How Big Black Burl Figured at the Death-Stake.

Burl had made it his habit, whenever the army halted and pitched tent for the night, to shoulder his rifle and take a solitary turn through the neighboring woods, if haply he might not bring down a squirrel, or a partridge, or it might be a fat buck, that the "Cap'n" might have something juicy and savory wherewith to season and reËnforce his sometimes scanty and never very palatable rations. But toward the close of this hazy October day, already thrice alluded to, when the army had encamped for the night, the humor, as luck would have it, seized Captain Reynolds to accompany his trusty forager in the accustomed evening hunt. So they set out together, and had not penetrated a mile into the forest to the northward, when on coming to a bushy dell they had the good fortune to start a fine buck, which Captain Reynolds brought down and had Burl to shoulder, proposing to take it whole to camp, that he might share it with his men. Hardly had they turned to retrace their steps, when suddenly, before Reynolds could reload his gun, or Burl disencumber himself of the buck, they found themselves completely surrounded by at least a dozen savages, who, hovering about the enemy's van, had spied the stragglers and laid in ambuscade to capture them, though all but within rifle-range of the American pickets. Taken by surprise, and outnumbered two to one, any attempt at resistance or escape would have been instant death. So they surrendered at once, and quietly suffered themselves to be stripped of their arms and accouterments, which being done in a twinkling, they were swiftly borne off through the woods.

The audacious savages, having made two or three circuits to avoid the American outpost, set their faces due north-east, then pursued their course without swerving to right or left. The sun went down, the moon came up, on those Canadian wilds. Ever and anon, as swiftly held they onward, other Indians, singly or in squads, would fall into the file, gliding from out the mingled gloom of forest shade and night, as suddenly and silently as the shapes which flit through troubled dreams. Among these, by and by, appeared a warrior of gigantic stature, who putting himself at the head of the file, stalked on a little in advance, and seemed to be their leader.

Captain Reynolds now felt convinced that they had fallen into the hands of some of Tecumseh's scouts, through whom that vigilant leader kept himself continually informed of the enemy's movements, if, peradventure, at some moment he might find them off their guard, either to be drawn into an ambuscade by day or surprised in camp by night. Unswervingly due north-east the night-marchers held their course for several miles, the warrior gliding on before them, like a gigantic specter there to lead them over the shadowy borders of another world. So it seemed to Burl, who felt his spirit strangely troubled within him whenever an opening through the forest, letting in the hazy glimmer of the moon, brought that huge bulk less vaguely before his eyes; and once in particular, as they neared the summit of a big bald hill, when the warrior for an instant towered in lofty, dim relief against the starry sky. Toward midnight, the party descended from the upland forest into the valley of the Thames, and shortly afterward reached the Indian camp. Here the prisoners were placed in the custody of fresh keepers, and all lay down to rest, stretched out on the ground near one of the numerous camp-fires which, by this time burning low, shone like great glow-worms along the side of the valley.

The dim light of another hazy October day was creeping chillily over those forest wilds, when a heavy hand shaking him roughly by the shoulder roused Big Black Burl from his slumbers. Scrambling to his feet, and drowsily looking around him through that foggy confusion of thought and perception through which sons of ebony after a sound sleep needs must pass in getting back to their waking senses, the black hunter caught a broad, vague view of something which made him fancy that he was still flat of his back on the ground and dreaming of the giant warrior who had led in the night-march. The moment after, more at himself, yet lingering still on the misty borders of nod-land, he fancied that what he saw just there before him must surely be a ghost; and at this horrible thought the negro gave a big start, which brought him by a shorter cut than usual out of his sleepy fog into the clear light of his wide-awake senses. All but within reach of his hand, there stood before him in bodily form that terrible Wyandot giant Black Thunder—that redoubtable warrior whom the Fighting Nigger had so long and fondly fancied he had slain in valiant fight, and his victory over whom he had ever since held up and trumpeted abroad as the crowning glory of all his martial exploits. The recognition was mutual, for never had either seen the other's like but once before, and that, too, under circumstances which neither was ever likely to forget. If the recognition was mutual, so was the surprise.

"Ugh!" exclaimed the Indian, as he bent his wild, panther-like eye on the black giant with a look of undisguised astonishment, which gradually darkened into a smile of ferocious joy and triumph.

"U-gooh!" exclaimed the negro, as he fixed his wild, ox-like eye unflinchingly on the red giant, but with a look of unspeakable amazement, which gradually vanished, leaving his face with a cast as impenetrable as black marble.

