene.

“Here,” he soliloquised in thought, “here, away from men and their doings, alone is there peace! How my heart sickens at the thought that human ambitions and human vanities should so pervert man’s highest mission – peace – turning the world into scenes of strife and bloodshed! I, an Indian savage, as white men call me, would gladly lay down this day and for ever the rifle and the knife; would willingly bury the war hatchet, and abandon this sanguinary contest!

“Could I do so with honour?” he asked, after a pause of reflection. “No! To the end I must now proceed. I see the end with a prophetic eye; but I must go on as I’ve begun, even if my tribe with all our people should be swept from the earth! Fool that I’ve been to covet the leadership of a forlorn hope!”

At the end of this soliloquy he stamped the ground with fury.

Petty dissensions had arisen among the people he deemed worthy of the highest form of liberty. By this his temper had been chafed – his hopes suddenly discouraged. He was but partaking of the enthusiast’s fate, finding the real so unlike the ideal. It is the penalty usually paid by intelligence when it seeks to reform or better the condition of fallen humanity.

“And she,” he continued, in his heart’s bitterness, “she can only think of me as a vain savage; vain of the slight superiority education appears to give me over others of my race. I might as well aspire to make my home among the stars as in her bosom. She is just as distant, or as unlikely to be mine.”

In the mood in which the Indian was at that moment, the whole universe seemed leagued against him.

Bitterly he lamented the fate that had given him grand inspirations, while denying him their enjoyment.

As he stood beneath the spreading branches of the live oak a double shadow seemed to have fallen upon him – that of his own thoughts, and the tree thickly festooned with its mosses. Both were of sombre hue.

He took no heed of the time, and might have stood nursing his bitter thoughts still longer, but for a sound that suddenly startled him from his reverie.

It was a shriek that came ringing through the trees as if of one in great distress.

The voice Wacora heard was a woman’s.

Lover-like, he knew it to be that of Alice Rody in peril.

Without hesitating an instant he rushed along the path in the direction from which it appeared to come.

In that direction lay the stream.

His instinct warned him that the danger was from the water. He remembered the rain and storm just past. It would be followed by a freshet. Alice Rody might have been caught by it, and was in danger of drowning.

He made these reflections while rushing through the underwood, careless of the thorns that at every step penetrated his skin, covering his garments with blood.

His demeanour had become suddenly changed. The sombre shadow on his brow had given place to an air of the wildest excitement. His white captive, she who had made him a captive, was in some strange peril.

He listened as he ran. The swishing of the branches, as he broke through them, hindered him from hearing. No sound reached his ears; but he saw what caused him a strange surprise. It was the form of a man, who, like himself, was making his way through the thicket, only in a different direction. Instead of towards the creek the man was going from it, skulking off as if desirous to shun observation.

For all this Wacora recognised him. He saw it was Maracota.

The young chief did not stay to inquire what the warrior was doing there, or why he should be retreating from the stream? He did not even summon the latter to stop. His thoughts were all absorbed by the shriek he had heard, and the danger it denoted. He felt certain it had come from the creek, and if it was the cry of one in the water, there was no time to be lost.

And none was lost – not a moment – for in less than sixty seconds after hearing it he stood upon the bank of the stream.

As he had anticipated, it was swollen to a flood, its turbid waters carrying upon their whirling surface trunks and torn branches of trees, bunches of reeds and grass uprooted by the rush of the current.

He did not stand to gaze idly upon these. The bridge was above him. The cry had come from there. He saw that it was in ruins. All was explained!

But where was she who had given utterance to that fearful shriek?

He hurried along the edge of the stream, scanning its current from bank to bank, hastily examining every branch and bunch borne upon its bosom.

A disc of whitish colour came before his eyes. There was something in the water, carried along rapidly. It was the drapery of a woman’s dress, and a woman’s form was within it!

The young chief stayed not for further scrutiny; but plunging into the flood, and swimming a few strokes, he threw his arms around it.

And he knew that in his arms he held Alice Rody! In a few seconds after her form lay dripping upon the bank, apparently lifeless!

Chapter Forty Three.

Saved! Saved!

Wacora had saved his white captive. She still lived!

The struggle between life and death had been long and doubtful, but life at length triumphed.

Por days had she lingered upon the verge of existence, powerless to move from her couch; scarce able to speak. It was some time before she could shape words to thank her deliverer, though she knew who it was.

She had been told it was Wacora.

The young chief had been unremitting in his attentions, and showed great solicitude for her recovery. He found time, amidst the warlike preparations constantly going on, to make frequent calls at her dwelling, and make anxious inquiry about her progress.

The nurses who attended upon her did not fail to note his anxiety.

Nelatu had been absent and did not return to the town until she was convalescent.

He was grieved to the heart on hearing what had happened.

Wacora, suspecting that Maracota was the guilty one, sought him in every direction, but the vengeful warrior was nowhere to be found.

He had fled from the presence of his indignant chief.

It was not until long after that his fate became known.

He had been captured in his flight by some of the settlers, and shot; thus dying by the hands of the enemies he so hated.

Several weeks elapsed, and no active movement had, as yet, been made by the government troops. Wacora’s tribe still continued to reside in their town undisturbed.

His captive continued to recover, and, along with her restored strength, came a change over the spirit of her existence. She seemed transformed into a different being.

The past had vanished like a dream. Only dimly did she remember her residence at Tampa Bay, her father, the conflict on the hill, the massacre, her brother’s sad fate, all seemed to have faded from her memory, until they appeared as things that had never been, or of which she had no personal knowledge, but had only heard of them long, long ago.