Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 5 | Page 7

and spurring the horse until the poor
creature's head and flanks were reddened with blood. It was just at
sunset that Kedar found himself again on the bank of the Calawassee,
near the point he had left in the morning, and heard once more the
baying of his hounds. At last his prey seemed exhausted, and,
swimming the river, it ran into a thicket on the opposite side and stood
still. "Now I have him!" cried the hunter. "Hillio, Lauto! He's mine!"
The old negro heard the call and hastened forward. He heard his
master's horse floundering in the swamp that edged the river--then
came a plash, a curse, and as the slave arrived at the margin a few
bubbles floated on the sluggish current. The deer stood in the thicket,
staring with eyes that blazed through the falling darkness, and, with a
wail of fear and sorrow, old Lauto fled the spot.

REVENGE OF THE ACCABEE
The settlement made by Lord Cardross, near Beaufort, South Carolina,
was beset by Spaniards and Indians, who laid it in ashes and slew every
person in it but one. She, a child of thirteen, had supposed the young
chief of the Accabees to be her father, as he passed in the smoke, and
had thrown herself into his arms. The savage raised his axe to strike,
but, catching her blue eye raised to his, more in grief and wonder than
alarm, the menacing hand fell to his side, and, tossing the girl lightly to
a seat on his shoulder, he strode off into the forest. Mile after mile he
bore her, and if she slept he held her to his breast as a father holds a
babe. When she awoke it was in his lodge on the Ashley, and he was
smiling in her face. The chief became her protector; but those who
marked, with the flight of time, how his fierceness had softened, knew
that she was more to him than a daughter. Years passed, the girl had
grown to womanhood, and her captor declared himself her lover. She
seemed not ill pleased at this, for she consented to be his wife. After the

betrothal the chief joined a hunting party and was absent for a time. On
his return the girl was gone. A trader who had been bartering
merchandise for furs had seen her, had been inspired by passion, and,
favored by suave manners and a white skin, he had won in a day a
stronger affection than the Indian could claim after years of loving
watchfulness.
When this discovery was made the chief, without a word, set off on the
trail, and by broken twig, by bended grass and footprints at the brook-
edge, he followed their course until he found them resting beneath a
tree. The girl sprang from her new lover's arms with a cry of fear as the
savage, with knife and tomahawk girt upon him, stepped into view, and
she would have clasped his knees, but he motioned her away; then,
ordering them to continue their march, he went behind them until they
had reached a fertile spot on the Ashley, near the present site of
Charleston, where he halted. "Though guilty, you shall not die," said he
to the woman; then, to his rival, "You shall marry her, and a white
priest shall join your hands. Here is your future home. I give you many
acres of my land, but look that you care for her. As I have been
merciful to you, do good to her. If you treat her ill, I shall not be far
away."
The twain were married and went to live on the acres that had been so
generously ceded to them, and for a time all went well; but the true
disposition of the husband, which was sullen and selfish, soon began to
disclose itself; disagreements arose, then quarrels; at last the man
struck his wife, and, seizing the deed of the Accabee land and a paper
that he had forced her to sign without knowing its contents, he started
for the settlements, intending to sell the property and sail for England.
On the edge of the village his flight was stayed by a tall form that arose
in his path-that of the Indian. "I gave you all," said the chief, "the
woman who should have been my wife, and then my land. This is your
thanks. You shall go no farther."
With a quick stroke of the axe he cleft the skull of the shrinking wretch,
and then, cutting off his scalp, the Indian ran to the cottage where sat
the abandoned wife, weeping before the embers of her fire. He roused
her by tossing on fresh fuel, but she shrank back in grief and shame
when