Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/63

 AHWANEGA.

��55

��chief. As he sank back, wounded, against the rock, the giant form of a Pequot war- rior sprang from his hiding place, rush- ing with open arms extended, as though intent upon clasping within them the form of the terror-stricken maiden ; but ere he had reached his object, a hatchet, hurled with lightning speed, arrested his course, and in an instant, he was seized in the deathly grasp of the wounded chief. A wild yell as of a dying demon, rang out over the valley and through the forest, frightening the birds that were hatching their broods in the clefts of the rocks and startling the beaver from his work in the neighboring swamp.

Who can divine the thoughts of the brave lover — there was a brief struggle — he cast one earnest, agonizing look toward his dark-eyed mate, and then up- ward, as if to say, "meet me in the land of the brave dead up yonder ;" then with a desperate spring, he leapt from the rock and the rival Indian lovers were hurled to their "happy hunting grounds."

On that long, grave like mound, you see now dimly outlined in the gloom, a bow-shot from the foot of the cliff, they laid the murdered warrior, in a grove of beeches, and above him they planted a young sapling — for the Indians held a tradition, that so long as a tree planted above their young dead should remain green, and wave its branches, so long should the dear departed remain young and beautiful in "the land of the hereaf- ter." Thus and there they left him, and the twilight fell grayly on the rocky, moss-covered mound. To this day you may lie with your ear to the ground in the autumn evening twilight, near the place or under the high rock and you shall hear a mournful murmur, as of the chanting of wild death-songs above the brave dead; and I have heard in my young days around the foot of the moun- tain, many a wild-piercing shout, as you might imagine a ghostly shriek. Others say it is the echo from some distant hal- loo, or the wind among the rocks and old

trees, but I know it is not.

The eagles wheeled screaming for many days above the place where the bones of the dead Pequot lay bleaching in the sun, and the winds howled among

theld oaks, and the night-owl hooted

��from the limbs of a blasted pine, standing below the spot ; no fair women or dark- eyed maiden, sung over him the death- songs, lulling the brave dead to slumber.

Long the dusky maiden pined for her absent lover; in vain they strove to cheer her heart with the gay dances and native songs of her tribe ; in vain, they brought her medicines from the forest and the valley ; draughts of holy water from the bubbling spring at the foot of the mountain, brought not back to her cheek the ruddy glow, or brightness to her fading eye ; her light, fairy foot-step sought less frequently her favorite haunts among the hills and along the river side ; and her songs became hushed from the wild-wood.

A night in early autumn came down as it comes down now, quietly, and as those same shadows deepened around the mountain's base, and the glories of the departing day faded from the East, they found her, lying across the mound where they had laid her beloved chief; her slen- der arms clasping the young sapling, green above his grave ; mantled by the holy twilight, her brown cheek laid qui- etly upon the forest leaves that covered him she loved, she had sunk to rest be- neath the stars. And there they left her, only a little below the growing mosses and the rustling leaves, and the same evergreen branches overshadowed them both. I fancy a scene in the blessed hunting-grounds that day.

In a romantic glen, upon the bank of a wild mountain stream, fitted and pre- pared with all the taste and skill of Indi- an perfection, a wigwam stood ; within a lone warrior, expectantly waiting— soon the door-way is quietly thrust aside, a light form glides in, and the "Wild Fawn" of the Mohawks is again clasped in the arms of her Mohegan lover.

True? yes; at least, I suppose it to be. We know that a tribe of Mohegans once hunted and fished among these moun- tains, and that they were driven this way by the Mohawks and their allies, and the rest I got from the lips of an old hunter when I was a boy, and he heard it from an aged squaw who once lived near here many, many years ago, when this river, the "Onawanda" ran wild and free trom "Agiochook" to the "Connecticut."

�� �