Here paused the Indian for a moment, his eagle-eye unflinchingly bent on the setting sun. "Yes, it is even so, and it is well," he repeated. "Let great Wahcoudah's will be done. White brother, farewell! and you, my black brother, both farewell!"
In silence each took, in his turn, the proffered hand, Reynolds too profoundly moved at the Indian's words to speak, and Burl, overawed at his manner and appearance, which, while he was speaking, had risen into the solemn and sublime. Without another word, he was gone. They followed him with their eyes as swiftly, duskily he went gliding away through the glimmering shades of evening. As he reached the brink of the hill on which they stood, a parting beam from the setting sun--sent streaming, broad and bright and red, through a vista in the forest--poured round him for an instant a flood of melancholy glory. A moment more, and the Indian chief had vanished--plunged in the twilight depths of the valley beyond.
That night, as the young Kentuckian lay sleeping in his tent, still through his dreams he saw that face--a face it was to leave an image on the eye. And still through his dreams he heard that voice--a voice it was to leave an echo in the ear. The face reflecting ever the light of the setting sun; the voice repeating ever, "Rule, great Wahcoudah!"
HOW THE GLORY OF HIS RACE FIGURED IN HIS SETTING.
The following day was the fifth of October, 1813, whose sun beheld the memorable Battle of the Thames, when, for the last time in the regions of the North, the Lion and the Eagle met in fight.
The final retreat had begun at Fort Malden, a strongly fortified post on the shores of Lake St. Clair, at the mouth of the Thames, where an effectual stand might have been made against the farther advance of the now victorious Americans. Such was the opinion of Tecumseh, and on learning that his white ally had resolved to destroy and abandon the fort to the intent of withdrawing still farther, even to the central regions of Canada, he had boldly opposed the movement as unnecessary, and being unheeded, had scornfully denounced it to his ally's very face as unwarrior-like, dishonorable, contemptible. Had the civilized general hearkened to the savage leader, the result of the war in that quarter, if not more successful to the British cause, would certainly have been far less dishonorable to the British name. During the retreat, the heroic sachem had earnestly and repeatedly recommended a sudden and determined face-about on their pursuers, and only the night before the decisive battle he had urged a backward movement, that, under screen of the darkness, they might surprise the sleeping enemy in his camp, and overpower him before any combined resistance could be made. But all in vain. His white ally was but a fat poltroon--"a big, fat, cowardly dog," to use Tecumseh's own comparison, "that carries his tail curled fiercely over his back till danger threatens, then drops it between his legs and slinks away."