Part 7

“And how,” I asked, “have you been reduced to such a misfortune?” The daughter of Céluta responded, “We are the remains of the Natchez. After the massacre of our nation by the French, to avenge their compatriots, those of our brothers who escaped from the conquerors found refuge with our neighbors, the Chikassas. We remained tranquilly with them for some time; but seven moons ago, the white men from Virginia took possession of our fields, affirming that they had been given to them by a king of Europe. So we raised our eyes to heaven, and, laden with the remains of our forefathers, started on our way across the desert. I was confined during the march, and as my milk was bad on account of my grief, it caused my child to die.” As she spoke, the mother wiped her eyes with her hair. I wept also.

After a while I said, “My sister, let us adore the Great Spirit; everything happens by His command. We are all travellers; our fathers were the same; but there is a place where we shall find rest. If I were not afraid of my tongue being as indiscreet as that of a white man, I would ask of you if you have heard speak of Chactas the Natchez.”

At these words the Indian woman looked at me, and asked, ‘’Who has spoken to you of Chactas the Natchez? “I replied, “Wisdom.” The Indian rejoined, “I will tell you what I know, because you drove away the flies from the body of my son, and uttered good words concerning the Great Spirit. I am the daughter of the daughter of René, the European whom Chactas had adopted. Chactas, who had received baptism, and René, my unfortunate grandfather, perished in the massacre.”

“Man passes constantly from grief to grief,” I replied, bending myself with humility. “You might also perhaps be able to give me news of Father Aubry?”

“He was not more fortunate than Chactas,” said the Indian. “The Cherokees, who were hostile to the French, attacked his Mission. They were guided thither by the sound of a bell that was rung to succor travellers. Father Aubry could have escaped, but he would not abandon his children, and remained to encourage them to die by his example. He was burnt with great torture; but his enemies could not draw from him a single cry that might be turned to the shame of his God or to the dishonor of his country. During the punishment he never ceased to pray for his executioners, and to pity the lot of his fellow-victims. In order to compel him to betray a mark of weakness, the Cherokees led to his feet a Christian savage, whom they had horribly mutilated. But they were much surprised when they saw the young man go down upon his knees and kiss the wounds of the old hermit, who cried out to him, ‘My child, we have been given as a spectacle to men and to the angels.’ The Indians, furious at his expression, forced a red-hot iron down his throat to prevent him from speaking; and thereupon, no longer able to console his fellow-creatures, he expired.

“It is said that the Cherokees, accustomed though they were to see savages suffer with indifference, could not refrain from confessing that there was in Father Aubry’s courage something unknown to them, and which surpassed every description of courage they had witnessed. Several of them, struck by his remarkable death, afterwards became Christians.

“On his return to the land of white men, several years later, Chactas, having heard of the misfortunes of the chief of prayer, went to gather the Father’s ashes, and those of Atala. He arrived at the spot where the mission had formerly existed, but he could scarcely recognize it. The lake was overflown, and the savannah changed into a marsh; the natural bridge, which had fallen in, had buried Atala’s tomb and the Groves of Death beneath its ruins. Chactas wandered about the place for a length of time: he visited the hermit’s grotto, which he found full of weeds and raspberry-trees, and occupied by a fawn giving suck to her kid. He sat down upon the rock beneath which he had watched his dying Atala; but there was nothing on it beyond a few feathers fallen from the wings of some birds of passage.

“While he was weeping, the missionary’s tamed serpent issued from the neighboring bushes, and came creeping to his feet. Chactas warmed in his bosom the faithful friend who had remained alone in the midst of the ruins. The son of Outalissi stated that several times, at the approach of night, he fancied he saw the shades of Atala and Father Aubry rise out of the misty twilight. These visions filled him with religious fear and a joyful sadness.

“After having sought the tomb of his sister and of the hermit in vain, he was on the point of abandoning the spot, when the fawn from the grotto set to leaping in front of him. She stopped at the foot of the Mission cross. That cross was then half surrounded by water; the wood of it was covered with moss, and the pelican of the wilderness loved to perch upon its worm-eaten arms. Chactas judged that the graceful fawn had led him to the tomb of his host.

“He dug below the rock that had formerly served as an altar, and there found the remains of a man and woman. He had no doubt but they were those of the priest and of the virgin, buried, perhaps, by the angels in that place; so he wrapped them in bear-skins, and started on his way back to his country, carrying off the precious remains, which sounded on his shoulders like the quiver of death. At night he placed them under his pillow, and had dreams of love and of virtue. O stranger! you may here contemplate that dust, and also the remains of Chactas himself.”

As the Indian finished speaking, I rose, went towards the sacred ashes, and prostrated myself before them in silence. I afterwards walked away slowly, and with long strides, saying to myself, “Thus ends upon earth all that is good, virtuous and feeling! Man, thou art but a rapid and painful dream! Thou only existest by misfortune; and if thou art anything at all, it is merely by the sadness of thy soul and the eternal melancholy of thy thoughts!”

I was preoccupied with such reflections all night. The next morning, at day-break, my hosts left me. The young warriors opened the march, and their wives closed it. The former were charged with the holy relics, the latter carried their infants. The old men walked slowly in the middle--placed between their forefathers and their posterity, between remembrance and hope, between the lost country and the country to be found.

O what tears are shed when we thus abandon our native land!--when, from the summit of the mountain of exile, we look for the last time upon the roof beneath which we were bred, and see the hut-stream still flowing sadly through the solitary fields surrounding our birth-place!

Unfortunate Indians!--you whom I have seen wandering in the deserts of the New World with the ashes of your ancestors;--you who gave me hospitality in spite of your misery--I could not now return your generosity, for I am wandering, like you, at the mercy of men; but less fortunate than you in my exile, I have not brought with me the bones of my fathers.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg’s Atala, by François Auguste de Chateaubriand