Part 6 (1/2)
In his history of the Conquest of Florida, Mr. Theodore Irving repeats, very interestingly, the story of Juan Ortiz who, with three other Spaniards, fell into the hands of the Indians by stratagem. The four captives were taken to the village of Hirrihigua, the cacique, who ordered them to be executed on a day of religious festival. Three were shot with arrows; and then ”Juan Ortiz, a youth, scarce eighteen years of age, of a n.o.ble family of Seville, was the fourth victim. As they were leading him forth, his extreme youth touched with compa.s.sion the hearts of the wife and daughters of the cacique, who interceded in his favor.
”The cacique listened to their importunities, and granted for the present the life of Ortiz;--but a wretched life did he lead. From morning until evening he was employed in bringing wood and water, and was allowed but little sleep and scanty food. Not a day pa.s.sed that he was not beaten. On festivals he was an object of barbarous amus.e.m.e.nt to the cacique, who would oblige him to run, from sunrise until sunset, in the public square of the village, where his companions had met their untimely end, Indians being stationed with bows and arrows, to shoot him, should he halt one moment. When the day was spent, the unfortunate youth lay stretched on the hard floor of the hut, more dead than alive.
At such times the wife and daughters of the cacique would come to him privately with food and clothing, and by their kind treatment his life was preserved.
”At length the cacique, determining to put an end to his victim's existence, ordered that he should be bound down upon a wooden frame, in the form of a huge gridiron, placed in the public square, over a bed of live coals, and roasted alive.
”The cries and shrieks of the poor youth reached his female protectors, and their entreaties were once more successful with the cacique. They unbound Ortiz, dragged him from the fire, and took him to their dwelling, where they bathed him with the juice of herbs, and tended him with a.s.siduous care. After many days he recovered from his wounds, though marked with many a scar.
”His employment was now to guard the cemetery of the village. This was in a lonely field in the bosom of a forest. The bodies of the dead were deposited in wooden boxes, covered with boards, without any fastening except a stone or a log of wood laid upon the top; so that the bodies were often carried away by wild beasts.
”In this cemetery was Ortiz stationed, with a bow and arrows, to watch day and night, and was told that should a single body be carried away, he would be burnt alive. He returned thanks to G.o.d for having freed him from the dreaded presence of the cacique, hoping to lead a better life with the dead than he had done with the living.
”While watching thus one long wearisome night, sleep overpowered him towards morning. He was awakened by the falling lid of one of the chests, and running to it, found it empty. It had contained the body of an infant recently deceased, the child of an Indian of great note.
”Ortiz doubted not some animal had dragged it away, and immediately set out in pursuit. After wandering for some time, he heard, at a short distance within the woods, a noise like that of a dog gnawing bones.
Warily drawing near to the spot, he dimly perceived an animal among the bushes, and invoking succor from on high, let fly an arrow at it. The thick and tangled underwood prevented his seeing the effect of his shot, but as the animal did not stir, he flattered himself that it had been fatal: with this hope he waited until the day dawned, when he beheld his victim, a huge animal of the panther kind, lying dead, the arrow having pa.s.sed through his entrails and cleft his heart.
”Gathering together the mangled remains of the infant, and replacing them in the coffin, Ortiz dragged his victim in triumph to the village, with the arrow still in his body. The exploit gained him credit with the old hunters, and for some time softened even the ferocity of the cacique. The resentment of the latter, however, from the wrongs he had suffered from white men, was too bitter to be appeased. Some time after, his eldest daughter came to Ortiz, and warned him that her father had determined to sacrifice him at the next festival, which was just at hand, and that the influence of her mother, her sisters, and herself would no longer avail him. She wished him, therefore, to take refuge with a neighboring cacique named Mucozo, who loved her and sought her in marriage, and who, for her sake, would befriend him. 'This very night at midnight,' said the kind-hearted maiden, 'at the northern extremity of the village you will find a trusty friend who will guide you to a bridge, about two leagues hence; on arriving there, you must send him back, that he may reach home before the morning dawn, to avoid suspicion--for well he knows that this bold act, in daring to a.s.sist you, may bring down destruction upon us both. Six leagues further on, you will come to the village of Mucozo--tell him I have sent you, and expect him to befriend you in your extremity--I know he will do it--go, and may your G.o.d protect you!' Ortiz threw himself at the feet of his generous protectress, and poured out his acknowledgments for the kindness she had always shown him. The Indian guide was at the place appointed, and they left the village without alarming the warlike savages. When they came to the bridge, Ortiz sent back the guide, in obedience to the injunction of his mistress, and, continuing his flight, found himself, by break of day, on the banks of a small stream near the village of Mucozo.
