United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In this recommendation the old Piankeshaw also concurred; but finding that Roland recoiled with disgust, after an attempt to taste the fiery liquid, he took the bowl into his own hands, and despatched its contents at a draught. "Good! great good!" he muttered, smacking his lips with high gusto; "white man make good drink! Piankeshaw great friend white-man's liquor."
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I now lay before you copies of the treaties concluded with the Delaware and Piankeshaw Indians for the extinguishment of their title to the lands therein described, and I recommend to the consideration of Congress the making provision by law for carrying them into execution.
At all events, it was plain that his warlike feats, however they might at first have shocked his sense of propriety, now sat but lightly on his conscience; and, indeed, since his confession at the Piankeshaw camp, he ceased even to talk of them, perhaps resting upon that as an all-sufficient explanation and apology.
"Good!" cried the old warrior, as if in reply to what the others had said; "Long-knife go Piankeshaw nation, make great sight for Piankeshaw!" And so saying, he began to dance about, with many grimaces of visage and contortions of body, that seemed to have a meaning for his comrades, who fetched a whoop of admiration, though entirely inexplicable to the soldier.
It was in this manner the Piankeshaw addressed himself to his treasure; the effect of which was to render each returning paroxysm of affection and sorrow more energetic than before, while it gradually robbed of their malignity those fits of anger with which he was still occasionally seized.
No voice replied to the shout; but it roused from the earth a dark and bloody figure, which staggering and falling over the body of the young warrior, crawled like a scotched reptile upon Roland's breast; when the light of the fire shining upon it revealed to his eyes the horrible spectacle of the old Piankeshaw warrior, the lower part of his face shot entirely away, and his eyes rolling hideously, and, as it seemed, sightlessly, in the pangs of death, his hand clutching the knife with which he had so often threatened, and with which he yet seemed destined to take, though in the last gasp of his own, the soldier's life.
With such lamentations, running at times into rage against his prisoner, as the representative of those who had shed the young warrior's blood, the old Piankeshaw whiled away the hours of travel; ceasing them only when seized with a fit of affection, or when some mis-step of the horse sent a louder gurgle, with a more delicious odour, from the cask at his back; which music and perfume together were a kind of magic not to be resisted by one who stood so greatly in need of consolation.
But as for being off, why I don't mean it noway. I've got a bargain to strike with you, and it is jist a matter to take the tiger-cat out of you, it is, d n it: and when you've heard it, you'll be in no sich hurry to get rid of me. But, afore we begin, I've jist got a matter to ax you: and that is, how the h you cleared the old Piankeshaw and his young uns?"
Sleeping that night in the woods, the next day, being the fourth since they left the Piankeshaw camp, beheld the travellers upon the banks of the Ohio; which, seen, for the first time, in the glory of summer, its crystal waters wheeling placidly along amid hills and forests, ever reflected in the bright mirror below, and with the air of virgin solitude which, through so many leagues of its course, it still presents, never fails to fill the beholder's mind with an enchanting sense of its loveliness.
While they were thus engaged, the senior rose from the earth, staring about him for a moment with looks of stupid inquiry; until beginning at last to comprehend the accident that had happened to him, and perhaps moved by the late of his treasure, he also burst into a fury; and snatching up the nearest gun, he clapped it to his horse's head, and shot it dead on the spot, roaring out, "Cuss' white-man hoss! throw old Piankeshaw!
Word Of The Day