Ah! Wiley Thompson! thy castles in the air (_chateaux en Espagne_) were soon dissipated. They fell as suddenly as they had been built; they broke down like a house of cards.

Osceola stepped forward to the table, and bent over it, as if to scan the words of the doc.u.ment. His eyes ran rapidly across the parchment; he seemed to be searching for some particular place.

He found it--it was a name--he read it aloud: "Charles Omatla."

Raising himself erect, he faced the commissioner; and, in a tone of irony, asked the latter if he still desired him to sign.

"You have promised, Osceola."

"Then will I keep my promise."

As he spoke the words, he drew his long Spanish knife from its sheath, and raising it aloft, struck the blade through the parchment till its point was deep buried in the wood.

"That is my signature!" cried he, as he drew forth the steel. "See, Omatla! it is through _your_ name. Beware, traitor! Undo what you have done, or its blade may yet pa.s.s through your heart!"

"Oh! that is what he meant," cried the commissioner, rising in rage.

"Good. I was prepared for this insolence--this outrage. General Clinch!--I appeal to you--your soldiers--seize upon him--arrest him!"

These broken speeches I heard amidst the confusion of voices. I heard Clinch issue some hurried orders to an officer who stood near. I saw half a dozen files separate from the ranks, and rush forward; I saw them cl.u.s.ter around Osceola--who the next moment was in their grasp.

Not till several of the blue-coated soldiers were sent sprawling over the ground; not till guns had been thrown aside, and a dozen strong men had fixed their gripe upon him, did the young chief give over his desperate struggles to escape; and then apparently yielding, he stood rigid and immobile, as if his frame had been iron.

It was an unexpected _denouement_--alike unlooked for by either white men or Indians. It was a violent proceeding, and altogether unjustifiable. This was no court whose judge had the right to arrest for contempt. It was a council, and even the insolence of an individual could not be punished without the concurrence of both parties. General Thompson had exceeded his duty--he had exercised a power arbitrary as illegal.

The scene that followed was so confused as to defy description. The air was rent with loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns; the shouts of men, the screams of the women, the cries of children, the yells of the Indian warriors, fell simultaneously upon the ear. There was no attempt at rescue--that would have been impossible in the presence of so many troops--so many traitors; but the patriot chiefs, as they hurried away from the ground, gave out their wild 'Yo-ho-ehee'--the gathering war-word of the Seminole nation--that in every utterance promised retaliation and revenge.

The soldiers commenced dragging Osceola inside the fort.

"Tyrant!" cried he, fixing his eye upon the commissioner, "you have triumphed by treachery; but fancy not that this is the end of it. You may imprison Osceola--hang him, if you will--but think not that his spirit will die. No; it will live, and cry aloud for vengeance. It speaks! Hear ye yonder sounds? Know ye the 'war-cry' of the Redsticks?

Mark it well; for it is not the last time it will ring in your ears.

_Ho--yo-ho-ehee! yo-ho-ehee_! Listen to it, tyrant! it is your death-knell--it is your death-knell!"

While giving utterance to these wild threats, the young chief was drawn through the gate, and hurried off to the guard-house within the stockade.

As I followed amid the crowd, some one touched me on the arm, as if to draw my attention. Turning, I beheld Haj-Ewa.

"To-night, by the we-wa," [spring, pond, water] said she, speaking so as not to be heard by those around. "There will be shadows--more shadows upon the water. Perhaps--"

I did not hear more; the crowd pressed us apart; and when I looked again, the mad queen had moved away from the spot.

CHAPTER FORTY.

"FIGHTING GALLAGHER."

The prisoner was confined in a strong, windowless blockhouse. Access to him would be easy enough, especially to those who wore epaulets. It was my design to visit him; but, for certain reasons, I forbore putting it in execution, so long as daylight lasted. I was desirous that my interview should be as private as possible and therefore waited for the night.

I was influenced by other reasons; my hands were full of business; I had not yet done with Arens Ringgold.

I had a difficulty in deciding how to act. My mind was a chaos of emotions; hatred for the conspirators--indignation at the unjust behaviour of the agent towards Osceola--love for Maumee--now fond and trusting--anon doubting and jealous. Amid such confusion, how could I think with clearness?

