Part 28 (2/2)
Slowly and wearily she entered the waiting canoe and resumed her seat
The Indian paddlers took their places They told her that the chief Snoqualmie had bidden them take her on without him He would follow in the other canoe It was a relief to be free from his presence, if only for a little while; and the sadness on her face lightened for a moment when they told her
A few quick paddle-strokes, and the boat shot out into the current above the cascades and then glided forward No, _not_ forward The canoe-men, unfamiliar with the new cataract, had launched their vessel too close to the falls; and theit back A cry of horror burst froer, and their paddles were dashed into the water with frenzied violence The canoe hung quivering through all its slender length between the desperate strokes that impelled it forward and the tremendous suction that drew it down Had they been closer to the bank, they ht have saved themselves; but they were too far out in the current They felt the canoe slipping back in spite of their frantic efforts, slowly at first, then more swiftly; and they knew there was no hope
The paddles fell from their hands One boat ashore, but the current instantly swept hiht; the other satthe end with Indian stolidity
The canoe ept like a leaf to the verge of the fall and doard into a gulf of e of the cataract, and its horrors opened beneath her, Wallulah realized her doom for the first time; and in the moment she realised it, it was upon her There was a quick terror, a drea roar, a sudden terrible shock as the canoe was splintered on the rocks at the foot of the fall; then all things were sed up in blackness, a blackness that was death
Below the falls, strong swiht the dead to land Beneath a pine-tree that grew close by the great Columbia trail and not far frohter of Multnomah lay in rude state upon a fawn-skin; while at her feet were extended the brawny forms of the two canoe- to Indian y, were to be her slaves in the Land of the Hereafter Her face was very lovely, but its mournfulness remained Her flute, broken in the shock that had killed her, was still attached to her belt The Indians had placed her hand at her side, resting upon the flute; and they noticed in superstitious wonder that the cold fingers seely, even in death Indian wohs of pine Troop after troop, returning over the trail to their hoaze at the dead face that was so wonderfully beautiful yet so sad
All day long the bands gathered; each stopping, none passing indifferently by At length, when evening ca and cool, the burials began A shallow grave was scooped at Wallulah's feet for the bodies of the two canoe-hter--ento Upper Columbia Indians, they buried her, after the manner of their people, under a heap of stone Rocks and bowlders were built around and over her body, yet without touching it, until the sad dead face was shut out froher and higher rose the great rock-heap, till a -place of Wallulah And all the time the wo on with folded arth the as done The wail ceased; the gathering broke up, and the sachems and their bands rode away, Snoqual with them
Only the roar of the cascades broke the silence, as night fell on the wild forest and the lonely river The pine-tree beside the trail swayed its branches in the ith a low softthe sorroorn sleeper beneath it into still deeper repose And she lay very still in the great cairn,--the sweet and beautiful dead,--with the griuardians of a slumber never to be broken
CHAPTER IV
MULTNOMAH'S DEATH-CANOE
Gazing alone To him are wild shadows shown
Deep under deep unknown
DANTE ROSSETTI
If Multnohter's death, if his heart sunk at the unforeseen and terrible blow that left his empire without an heir and withered all his hopes, no one knew it; no eye beheld his woe
Silent he had ever been, and he was silent to the last The grand, strong face only grew grander, stronger, as the shadows darkened around hirew the fiercer and theBut ere the moon that shone first on Wallulah's new-made cairn had rounded to the full, there was that upon hiave way,--death, swift and mysterious And it careat _potlatch_ he gave away his all, even to the bear-skins fro only those cases of Asiatic textures never yet opened,--all that now re ago upon his coast They were opened now His bed was covered with the nificent fabrics; they were thrown carelessly over the rude walls and seats, half-trailing on the floor; exquisite folds of velvet and daht see how rich the chief still was, though he had given away so much And with his ostentation was mixed a secret pride and tenderness that his dead wife had indirectly given hiht hiiven away his all, even to the bare poles of his lodge, she filled it with fine things andfor years in the death-hut on _mimaluse_ island Those treasures, ere the vessel that carried them recked, had been sent as a present from one oriental prince to another Could it be that they had been purposely inated with disease, so that while the prince that sent the a treacherous and terrible revenge? Such things were not infrequent in Asiatic history; and even the history of Europe, in the loves and scarfs charged with disease
