Tecumseh: A Drama | Page 7

brother has the eyeball of the
horse,

And swerves from danger. (Aside.) Bid our
warriors come! I wait
them here.
[Exit BRAVE.]
The Prophet soon will follow.
LEFROY. Now opportunity attend my heart
Which waits for Iena!
True love's behest,
Outrunning war's, will bring her to my arms
Ere
cease the braves from gasping wonderment.
TECUMSEH. First look on service ere you look on love;
You shall
not see her here.
LEFROY. My promises
Are sureties of my service--
TECUMSEH. But your deeds,
Accomplishments; our people count
on deeds.
Be patient! Look upon our warriors
Roped round with
scars and cicatrized wounds,
Inflicted in deep trial of their spirit

Their skewered sides are proofs of manly souls,
Which--had one
groan escaped from agony--
Would all have sunk beneath our
women's heels,
Unfit for earth or heaven. So try your heart,
And let
endurance swallow all love's sighs.
Yoke up your valour with our
people's cause,
And I, who love your nation, which is just,
When
deeds deserve it, will adopt you here,
By ancient custom of our race,
and join Iena's 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