mbled nor
an eye faltered when a backwoodsman, his memory aflame at sight of the
pitiful white scalps on their belts, thrust through the crowd to curse
them. Fletcher Blount, frenzied, snatched his tomahawk from his side.

"Sink, varmint!" he cried with a great oath. "By the etarnal! we'll pay
the H'ar Buyer in his own coin. Sound your drums!" he shouted at the
fort. "Call the garrison fer the show."

He had raised his arm and turned to strike when the savage put up his
hand, not in entreaty, but as one man demanding a right from another.
The cries, the curses, the murmurs even, were hushed. Throwing back
his head, arching his chest, the notes of a song rose in the heavy air.
Wild, strange notes they were, that struck vibrant chords in my own
quivering being, and the song was the death-song. Ay, and the life-song
of a soul which had come into the world even as mine own. And somewhere
there lay in the song, half revealed, the awful mystery of that Creator
Whom the soul leaped forth to meet: the myriad green of the sun playing
with the leaves, the fish swimming lazily in the brown pool, the doe
grazing in the thicket, and a naked boy as free from care as these; and
still the life grows brighter as strength comes, and stature, and power
over man and beast; and then, God knows what memories of fierce love
and fiercer wars and triumphs, of desires gained and enemies
conquered,--God, who has made all lives akin to something which He holds
in the hollow of His hand; and then--the rain beating on the forest
crown, beating, beating, beating.

The song ceased. The Indian knelt in the black mud, not at the feet of
Fletcher Blount, but on the threshold of the Great Spirit who ruleth
all things. The axe fell, yet he uttered no cry as he went before his
Master.

So the four sang, each in turn, and died in the sight of some who
pitied, and some who feared, and some who hated, for the sake of land
and women. So the four went beyond the power of gold and gewgaw, and
were dragged in the mire around the walls and flung into the yellow
waters of the river.

Through the dreary afternoon the men lounged about and cursed the
parley, and hearkened for the tattoo,--the signal agreed upon by the
leaders to begin the fighting. There had been no command against taunts
and jeers, and they gathered in groups under the walls to indulge
themselves, and even tried to bribe me as I sat braced against a house
with my drum between my knees and the s