Part 57

Upon the Poet's soul they flash forever, In evening shades, these glimpses strange and sweet; They fill his heart betimes,--they leave him never, And haunt his steps with sounds of falling feet; He walks beside a mystery night and day; Still wanders where the sacred spring is hidden; Yet, would he take the seal from the forbidden, Then must he work and watch as well as pray! How work? How watch? Beside him--in his way,-- Springs without check the flow'r by whose choice spell,-- More potent than "herb moly,"--he can tell Where the stream rises, and the waters play!-- Ah! spirits call'd avail not! On his eyes, Sealed up with stubborn clay, the darkness lies.

THE DOOM OF OCCONESTOGA.

(From Yemassee.)

Occonestoga's head sank in despair, as he beheld the unchanging look of stern resolve with which the unbending sire regarded him. For a moment he was unmanned; until a loud shout of derision from the crowd as they beheld the show of his weakness, came to the support of his pride. The Indian shrinks from humiliation, 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 through the ring.

"Would you keep a mother from her boy, and he to be lost to her for ever? Shall she have no parting with the young brave she bore in her bosom? Away, keep me not back--I will look upon him, I will love him. He shall have the blessing of Matiwan, though the Yemassee and the Manneyto curse."

The victim heard, and a momentary renovation of mental life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out in the simple exclamation which fell from his lips: