Tecumseh: A Drama | Page 2

Wyandots, but all?The distant nations will unite with us?To spurn the fraudful treaties of Fort Wayne.?From Talapoosa to the Harricanaw?I have aroused them from their lethargy.?From the hot gulf up to those confines rude,?Where Summer's sides are pierced with icicles,?They stand upon my call. What tidings here?
PROPHET. No brand has struck to bark our enterprise?Which grows on every side. The Prophet's robe,?That I assumed when old Pengasega died--?With full accord and countenance from you--?Fits a strong shoulder ampler far than his;?And all our people follow me in fear.
TECUMSEH. Would that they followed you in love!?Proceed! My ears are open to my brother's tongue.
PROPHET. I have myself, and by swift messengers,?Proclaimed to all the nations far and near,?I am the Open-Door, and have the power?To lead them back to life. The sacred fire?Must burn forever in the red-man's lodge,?Else will that life go out. All earthly goods?By the Great Spirit meant for common use?Must so be held. Red shall not marry white,?To lop our parent stems; and never more?Must vile, habitual cups of deadliness?Distort their noble natures, and unseat?The purpose of their souls. They must return?To ancient customs; live on game and maize;?Clothe them with skins, and love both wife and child,?Nor lift a hand in wrath against their race.
TECUMSEH. These are wise counsels which are noised?afar,?And many nations have adopted them?And made them law.
PROPHET. These counsels were your own!?Good in themselves, they are too weak to sway?Our fickle race. I've much improved on them?Since the Great Spirit took me by the hand.
TECUMSEH. Improved! and how? Your mission was to lead?Our erring people back to ancient ways--?Too long o'ergrown--not bloody sacrifice.?They tell me that the prisoners you have ta'en--?Not captives in fair fight, but wanderers?Bewildered in our woods, or such as till?Outlying fields, caught from the peaceful plough--?You cruelly have tortured at the stake.?Nor this the worst! In order to augment?Your gloomy sway you craftily have played?Upon the zeal and frenzy of our tribes,?And, in my absence, hatched a monstrous charge?Of sorcery amongst them, which hath spared?Nor feeble age nor sex. Such horrid deeds?Recoil on us! Old Shataronra's grave?Sends up its ghost, and Tetaboxti's hairs--?White with sad years and counsel--singed by you!?In dreams and nightmares, float on every breeze.?Ambition's madness might stop short of this,?And shall if I have life.
PROPHET. The Great Spirit?Hath urged me, and still urges me to all.?He puts his hand to mine and leads me on.?Do you not hear him whisper even now--?"Thou art the Prophet?" All our followers?Behold in me a greater than yourself,?And worship me, and venture where I lead.
TECUMSEH. Your fancy is the common slip of fools,?Who count the lesser greater being near.?Dupe of your own imposture and designs,?I cannot bind your thoughts! but what you do?Henceforth must be my subject; so take heed,?And stand within my sanction lest you fall.
PROPHET. You are Tecumseh--else you should choke for?this!
[Haughtily crosses the stage and pauses.]
Stay! Let me think! I must not break with him--?'Tis premature. I know his tender part,?And I shall touch it.
[Recrosses the stage.]
Brother, let me ask,?Do you remember how our father fell?
TECUMSEH. Who can forget Kanawha's bloody fray??He died for home in battle with the whites.
PROPHET. And you remember, too, that boyish morn,?When all our braves were absent on the chase--?That morn when you and I half-dreaming lay?In summer grass, but woke to deadly pain?Of loud-blown bugles ringing through the air.?They came!--a rush of chargers from the woods,?With tramplings, cursings, shoutings manifold,?And headlong onset, fierce with brandished swords,?Of frontier troopers eager for the fight.?Scarce could a lynx have screened itself from sight,?So sudden the attack--yet, trembling there,?We crouched unseen, and saw our little town?Stormed, with vile slaughter of small babe and crone,?And palsied grandsire--you remember it?
TECUMSEH. Remember it! Alas, the echoing?Of that wild havoc lingers in my brain!?O wretched age, and injured motherhood,?And hapless maiden-wreck!
PROPHET. Yet this has been?Our endless history, and it is this?Which crams my very veins with cruelty.?My pulses bound to see those devils fall?Brained to the temples, and their women cast?As offal to the wolf.
TECUMSEH. Their crimes are great--?Our wrongs unspeakable! yet my revenge?Is open war. It never shall be said?Tecumseh's hate went armed with cruelty.?There's reason in revenge; but spare our own!?These gloomy sacrifices sap our strength;?And henceforth from your wizard scrutinies?I charge you to forbear. But who's the white?You hold as captive?
PROPHET. He is called LEFROY--?A captive, but too free to come and go.?Our warriors struck his trail by chance, and found?His tent close by the Wabash, where he lay?With sprained ankle, foodless and alone.?He had a book of pictures with him there?Of Long-Knife forts, encampments and their chiefs--?Most recognizable; so, reasoning thence,?Our warriors took him for a daring spy,?And brought him here, and tied him to the stake.?Then he declared he was a Saganash--?No Long-Knife he! but one who loved our race,?And would adopt our ways--with