Having surveyed his captive from top to toe in exulting silence for some moments, Black Thunder turned abruptly on his heel and strode away, to be seen no more that morning. Burl was still staring after his old acquaintance when his young master, who had with some surprise witnessed the dumb-show of mutual recognition, came up and inquired what it meant. Burl explained, and having noticed the ugly smile with which he had been regarded, could not help foreboding the terrible fate that must await them if their lives lay at the mercy of that revengeful savage whom he had once made bite the dust.

By this time the allied English and Indian armies were all astir, and the disorderly retreat began afresh, Tecumseh keeping his Indian brigade half a mile in the rear of the regulars. Toward the middle of the afternoon the party that had the white prisoners in keeping, having gradually fallen behind the line of march, abruptly turned into the mouth of a dingle which, deep and shadowy, opened gloomily into the valley of the Thames. Here, for the first time since morning, our luckless hunters spied Black Thunder, where a little farther within the dingle, as if there in waiting for them, he was vehemently, though not loudly, haranguing some fifteen or twenty of his warriors who, clustered in a close red knot before him, were taking in with ravenous ears his every word. Evidently the evil, foreboded by Burl in the morning, was in some shape near at hand, for a fierce gesture flung toward them from time to time by the speaker, with the vengeful glances of his listeners in the same direction, told but too plainly the drift of the harangue. At length, as if to make the surer of their savage sympathies and give the climax to his barbarous appeal, Black Thunder suddenly threw back his robe and disclosed to view two scars—a deep and ugly one in the arm, a long and ghastly one athwart the breast. Whereat uprose a chorus of yells expressive not so much of savage sympathy as of savage delight. The moment after, seized foot, with brush-wood to feed the devouring flames heaped up against him to his shoulders, there stood Big Black Burl, a victim doomed to the fiery tortures of the death-stake.

Helpless himself, Captain Reynolds could not choose but stand where he was and become a witness of the harrowing spectacle—too harrowing for any Christian eye to behold, even were the victim but the poor dumb brute, who has only his howlings to tell of his agony; but that his affectionate, faithful, brave old Burl should ever have come to a fate so terrible, wrung his heart with unshakable anguish—anguish the keener, when he reflected that this had never been but for that very heroism which, on a beautiful summer morning in the days long gone, had wrought deliverance to him, a forlorn little captive, and restored him to the love of a lone and widowed mother. O that ever this should be! And the strong man wept, as wept had he never till that sad day.

"O Mars'er Bushie!" cried Burl, in a firm, even comforting voice, "don't you cry for yo' pore ol' nigger. 'T won't be long 'fore he'll be turnin' up all right in de kingdom. Soon or late, we mus' all come to de end uf our journey; an' dis arter all's but a short cut to glory. Ef you eber slips de clutches uf dese wretches, Mars'er Bushie, an' libes to git back home, tell eb'rybody good-by fur me. Tell Miss Jemimy her ol' nigger never forgot, de longes' day he eber libed, how much she wanted to give him his freedom. An' tell Sinar, my wife, how her ol' man tried to die like a Chrischun gwine to glory. An' tell her, too, when de time will come fur her to cross de Jordan water she'll fin' her ol' man waitin' to meet her on de odder side, wid a cabin snug an' ready, all happy an' safe in de promis' lan'."

Here, as if the closing words had suggested it to his mind, the poor old fellow lifted up his powerful and melodious voice and began singing a simple negro hymn, which, with a plaintive melody, had for its burden the following words:

An' I hope to gain de promis' lan',
Halle—halleluyah!
An' I hope to gain de promis' lan',
Yes, I do!
Glory, glory, halle—halleluyah!
Glory, glory! Yes, I do!

The death-pile kindled, the smoke of its burning in dense black volumes enveloped the victim. Linked in a horrible circle around it, whooping and yelling and singing their war-songs, leaping and whirling and dancing their war-dance, clashing together their hatchets and war-clubs, waving above them the scalps of their foemen, went the barbarians merry as demons. And strong and clear, with never a quaver, still was heard above the confusion the hymning voice of the smoke-hid victim. But louder and higher than all, it is coming, ringing from far like the blast of a trumpet—a voice so stern, abrupt, and imperious that forthwith ceases the fiendish fandango. Up dashes a warrior mounted on horseback, leaps to the ground, and now at the death-pile seizes the fagots and scatters them broadcast, stamping upon them with moccasined feet to smother the flames till all is extinguished.

The savages—erst so active and lively—taken aback at his sudden appearance, now stood sullenly huddled together, somewhat apart in the gloom of the dingle. The fire extinguished, the chieftain—for such his dress and bearing bespoke him—wrathfully, scornfully, sternly rebuked them for their unmanly and barbarous treatment of a defenseless man and a captive.

