United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Man must wait till the last of his allotted days has come. And yet only a few words would bring it to pass. The "death-bird" has whispered the magic spell, and Death will obey the summons. Yet she lacks the courage to summon him at a time when the very foundations of the earth are trembling at the voice of Heaven's thunder! Poor woman! It is a marvel that she also is not mad.
Everything here was new, strange, and solemn. The gigantic trees, encircled by enormous vines, and heavily shrouded in grey funereal moss, mournfully waving in the breeze the doleful night-cry of the death-bird and the whip-poor-will the distant bugle of the advancing boats the moan of the turbid current beneath the silent and queenly moon above, appearing nearer, larger, and brighter than in our cooler latitudes the sultry atmosphere and most of all, perhaps, the sense of the near vicinity of death in this infected region oppressed my spirit with an ominous feeling of solemnity and awe.
"Then you, too, are one of them, eh?" cried she. "Did you not hear the cry of the death-bird?" stammered he. "What are you afraid of? Tis only my half-crazy old mother." At night the headsman's apprentices sleep on the floor of the loft. The headsman himself has a room overlooking the courtyard; Mekipiros slept in the stable outside with the watch-dog. All was silent.
A righteous man need never fear Death." The old hag, "the death-bird," was crouching there on the church steps with a bundle of healing herbs in her lap, and her crutch under her armpits, and with her chin resting on her knee. She kept counting all who came out of the church: "One! two! three!" Every time she came to three she began all over again every third person was superfluous.
Thy step was swift and graceful as the roe upon the mountains why didst thou leave me? But I will follow thee, my warrior, The death-bird has called me, and I come to thee! Thy child shall live; for Mahneto has given him friends and a home.
The "death-bird" stared at him without moving a muscle. Old Benjamin, in a sort of stupor, let the weapon fall out of his hand; it never occurred to him that he had extracted the bullet himself beforehand lest in a moment of distraction he might blow his own brains out. "What dost thou want, Benjamin?" asked the old woman in a calm mocking voice. "Death comes not from thee, but to thee.
Then she laid hold of her whip and lashed up the horses. The road they followed passed by the hut of the Death-Bird. The old witch was huddled up in her doorway, and began counting those who passed, marking them off one by one, with her crutch: "One, two, three One, two, three." She never went beyond three, therefore every third was a marked man.
She did not forget Lincoya; but she forgot the call of the death-bird: and when she sang her child to sleep, it was no longer with the same sad cadence as at first. Sorrow could not strike very deep, or abide very long in the heart of a being so gay, and with a mind and feelings so utterly uncultivated as those of the young Stone Indian.
And now go home, for thou shalt not dwell there long. When thou liest outside I will come and visit thee yonder!" The "death-bird" drew herself up straight at these words, she seemed as big again as her usual old shrunken self, and pointed towards the churchyard with her crutch. The dogs howled dismally behind the house and durst not come forward. The old woman collapsed once more.
Cheepai-Peethees called me twice from the tree that hung over the lodge; but when I called to it again, and whistled clearly, it made no answer. I heard it the day before the Crees destroyed our village. It called my husband then, and would not answer him; and in two days he was slain. The death-bird is never mistaken. O, Mailah! replied the young Christian squaw, 'say not so.
Word Of The Day