"What does the boy rave about? What does it all mean? Has the Great Spirit cursed me in all my hopes? Speak, Nelatu. Where is your sister?

You say she is gone. Gone! Gone! With whom?"

"With Warren Rody!"

Oluski uttered a shriek of mingled rage and grief, pressed his hand upon his heart, and reeling, would have fallen to the earth but for Wacora's arm, at that instant thrown around him.

The two young men bent over his prostrate form, which his nephew had gently laid upon the sward.

A few faint, murmuring words escaped from his lips; so faint, indeed, that they were not comprehended by either son or nephew.

The frown which had gathered on his brow in his interview with Elias Rody gradually gave place to a gentle smile. His eyes, for an instant, rested sorrowfully on the face of Nelatu, then on Wacora, and were closed for ever!

With that look had his life ended. The spirit of the Seminole Chief had departed to a better land.

Wounded in his friendship, doubly wounded in his pride, cruelly stabbed by the desertion of his own daughter and the weakness of his own son, outraged as friend and father, the old man's heart had burst within his bosom!

Tenderly covering the body with his blanket, Wacora stooped and kissed the cold brow in silence, registering a vow of vengeance upon his murderers!

Nelatu, stunned by the suddenness of the event, hid his face in his hands, and gave way to lamentation and tears.

That evening the remains of their chief were interred in a temporary grave, around which the warriors of the tribe, by their own consent now commanded by Wacora, joined in an oath of sure and ample vengeance.

Coupled with their oath was the declaration that war and rapine should not cease until the hill was again their own, and the body of their beloved chief laid peacefully beside the bones of his ancestors.

That night the red pole was erected in their encampment, and under the glare of pine torches was performed around it the fearful scalp-dances of the tribe.

The white sentinels upon the hill saw afar off the fiendlike performance, and, as around echoed in their ears their wild shriek, they turned trembling from the hill, and cursed Elias Rody!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

WACORA CHOSEN CHIEF.

Wacora was unanimously elected war chief of the tribe over which his uncle had long ruled. Nelatu's claims were so slight, his ability so deficient, that not one of the warriors wished to nominate him for the important position.

To Wacora the honour was of inestimable value. By its means there was now a hope for the realisation of his long-cherished dream--the redemption of the red-man by the union of all the tribes into one powerful nation.

He instantly dispatched messengers to the braves of his own sub-tribe, summoning them to Tampa Bay, to take part in the conflict.

He was answered by the speedy arrival of a large and well-armed force, who, mingling with Oluski's people, now became one community.

Obedient to his mandate, they continued to preserve an ominously peaceful att.i.tude towards the settlers, who, but for a knowledge to the contrary, might have comforted themselves with a belief that the red men had left the bay.

But although unseen, their presence was not unfelt. The news of Oluski's death had spread a feeling of alarm among the white colonists, which the heartless and a.s.sumed indifference of Elias Rody and his adherents could not dismiss from their minds.

The "governor" seemed to have returned to the courses of his early life.

He had for many years been a man of sober habits; but since the building of his new house a change had come over him. He had begun to drink freely, and in the excitement of preparation for the defence of his usurped property, he found a thousand excuses for the indulgence of that appet.i.te so long kept under control.

Still another matter gave discomfort to the governor. His son had been for some time missing from the settlement, and in a mysterious manner.

His disappearance had a marked effect on his father's temper, and when not cursing himself for the general discomfort he had caused, he cursed the son for adding to it!

It will thus be seen that although Elias Rody had prepared his own bed, and was obliged to lie upon it, it was proving anything but a bed of roses.

Had it not been for the presence of his daughter Alice, the new mansion in which he now lived, and for which he might yet have to pay dearly, would have been a perfect pandemonium to him.

That amiable girl, by her gentle behaviour, did much to soften the rude, inharmonious elements around her; and the roughest of her father's roystering companions were silent and respectful in her presence.

She was like a ministering angel among those who had taken refuge within the stockade. She never seemed to tire of attending upon them or their wants. Her kind sympathetic voice and a.s.siduous care were of inestimable service to the sick, who blessed her in their hearts.

Nothing in the meantime had been heard of her brother Warren.

Crookleg had also disappeared, although no one particularly missed him.

Cris Carrol, the hunter, had not returned to the settlement. In some distant savanna he was no doubt tranquilly pa.s.sing his time, at peace with all the world. Such was the condition of affairs.

The first preparations for strife between the Whites and Indians had been made; and to several other outrages, similar to that committed by Elias Rody, may be traced the causes of that Seminole war which cost the government of the United States some thousands of lives, along with several millions of dollars, to say nought of the reputation of six hitherto distinguished generals.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN COUSINS.

The tranquil state of affairs did not last for long.

The Indians, eager to revenge Oluski's death, wore impatient of the restraint Wacora would have imposed upon them, and at a council convened for that purpose, they determined to attack the stockade upon the hill.

This determination was hastened by several rencontres which had taken place in the outlying districts.

A small party of the red men, led by Maracota, had pillaged and destroyed a plantation.

Near the bay they had been met by some of the white settlers as they were returning from their work of destruction.

In the _melee_ which ensued a number of Indians were killed, while their white adversaries met with little loss.

These and some individual cases of contest had worked the red men up to a pitch of savage earnestness that took all Wacora's temporising power to restrain.

He knew the character of the people he had to deal with too well to hazard opposition to their will, the more so as his own desire for vengeance was as deep and earnest, but more deadly than theirs.

One thought occupied his mind n.o.bler than that of revenge--the regeneration of the Indian race.

A chimera it may have been, but still his great ambition.

He thus spoke to the a.s.sembled chiefs--

"I do not urge upon you to withhold vengeance for injuries done to our race by the white enemy. I only desire to make it more full and terrible. This is but the beginning of a long list of retributions, the overflowing of acc.u.mulated wrongs, the first step towards freedom and redemption! To take that step we must be patient until certain of success. Then begins a warfare that will only end with the annihilation of our hated enemies and in a new existence for the red men! Have I spoken well?"

Loud approbation greeted him from the a.s.sembled warriors; but such is the inconsistency of human character that individually they devised means for immediate retaliation on the settlers.