Withal, one of these emotions had precedence--anger against the villain who intended to take my life was at that moment the strongest pa.s.sion in my breast.

Hostility so heartless, so causeless, so deadly, had not failed to imbue me with a keen desire for vengeance; and I resolved to punish my enemy at all hazards.

He only, whose life has been aimed at by an a.s.sa.s.sin, can understand the deadly antipathy I felt towards Arens Ringgold. An open enemy, who acts under the impulse of anger, jealousy, or fancied wrong, you may respect.

Even the two white wretches, and the yellow runaway, I regarded only with contempt, as tools pliant for any purpose; but the arch-conspirator himself I now both hated and despised. So acute was my sense of injury, that I could not permit it to pa.s.s without some act of retaliation, some effort to punish my wronger.

But how? Therein lay the uncertainty! How? A duel?

I could think of no other way. The criminal was still inside the law.

I could not reach him, otherwise than by my own arm.

I well weighed the words of my sable counsellor; but the faithful fellow had spoken in vain, and I resolved to act contrary to his advice, let the hazard fall as it might. I made up my mind to the challenge.

One consideration still caused me to hesitate: _I must give Ringgold my reasons_.

He should have been welcome to them as a dying souvenir; but if I succeeded in only _half-killing_ him, or he in half-killing me, how about the future? I should be showing my hand to him, by which he would profit; whereas, unknown to him, I now knew his, and might easily foil his designs.

Such calculations ran rapidly through my mind, though I considered them with a coolness that in after-thought surprises me. The incidents that I had lately encountered--combined with angry hatred of this plausible villain--had made me fierce, cold and cruel. I was no longer myself; and, wicked as it may appear, I could not control my longings for vengeance.

I needed a friend to advise me. Who could I make the confidant of my terrible secret?

Surely my ears were not deceiving me? No; it was the voice of my old school-fellow, Charley Gallagher. I heard it outside, and recognised the ring of his merry laugh. A detachment of rifles had just entered the fort with Charley at their head. In another instant we had "embraced."

What could have been more opportune? Charley had been my "chum" at college--my bosom companion. He deserved my confidence, and almost upon the instant, I made known to him the situation of affairs.

It required much explanation to remove his incredulity; he was disposed to treat the whole thing as a joke--that is, the conspiracy against my life. But the rifle shot was real, and Black Jake was by to confirm my account of it: so that my friend was at length induced to take a serious view of the matter.

"Bad luck to me!" said he, in Irish accent: "it's the quarest case that ever came accrast your humble frind's experience. Mother o' Moses! the fellow must be the divil incarnate. Geordie, my boy, have ye looked under his instip?"

Despite the name and "brogue," Charley was not a Hibernian--only the son of one. He was a New-Yorker by birth, and could speak good English when he pleased; but from some freak of eccentricity or affectation, he had taken to the brogue, and used it habitually, when among friends, with all the rich garniture of a true Milesian, fresh from the "sod."

He was altogether an odd fellow, but with a soul of honour, and a heart true as steel. He was no dunce either, and the man above all others upon whose coat tail it would not have been safe to "trid." He was already notorious for having been engaged in two or three "affairs," in which he had played both princ.i.p.al and second, and had earned the bellicose appellation of "Fighting Gallagher." I knew what _his_ advice would be before asking it--"Call the schoundrel out by all manes."

I stated the difficulty as to my reasons for challenging Ringgold.

"Thrue, _ma bohill_! You're right there; but there need be no throuble about the matther."

"How?"

"Make the spalpeen challenge you. That's betther--besides, it gives you the choice of waypons."

"In what way can I do this?"

"Och! my innocent gossoon! Shure that's as asy as tumblin' from a hayc.o.c.k. Call him a liar; an' if that's not sufficiently disagraable, twake his nose, or squirt your tobacco in his ugly countenance. That'll fetch him out, I'll be bail for ye.

"Come along, my boy!" continued my ready counsellor, moving towards the door. "Where is this Mister Ringgowld to be sarched for? Find me the gint, and I'll shew you how to scratch his b.u.t.tons. Come along wid ye!"