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Updated: May 5, 2025
You can leave this place to-night, seek out Tuskahoma, make your way to Pensacola, thence to Havana, where I warrant you will find other occupation. Or, if you so desire, I will accredit you to Governor Frontenac in the north." I chose Havana, there being the greater prospect of active service there.
Gradually a low wavering sound separated itself from the other noises of the night, coming faint but clear upon the light land breeze, the first quivering notes of a Choctaw war chant. How familiar it was. Was I mistaken? I listened more intently. No. It was in very truth the voice of Tuskahoma, my old friend on many marches.
I followed, and after me, Le Corbeau Rouge, a runner of the Choctaws. We were returning to Biloxi from a reconnaissance in the Chickasaw country. Each straight behind the other, dumb and soundless shadows, we passed along the way, hardly bruising a leaf or brushing the rustling reeds aside. "See, there is the light," grunted Tuskahoma, pointing to a glimmer through the trees.
High above the din Tuskahoma lifted now his ferocious battle cry; advancing upon the blazed sapling he sank his tomahawk deep into the soft white wood, then moved swiftly out of the circle to his own fire. This was the act by which he announced his assumption of supreme authority.
As I essayed to drop down upon the inside my sword belt caught upon the top of a picket, leaving me dangling in mid air, an easy prey to those below had they only noticed my plight. Tuskahoma paused to sever the belt with his knife, and by this accident I was first within the Spanish works, sword and pistol in hand. Soon a hundred were by my side.
It was late one clear moonlight night in the spring of 17 , when three silent figures emerged from the woodland darkness and struck across the wide extent of rank grass which yet separated us from the bay. Tuskahoma led the way, a tall grim Choctaw chieftain, my companion on many a hunt, his streaming plumes fluttering behind him as he strode.
In the center of this threatening circle moved Tuskahoma, two great crimson blotches upon his cheeks, treading that weird suggestive measure the Indians knew so well. Round and round a little pine-tree, shorn of its branches and striped with red, he crept, danced and sang.
I would merely mention in passing such smaller affairs as relate directly to my own narrative. Short and sharp was the conflict which, under God, gave our arms the victory at Pensacola. Swarming over the palisades or boldly tearing them down, the Choctaws, led by Tuskahoma, swept the Spaniards from their works. It so happened that Tuskahoma and I mounted the fortifications together.
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