Tecumseh: A Drama | Page 7

hand to?yours.
LEFROY. Your own hand first In pledge of this!
TECUMSEH. It ever goes with truth!
LEFROY. Now come some wind of chance, and show me her?But for one heavenly moment! as when leaves?Are blown aside in summer, and we see?The nested oriole.
[_Enter Chiefs and warriors--The warriors cluster?around_ TECUMSEH, _shouting and discharging their?pieces_.]
TECUMSEH. My chiefs and braves!
MIAMI CHIEF. Fall back! Fall back! Ye press too close?on him.
TECUMSEH. My friends! our joy is like to meeting?streams,?Which draw into a deep and prouder bed.
[Shouts from the warriors.]
DELAWARE CHIEF. Silence, ye braves! let great Tecumseh?speak!
[The warriors fall back.]
TECUMSEH. Comrades, and faithful warriors of our race!?Ye who defeated Hartnar and St Clair,?And made their hosts a winter's feast for wolves!?I call on you to follow me again,?Not now for war, but as forearmed for fight.?As ever in the past so is it still:?Our sacred treaties are infringed and torn;?Laughed out of sanctity, and spurned away;?Used by the Long-Knife's slave to light his fire,?Or turned to kites by thoughtless boys, whose wrists?Anchor their fathers' lies in front of heaven.?And now we're asked to Council at Vincennes;?To bend to lawless ravage of our lands,?To treacherous bargains, contracts false, wherein?One side is bound, the other loose as air!?Where are those villains of our race and blood?Who signed the treaties that unseat us here;?That rob us of rich plains and forests wide;?And which, consented to, will drive us hence?To stage our lodges in the Northern Lakes,?In penalties of hunger worse than death??Where are they? that we may confront them now?With your wronged sires, your mothers, wives and babes,?And, wringing from their false and slavish lips?Confession of their baseness, brand with shame?The traitor hands which sign us to our graves.
MIAMI CHIEF. Some are age-bent and blind, and others?sprawl,?And stagger in the Long-Knife's villages;?And some are dead, and some have fled away,?And some are lurking in the forest here,?Sneaking, like dogs, until resentment cools.
KICKAPOO CHIEF. We all disclaim their treaties. Should?they come,?Forced from their lairs by hunger, to our doors,?Swift punishment will light upon their heads.
TECUMSEH. Put yokes upon them! let their mouths be?bound!?For they are swine who root with champing jaws?Their fathers' fields, and swallow their own offspring.
Enter the_ PROPHET in his robe--his face?discoloured_.
The Prophet! Welcome, my brother, from the lodge of?dreams!?Hail to thee, sagest among men--great heir?Of all the wisdom of Pengasega!
PROPHET. This pale-face here again! this hateful snake,?Who crawls between our people and their laws!?(Aside.)?Your greeting, brother, takes the chill from mine,?When last we parted you were not so kind.
TECUMSEH. The Prophet's wisdom covers all. He knows?Why Nature varies in her handiwork,?Moulding one man from snow, the next from fire--
PROPHET. Which temper is your own, and blazes up,?In winds of passion like a burning pine.
TECUMSEH. 'Twill blaze no more unless to scorch our?foes.?My brother, there's my hand--for I am grieved?That aught befell to shake our proper love.?Our purpose is too high, and full of danger;?We have too vast a quarrel on our hands?To waste our breath on this.
[Steps forward and offers his hand.]
PROPHET. My hand to yours.
SEVERAL CHIEFS. Tecumseh and the Prophet are rejoined!
TECUMSEH. Now, but one petty cloud distains our sky.?My brother, this man loves our people well.
[Pointing to LEFROY.]
LEFROY. I know he hates me, yet I hope to win?My way into his heart.
PROPHET. There--take my hand! I must dissemble.?Would this palm were poison! (Aside.) (To?TECUMSEH)?What of the Wyandots? And yet I know!?I have been up among the clouds, and down?Into the entrails of the earth, and seen?The dwelling-place of devils. All my dreams?Are from above, and therefore favour us.
TECUMSEH. With one accord the Wyandots disclaim?The treaties of Fort Wayne, and burn with rage.?Their tryst is here, and some will go with me?To Council at Vincennes. Where's Winnemac?
MIAMI CHIEF. That recreant has joined our enemies,?And with the peace-pipe sits beside their fire,?And whins away our lives.
KICKAPOO CHIEF. The Deaf-Chief, too,?With head awry, who cannot hear us speak?Though thunder shouted for us from the skies,?Yet hears the Long-Knives whisper at Vincennes;?And, when they jest upon our miseries,?Grips his old leathern sides, and coughs with laughter.
DELAWARE CHIEF. And old Kanaukwa--famed when we were?young--?Has hid his axe, and washed his honours off.
TECUMSEH. 'Tis honor he has parted with, not honors;?Good deeds are ne'er forespent, nor wiped away.?I know these men; they've lost their followers,?And, grasping at the shadow of command,?Where sway and custom once had realty,?By times, and turn about, follow each other.?They count for nought--but Winnemac is true,?Though over-politic; he will not leave us.
PROPHET. Those wizened snakes must be destroyed at?once!
TECUMSEH. Have mercy, brother--those poor men are old.
PROPHET. Nay, I shall teaze them till they sting?themselves;?Their rusty fangs are doubly dangerous.
TECUMSEH. What warriors are ready for Vincennes?
WARRIORS. All! All are ready. Tecumseh leads us on--we?follow him.
TECUMSEH. Four hundred warriors will go with me,?All armed, yet only for security?Against the deep designs of Harrison.?For 'tis my purpose still to temporize,?Not break