”Looking cautiously around, he espied two Indians fis.h.i.+ng. As he was unacquainted with their language, and could not explain the cause of his coming, he was in dread lest they should take him for an enemy and kill him. He, therefore, ran to the place where they had deposited their weapons and seized upon them. The savages fled to the village without heeding his a.s.surances of friendly intention. The inhabitants sallied out with bows and arrows, as though they would attack him. Ortiz fixed an arrow in his bow, but cried out at the same moment, that he came not as an enemy but as an amba.s.sador from a female cacique to their chief.
Fortunately one present understood him, and interpreted his words. On this the Indians unbent their bows, and returning with him to their village, presented him to Mucozo. The latter, a youthful chieftain, of a graceful form and handsome countenance, received Ortiz kindly for the sake of her who had sent him; but, on further acquaintance, became attached to him for his own merits, treating him with the affection of a brother.”
HUMANE SPIRIT OF A FOREST MAID.
”Beneath the gloom Of overshadowing forests, sweetly springs The unexpected flower.”
Some of the n.o.blest attributes of humanity are sometimes exhibited by the wild children of the forest. These attributes, in such cases, seem, like trees in the remotest wilderness, to have gained, by their spontaneous growth, surprising height, symmetry and beauty.
A lovelier character than Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, king of the country where the first white settlement in Virginia was made, is rarely found among any people. She was lovely in the broadest as well as n.o.blest sense of that word--lovely in features, lovely in disposition, lovely in the highest adornments of Christian grace. She was, in 1607, ”a girl of ten or twelve years of age, who, not only for feature, countenance and expression, much exceeded any of the rest of her people, but for wit and spirit was the only nonpareil of the country.” Such was Pocahontas, as described by the first white man, probably, who ever saw her, and in whose behalf, at the above date, she displayed the tenderness and true grandeur of her nature.
The colonists, writes Mr. Hildreth, in his new History of the United States, ”were specially instructed to seek for a pa.s.sage to the South Sea; and it was thought that possibly the Chickahoming might lead thither. Having ascended as high as he could in his barge, Captain Smith followed up the stream in a canoe, with two colonists and two Indians for companions; and when the canoe would float no longer, he left the two colonists to guard it, and struck inland with a single Indian as a guide. Set upon unexpectedly by a large party of natives, who had already surprised and killed the two men left to guard the canoe, Smith bound his Indian guide to his arm as a buckler, and made a vigorous defence, killing three of the a.s.sailants; but as he retreated backward, he presently sank into a miry swamp, and was taken prisoner. His captors would have killed him, but he amused them with a pocket compa.s.s. Carried in a sort of triumph through several villages, he was taken before Powhatan, the same chief whom he had visited in company with Newport. An attempt was made to engage his services--at least so Smith understood it--in surprising the colonists at Jamestown. Having failed in this, after much consultation, it was resolved to put him to death. He was dragged to the ground and his head placed upon a stone; Powhatan raised a club to dash out his brains”--and now view the highly dramatic scene which follows, as pictured by Mrs. Sigourney in a few lines of masterly coloring:
The sentenced captive see--his brow how white!
Stretched on the turf, his manly form lies low, The war club poises for its fatal blow, The death-mist swims before his darkened sight; Forth springs the child, in tearful pity bold, Her head on his reclines, her arms his neck enfold,
”The child! what madness fires her? Hence! Depart!
Fly, daughter, fly! before the death-stroke rings; Divide her, warriors! from that English heart.”
In vain, for with convulsive grasp she clings: She claims a pardon from her frowning sire; Her pleading tones subdue his gathered ire, And so, uplifting high his feathery dart, That doting father gave the child her will, And bade the victim live and be his servant still.
After Smith had been an inmate of Powhatan's wigwam awhile, he was permitted to leave the Indians. Sometime after this the savages, becoming alarmed by witnessing Smith's wonderful feats, ”laid a plan to get him into their power under the pretence of wis.h.i.+ng an interview with him in their territory. But Pocahontas, knowing the desire of the warriors, left the wigwam after her father had gone to sleep, and ran more than nine miles through the woods to inform her friend Captain Smith of the danger that awaited him, either by stratagem or attack.”