Part 7 (1/2)
When she had becoue, she told thereat water, who ruled a country as broad as the land of the Wauna and far richer
He had sent her as a bride to the ruler of another land, with a fabulous dowry of jewels and a thousand gifts besides But the shi+p that bore her and her splendid treasures had been turned from its course by a terrible storh a waste of blackness and foam,--the sails rent, the masts swept away, the shattered hulk hurled onward like a straw by the fury of the wind
When the tee sea under strange stars Coone; they knew not where they were, and caught in some unknown current, they could only drift blindly on and on Never sighting land, seeing naught but the everlasting sweep of wave and sky, it began to be whispered in terror that this ocean had no further shore, that theybut the boundless waters At length, when the superstitious sailors began to talk of throwing their fair charge overboard as an offering to the Gods, the blue peaks of the Coast Range rose out of the water, and the ever rain-freshened green of the Oregon forests dawned upon them Then came the attempt to enter the Columbia, and the wreck on the bar[1]
Multnomah made the lovely princess his wife, and Sea-Flower showed the spirit of a queen She tried to introduce a of the refineraded leam of the ht sorave, inexorable justice of the East, that seerireat, for she was naturally eloquent and of noble presence More than one sachehts than he had ever known before when the ”war-chief's wos were those: blood-stained chiefs and savage warriors listening all intent to the sweetest of Indian tongues spoken in modulations that were music; the wild heart of the empire stirred by the perfumed breath of a woman!
She had died three years before the events we have been narrating, and had left to her daughter the heritage of her refinement and her beauty Wallulah was the only child of the war-chief and his Asiatic wife, the sole heir of her father's sovereignty
Two rove, in the interior of the island, was Wallulah's lodge The path that Multnoreen, and the air full of the scent of buds and flowers Here and there a butterfly floated like a sunbea-bird darted in winged beauty froh the air, and in thein the sun The dewy freshness, the exquisite softness of spring, was everywhere
In the golden weather, through shadoood and sunny opening, the war-chief sought his daughter's lodge
Suddenly a familiar sound attracted his attention, and he turned toward it A few steps, and he cain of a s on it; and near the edge of the water, but concealed fro the shore, was his daughter, watching them
She was attired in a simple dress of some oriental fabric Her for black hair fell in rich masses about her shoulders; and her profile, turned toward him, eetly feminine The Indian type showed plainly, but was softened with hereyes andloveliness; a face whose strange mournfulness was deepened by the splendor of its beauty; a face the like of which is rarely seen, but once seen can never be forgotten
There was so despondent even in her pose, as she sat with her shoulders drooping slightly forward and her dark eyes fixed absently on the swans, watching the reeds Now one uttered its note, and she listened, see to vibrate to the deep, plaintive cry; then she raised to her lips a flute that she held in her hands, and answered it with a perfect intonation,--an intonation that breathed the very spirit of the swan So successful was theit the cry of a hidden ain she softly, rhythmically responded
”Wallulah!” said the chief
She sprang to her feet and turned toward hihted with an expressive flash, her black eyes shone, her features gloith joy and surprise It was like the breaking forth of an inner illu of the Indian in her face
”My father!” she exclai hiht her to do fro for ood hunter and can always track the fawn to its covert,” replied the chief, with the faint seentleness in his nature cahter
”You have cory? Coive you food, and spread a ry only to see Wallulah and hear her talk Sit down on the log again” She seated herself, and her father stood beside her with an abstracted gaze, his hand stroking her long, soft tresses He was thinking of the darker, richer tresses of another, whose proud, sad face and , so like Wallulah's own, he, a barbarian prince, could never understand
Although, according to the superstitious custom of the Willamettes, he never spoke the name of Sea-Flower or alluded to her in any way, he loved his lost ith a deep and unchanging affection She had been a fair frail thing whose grace and refine hiht to her the spoils of the chase and of battle The finest e, the choicest skins and furs spread for her bed, and the chieftainess's string of _hiagua_ shells and grizzly bear's claws had been put around her white neck by Multnomah's own hand In spite of all this, she drooped and saddened year by year; the very hands that sought to cherish her seemed but to bruise; and she sickened and died, the delicate worasp of a mailed hand
Why did she die? Why did she always seem so sad? Why did she so often steal away to weep over her child? Was not the best food hers, and the ware fire, and the softest bearskin to rest on; and was she not the wife of Multno chief's woed bird that one tries to ta it food?
Often the old chief brooded over these questions, but it was unknown to all, even to Wallulah Only his raven tresses, cut close year by year in sign of perpetual et
The swans had taken flight, and their long lingering note sounded faint in the distance
”You have frightened away ly
A shadow crossed his brow
”Wallulah,” he said, and his voice had now the stern ring habitual to it, ”you waste your life with the birds and trees and that thing of sweet sounds,”--pointing to the flute ”Better be learning to think on the things a war-chief's daughter should care for,--the feast and the council, the war-parties and the welcome to the braves when they coht look died out of her face