CHAPTER XI.

STRAITNESS OF THE FAMINE--THE FINAL CONFLICT--FLIGHT AND CAPTURE OF GUATIMOZIN--DESTINY FULFILLED. 179

The Mexicans encouraged--Oracular declaration of the priests--It fails to be fulfilled--Cortez resolves to lay waste the city--A wide spread ruin--Terrible sufferings of the besieged--Love and loyalty outliving hope--Death preferred to submission--Nahuitla proposes a plan of escape--Guatimozin rejects it, but is overruled by the unanimous voice of his people--Prepares for flight--The battle of the ghosts--The retreat--Guatimozin on the lake--Pursued by the enemy--A captive--Brought before Cortez--His noble spirit and bearing--The Queen and the conqueror--Her destiny fulfilled.

* * * * *

THE FLIGHT OF THE KATAHBA CHIEF. 193

The dream of Minaree, the young bride of Ash-te-o-lah--Its effect upon the Chief--He goes to the chase--Power and prosperity of the Katahbas--Beauty of their villages--The wigwam of Ash-te-o-lah--The Chief in his canoe--The deer--The foe--The chase--He turns upon his pursuers--Slays seven of their number successively--Is taken--Marched off as a captive--His boldness and dignity--Arrives in the territories of his enemies--Insulted and beaten by the women--Condemned to the fiery torture--Led out to execution--Breaks away and escapes--Pauses to defy his pursuers--Distances them all--Stops to rest--Finds a place of concealment--Plans the destruction of the pursuing party--Succeeds--Returns home in triumph, laden with trophies and spoils.

MONICA--THE ITEAN CAPTIVE. 209

Reverence for the dead--Indian burial--The journey to the Spirit land--The favorite dog killed--Food for journey--Mementoes of the departed--The grave of an infant boy--The Itean encampment--A sister's grief--Her dream--She visits the grave by moonlight--Her song--Enters a canoe and floats down the stream--A captive, devoted to the "Great Star"--Pagan rite among the Pawnees--Preparing for the sacrifice--Ignorant of her fate--Gathering of the Pawnees to the festival--The victim led to the stake--The terrible orgies commence--Are suddenly interrupted--The captive unbound--The flight--Parting with her deliverer--Meets her friends--Reaches her home in safety--Petalesharro, her deliverer--His person and character--Bloody rite abolished.

THE HERMITESS OF ATHABASCA. 227

The wigwam of Kaf-ne-wah-go--His family--Tula, his only daughter--O-ken-ah-ga, her husband--The Athapuscows steal in at night--The chiefs murdered--Tula a captive--Her infant boy murdered before her eyes--The Chippeways in pursuit of the murderers--Following the trail--The enemy overtaken--Retribution wreaked upon the innocent--The deep grief of Tula--Her weary marches--Her captors encamp--The tempest--She escapes in the darkness--Vain attempts to discover her retreat--Seeks to find her way back to her people--The forest--A midnight intruder--She climbs a tree--Is besieged--Assaulted--Repels and destroys the enemy--Intricacies and dangers of the forest--An opening, but no light--Bewildered--Resolves to go no farther--Finds a convenient spot--builds a cabin--her house-keeping--Her ingenuity, industry and taste--The Hermitess discovered--Her solitude reluctantly abandoned--Indian mode of obtaining a wife--Journeyings--A new party--An unexpected meeting.

THE AZTEC PRINCESS,

OR

DESTINY FORESHADOWED.

Rapacious Spain Followed her bold discoverer o'er the main; A rabid race, fanatically bold, And steeled to cruelty by lust of gold, Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored, The cross their standard, but their path the sword; Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms they trod, They worshipped Mammon, while they vowed to God.

THE AZTEC PRINCESS.