Matilda Montgomerie; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled. Major Richardson
chanced to suffer, where all had been equally exposed, in the performance of a common duty. The empty sleeve, unostentatiously fastened by a loop from the wrist to a button of the lapel, was suffered to fall at his side, and by no one was the deficiency less remarked than by himself.
The greeting between Tecumseh and these officers, was such as might be expected from warriors bound to each other by mutual esteem. Each held the other in the highest honor, but it was particularly remarked that while the Indian Chieftain looked up to the General with the respect he felt to be due to him, his address to his companion, whom he now beheld for the first time, was warmer, and more energetic; and as he repeatedly glanced at the armless sleeve, he uttered one of those quick ejaculatory exclamations, peculiar to his race, and indicating, in this instance, the fullest extent of approbation. The secret bond of sympathy which chained his interest to the sailor, might have owed its being to another cause. In the countenance of the latter there was much of that eagerness of expression, and in the eye that vivacious fire, that flashed, even in repose, from his own swarthier and more speaking features; and this assimilation of character might have been the means of producing that preference for, and devotedness to, the cause of the naval commander, that subsequently developed itself in the chieftain. In a word, the General seemed to claim the admiration and the respect of the Indian—the Commodore, his admiration and friendship.
The greeting between these generous leaders was brief. When the first salutations had been interchanged, it was intimated to Tecumseh, through the medium of an interpreter then in attendance on the General, that a war-council had been ordered, for the purpose of taking into consideration the best means of defeating the designs of the Americans, who, with a view to offensive operations, had, in the interval of the warrior's absence, pushed on a considerable force to the frontier. The council, however, had been delayed, in order that it might have the benefit of his opinions and of his experience in the peculiar warfare which was about to be commenced.
Tecumseh acknowledged his sense of the communication with the bold frankness of the inartificial son of nature, scorning to conceal his just self-estimate beneath a veil of affected modesty. He knew his own worth, and while he overvalued not one iota of that worth, so did he not affect to disclaim a consciousness of the fact—that within his swarthy chest and active brain, there beat a heart and lived a judgment, as prompt to conceive and execute as those of the proudest he that ever swayed the destinies of a warlike people. Replying to the complimentary invitation of the General, he unhesitatingly said he had done well to await his arrival, before he determined on the course of action, and that he should now have the full benefit of his opinions and advice.
If the chief had been forcibly prepossessed in favor of the naval commander the latter had not been less interested. Since his recent arrival to assume the direction of the fleet, Commodore Barclay had had opportunities of seeing such of the chiefs as were then assembled at Amherstburg; but great as had been his admiration of several of these, he had been given to understand they fell far short, in every moral and physical advantage, of what their renowned leader would be found to possess, when, on his return from the expedition in which he was engaged, fitting opportunity should be had of bringing them in personal proximity. This admission was now made in the fullest sense, and as the warrior moved away to give the greetings to the several chiefs, and conduct them to the council hall, the gallant sailor could not refrain from expressing in the warmest terms to General Brock, as they moved slowly forward with the same intention, the enthusiastic admiration excited in him by the person, the manner, and the bearing, of the noble Tecumseh.
Again the cannon from the battery and the shipping pealed forth their thunder. It was the signal for the commencement of the council, and the scene at that moment was one of the most picturesque that can well be imagined. The sky was cloudless, and the river, no longer ruffled by the now motionless barks of the recently arrived Indians, yet obeying the action of the tide, offered, as it glided onward to the lake, the image of a flood of quicksilver; while, in the distance that lake itself, smooth as a mirror, spread far and wide. Close under the bank yet lingered the canoes, emptied only of their helmsmen (the chiefs of the several tribes,) while with strange tongues and wilder gestures, the warriors of these, as they rested on their paddles, greeted the loud report of the cannon—now watching with eager eye the flashes from the vessel's sides, and now upturning their gaze, and following with wild surprise, the deepening volumes of smoke that passed immediately over their heads, from the guns of the battery, hidden from their view by the elevated and overhanging bank. Blended with each discharge arose the wild yell, which they, in such a moment of novel excitement, felt it impossible to control, and this, answered by the Indians above, and borne in echo almost to the American shore, had in it something indescribably grand and startling. On the bank itself the scene was singularly picturesque. Here were to be seen the bright uniforms of the British officers, at the head of whom was the tall and martial figure of General Brock, furthermore conspicuous from the full and drooping feather that fell gracefully over his military hat, mingled with the wilder and more fanciful head-dresses of the chiefs. Behind these again, and sauntering at a pace that showed them to have no share in the deliberative assembly, whither those we have just named were now proceeding, amid the roar of artillery, yet mixed together in nearly as great dissimilarity of garb, were to be seen numbers of the inferior warriors and of the soldiery—while, in various directions, the games recently abandoned by the adult Indians were now resumed by mere boys. The whole picture was one of strong animation, contrasting as it did with the quiet of the little post on the Island, where some twelve or fifteen men, composing the strength of the detachment, were sitting or standing on the battery, crowned, as well as the fort and shipping, and in compliment to the newly arrived Indians, with the colors of England.
Such was the scene, varied only as the numerous actors in it varied their movements, when the event occurred with which we commence our next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
Several hours had passed away in the interesting discussion of their war plans, and the council was nearly concluded, when suddenly the attention both of the officers and chiefs was arrested by the report of a single cannon. From the direction of the sound, it was evident that the shot had been fired from the battery placed on the southern or lakeward extremity of the island of Bois Blanc, and as the circumstance was unusual enough to indicate the existence of some approaching cause for excitement, several of the younger of both, who, from their youth, had been prevented from taking any active share in the deliberations of the day, stole, successively and unobservedly, through the large folding-doors of the building, which, owing to the great heat of the weather, had been left open. After traversing about fifty yards of sward, intersecting the high road, which, running parallel with the river, separated the council-hall from the elevated bank, the officers found, collected in groups on the extreme verge of this latter, and anxiously watching certain movements in the battery opposite to them, most of the troops and inferior Indians they had left loitering there at the commencement of the council. These movements were hasty, and as of men preparing to repeat the shot, the report of which had reached them from the opposite extremity of the island. Presently the forms, hitherto intermingled, became separate and stationary—an arm of one was next extended—then was seen to rise a flash of light, and then a volume of dense smoke, amid which the loud report found its sullen way, bellowing like thunder through some blackening cloud, while, from the peculiar nature of the sound, it was recognised, by the experienced in those matters, to have proceeded from a shotted gun.
The war of 1812 had its beginning in the manner thus described. They were the first shots fired in that struggle, and although at an object little calculated to inspire much alarm, still, as the first indications of an active hostility, they were proportionably exciting to those whose lot it was thus to "break ground," for operations on a larger scale.
Although many an eager chief had found it difficult to repress the strong feeling of mingled curiosity and excitement, that half raised him from the floor on which he sat, the first shot had been heard without the effect of actually disturbing the assembly from its fair propriety; but no sooner had the second report, accompanied as it was by the wild yell of their followers without, reached their