In the course of his experience as trader and agent among the Indians, Captain Reynolds had picked up quite a smattering of several Indian tongues, which now enabled him to understand perfectly what the chief was saying. Even had he not been possessed of this knowledge, he could have readily followed the drift of the speaker's words by noting his gestures, looks, and the tones of his voice, so distinct and forcible were they, and so pointed with meaning.

The appearance of this man was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its unflinching brightness; his face, in its European regularity of feature and clearness of outline, eminently handsome, showing in its lines the energy and intelligence of a great mind, true to itself and to the best impulses of human nature. He was dressed in the peculiar and picturesque costume of his people, made magnificent by fineness of material and the richness of decoration. Besides the usual Indian weapons, all of polished steel and silver-mounted, he wore a handsomely hilted English broad-sword, though less as an ornament than as a badge of rank, or mark of distinction.

Word having reached him that Black Thunder and his party had fallen behind the line of march, and to what bloody-minded intent their whoops and yells, heard in that direction, plainly enough attested, the chief, prompt to the call of humanity, had galloped back, as just described, to arrest and rebuke a proceeding so inhuman and so unwarrior-like. His rebuke ended, he turned to take a look at the prisoner whom he had rescued from the flames, but of whom he had as yet seen nothing, the smoke at the moment of his coming up still hovering heavily over the death-pile.

The Big Black Brave with a Bushy Head still stood bound to the tree, yet without the mark or even the smell of fire upon his person, excepting a slight singeing of his fleecy locks and bear-skin cap, not to mention a smart watering at the eyes, the effect of the smoke. Ah—smoke! I find that I have unwittingly made an important omission, for which I owe you an apology, kind and sympathetic reader. I should have told you that a heavy shower of rain had fallen but a few hours before the kindling of the death-pile, which, as needs must, had left the brush-wood in better condition for heavy smoking than for lively combustion. Had I mentioned this circumstance in its proper place, I should have spared your tender sensibilities somewhat by giving you something contingent to catch at as suggestive of possible intervention. But to return.

The instant the chief, with a sweep of his eagle-like eye, had scanned those huge, grotesque proportions, he threw up his hand with a gesture of surprise, and a look of recognition lighted up his handsome face. Whereupon, as if needing nothing more to tell him who had been the prime mover in the day's outrage, and the base motive that had led to its perpetration, he turned abruptly upon Black Thunder, where sullen and lowering, his giantship stood with folded arms apart from the rest, and flung at him a rebuke so withering in its scorn, so burning in its generous indignation, that the big barbarian quailed from before it, daunted and abashed. Then, without further ado, the chief went, and cutting the thongs of buffalo-hide which bound the captive to the tree, set him at liberty, and with a wave of his hand in the direction whence the American army was approaching, said in English, "Go."

To be thus jerked back by the skirts, so to speak, from the open jaws of death by a single savage had proved more confounding to the steadfast mind of Big Black Burl than when but a few minutes before he was dragged thither by twenty, insomuch that ever since the unexpected surcease of the fiendish frolic he had continued to stare about him in a state of bewilderment not unlike that twilight fog of thought and sense through which he was wont to pass from sound asleep to wide awake. But no sooner did he feel that he was foot-loose and hand-loose again than he was all his own collected self once more, and to the welcome gesture and friendly word thus answered: "I yi, my larky! Much obleeged to you fur puttin' out de fire, but smoke me ag'in ef you ketch me gwine 'way from dis holler widout Mars'er Bushie," giving a side-long roll of his big black thumb toward his young master.

How much of this speech the chief really understood were hard to say; but having heard it, he turned, and for a few moments earnestly regarded the young Kentuckian where, in delighted surprise at the unlooked-for turn their ugly adventure had taken, he had stood the while, and now, with the liveliest interest, was awaiting the upshot. Then, as if comprehending fully the circumstances of the case, the chief ordered Black Thunder to restore both prisoners their arms and accouterments, and whatever else had been taken from them—a command sullenly but promptly obeyed. All being ready, their deliverer, speaking again in English, but this time addressing himself to the white man, said, "Follow me!" and, setting his face westward, led the captives from the spot. To avoid the risk he must run of falling in with the American scouts or pickets, their guide ascended at once into the upland forest, through whose shadows lay not only their most secret but shortest route. As they gained the summit of the steep overlooking the dingle where his death-pile had been kindled, the Fighting Nigger—the Preaching Nigger fast asleep within him—made a momentary pause. Waving his bear-skin war-cap loftily over his head, he sent down to Black Thunder, triumphantly and defiantly, his old war-cry, so often heard in the stormy days of long-ago in the land of the Dark and Bloody Ground, now filling those Canadian wilds with gigantic echoes which, flying affrightedly hither and thither, for full three minutes thereafter kept hill-top saying to hill-top, dingle to dingle, "I yi, you dogs!"