Certain it is that shortly after the cases were opened, a strange and fatal disease broke out a all day long in the royal lodge; each day saathed corpses borne out to the funeral pyre or _mimaluse_ island
And no concoction of herbs,--however skilfully compounded with stoneatmosphere of sweat-house, could stay the ht the disease It seee to the Indians that the war-chief should sicken, that Multnomah should show any of the weaknesses of common flesh and blood; yet so it was But while the body yielded to the inroad of disease, the spirit that for almost half a century had bent beneath it the tribes of the Wauna never faltered He lay for days upon his couch, his syste with fever, holding death off only by ht of will He touched no remedies, for he felt them to be useless; he refused the incantations of the th the war-chief contended with his last eneh ca; and the hearts of the Indians sunk within them Beyond the mountains the whisper passed to the allied tribes, oncethenal for rebellion The fall of the e, the death of Wallulah, and the fatal illness of Multnomah had sealed the doom of the Willamettes The chiefs stayed their followers only till they knew that he was dead But the grand old war-chief seeled with disease; he crushed down his sufferings; he fought death with the same silent, indomitable tenacity hich he had overthrown the obstacles of life
In all his wasting agony he was the war-chief still, and held his subjects in his grip To the tribes that were about to rebel he sent eance,--es that shook and awed the chiefs and pushed back invasion To the last, the great chief overawed the tribes; the generation that had grown up under the shadow of his tyranny, even when they kneas dying, still obeyed hi a feeeks after the burial of Wallulah, there burst forth froe that peculiar hich was lifted only for the death of one of the royal blood No need to ask who it was, for only _one_ re ruled the Willamettes; and for him, the last of his race, was the wail lifted It was re-echoed by the in, h the encampment on Wappatto Island
Soon, runners were seen departing in every direction to bear the fatal news throughout the valley Twilight fell on them; the stars came out; the moon rose and sunk; but the runners sped on, froe Wherever there was a cluster of Willaes, by forest, river, or sea, the tale was told, the as lifted So all that night the death-wail passed through the valley of the Willaed with bands of Indians journeying for the last time to the isle of council, to attend the obsequies of their chief, and consult as to the choice of one to take his place
The pestilence that had so ravaged the household of Multnomah was spread widely now; and every band as it departed from the camp left death behind it,--aye, took death with it; for in each coard, sickly faces told of disease, and in ed behind and fell at last beside the trail to die
The weather was very on, like that of the memorable year 1849, when the s over Western Oregon for days, and it seemed to the white settlers as if they were never to breathe the clear air or see the sky again But even that, the historic ”smoky time” of the white pioneers, was scarcely equal to the smoky period of more than a century and a half before The forest fires were raging with unusual fury; Mount Hood was still in course of eruption; and all the valley rapped in settled cloud Through the thick atmosphere the tall firs loomed like spectres, while the far-off roar of flames in the forest and the intermittent sounds of the volcano came weirdly to the Indians as they passed on their mournful way What wonder that the distant sounds see woe; and objects in the forest, half seen through the s theathered on the island, the shuddering Indians told of dim and shadowy phantoantic shapes in the likeness ofthem back with outstretched arloom; and the spirits of the dead had see,--they knew not which
So, all day long, troop after troop crossed the river to the island, e like shadows from the smoke that see the terrible spread of the pestilence; each helping to swell the great horror that brooded over all, with its tale of the sick and dead at hos seen on the way Band after band the tribes gathered, and when the sun went down the war-chief's obsequies took place
[Illustration: _Multnoe funeral that they gave Multnorand life he had lived