Alagwa

“ As the girl watched them an Indian squaw crept out of a near-by cabin and came toward her.
“Ever the heart of Alagwa (the Star) turns toward the white men,” said she, harshly.
The girl started, the swift blood leaping to her [35] cheeks. “Nay!” she said. “These white men have red hearts. They are the friends of the Indian. Katepakomen (Girty) is an Indian; his white blood has been washed from his veins even as my own!”
“Your own!” The old woman laughed scornfully. “Not so! Your heart is not red. It is white.”
Alagwa’s was not the Indian stoicism that meets all attacks with immobility. ”

“ Alagwa nodded. “Tell the great chief that I have found the young white chief from the south, and that through him I hope to learn many things that, without him, I could not learn. Say to him that Alagwa demands that he give warning to all his warriors not to touch the white chief. For on him Alagwa’s success depends. I have spoken. Go.”
[171] CHAPTER XIII LONG before sunrise the “Maison Bondie” was awake and stirring. Early hours were the rule for travellers in those days on the frontier. ”

“ To the left, nearer at hand, rose the black quadrilateral of the fort.
All around rose the voices of the night. A screech owl hooted from a near-by tree. A fox barked in the long grass. Nearer at hand restless horses and mules stamped at their fastenings. Over all rose the bellow of bullfrogs, the lapping of the river against its banks, and the ceaseless, strident calls of the crickets.
Once more Alagwa’s hot eyes sought the fort. Within it were the men of the race she hated—the men who had derided and had threatened the young white chief. ”

“ A bullet drove the earth from the rampart into her face, filling her eyes and mouth with its spatter. Then from every tree, from every rock, forms, half naked, horrible, painted, came leaping. Bullets whistled before them, rending the tortured air. As they topped the ramparts one, wearing a woodsman’s garb, caught his foot and fell forward, sprawling; the others hurled themselves toward Jack and Cato. Alagwa did not stop to think that these were her people, her friends. ”

“ Alagwa knew that Jack doubted his having left the country.
The dawn was beginning to break. The boles of the trees began to stand separately out; the leaves took on a tinge of green. Over all reigned silence. No faintest sound gave warning of approaching enemies. But the girl well knew that silence did not mean safety. Too often had she heard the Shawnee braves boast of how they crept on their sleeping enemies in the dawn. With renewed determination [184] she thrust forward her heavy rifle and strained her eyes and ears anew. Jack had trusted her; she must not fail him. ”

“ Both the Auglaize and the Maumee below the fort were navigable for small boats, and if Brito and his comrades had come in one, he might regain it and float down the Maumee, possibly to safety.
Should she let him go? No pity was in her heart. The frontier was grim; it translated itself into primitive emotions, taking no account of the shadings of civilization or of the blending of good and evil that inheres in every man. Those brought up amid its environment hated their enemies and loved their friends; they took no middle course. Brito was an enemy and Alagwa hated him. ”

“ Cato was lying face down where he had fallen. Across his body lay that of the warrior who had stricken him down. Close at hand lay two other braves, their well-oiled bodies and shaven heads glistening in the sun. Alagwa did not even look at them; they were not friends—they were outlaws—outlaws suborned by Brito to attack Jack because he had been in search of her. The Shawnees were still her friends—she was still true to Tecumseh. But these were private foes. She had been trained in a hard school and their deaths affected her no more than would those of so many wild beasts. ”

“ For his own sake he hoped that all of them had not fled or that Alagwa at least had been left behind. Once away from the optimism of the camp he found it hard to believe that foes so bitter and so often triumphant had fled without a blow.
At last the three reached the mouth of the short but broad Detroit River and turned up it from the lake. As they did so the moon set, leaving the great stars to arch in splendor across the cloudless sky. In the north the aurora still flickered, now shooting upward toward the spangled firmament, now dying [276] away to palest gold. ”

“ Like most gentlemen of the day Jack had learned to use the foils and even to some extent the saber. But all his training had been with buttons, where to be touched meant merely the loss of a point on the score. Never had he fought a duel or used a sword in anger, while Brito had done both. To an outsider all the odds would have seemed to be with the older man.
But Jack did not think of odds. Like many men in the moment of extreme peril, he felt supreme assurance that victory was to be his. Before him stretched the vision of long years of life and happiness with Alagwa at his side. ”

“ From time immemorial even civilized foes had punished spies with death. What doom then could he expect from savages who had been beaten and broken, whose ranks had been depleted, whose villages had been burned, whose allies (on whom they had relied to protect them from the consequences of their rebellion) were in full retreat? Jack knew well the fiery death he faced. But he knew, too, that if he did not find Alagwa that night he would probably never find her. ”

“ Jack’s fury died. The indefinable bond between white and white, the bond that has lifted the race above all other races of the world, tugged at him. After all, Williams was a white man; murderer though he was, he was a white man. Forgetful that he too was a prisoner, a detected spy, Jack turned to the chief.
But before he could speak Tecumseh raised his hand. “Tecumseh does justice,” he said. “He does it both to his foes and to his friends. The wrong this man did to Alagwa has been healed. But the wrong he did to Wilwiloway has not been paid. He is a murderer; he will die for it.” ”

“ If I ever marry, I shall marry some sweet gentle lady who never saw the frontier, who knows nothing of war, who has tread no rougher measures than those of the minuet. I want a bride whom I can shield from the world, not a mannish creature who can protect me. I want—Good Lord! What’s the matter?”
Alagwa had sprung to her feet, gasping. For a moment she stood; then she turned and fled to the house. Fantine glared at Jack; her lips moved but no sound came from them. For once, the situation was beyond her. With a hopeless gesture she followed the girl. Rogers stood staring. ”

“ Wait till it is over. Then dress yourself from the clothes yonder”—he pointed to a heap at the side of the cabin—“and go to the squaw Wabetha and tell her to cut your hair and to wash the paint from your cheeks and to dress you as a boy. Let no one see you, for your enemies keep close watch. The chief Wilwiloway [70] will come for you at dawn and will go with you to the bend of the Piqua and perhaps farther. Then you must shift for yourself. From time to time I will send a runner to bring back the information you gain.”
Alagwa bowed. “It is well,” she said. ”

“ You know Tecumseh, of course?”
Somehow the girl felt disappointed. “Yes,” she said. “I know him.”
“Then,” Jack hesitated, “do you know a white girl that has grown up in his lodge—a girl a little older than yourself, I reckon. Her father died and left her with him about ten years ago. Do you know her?”
What possessed Alagwa, she never knew. Perhaps it was merely the eternal feminine instinct to mislead the male. Almost without hesitation she answered. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I have see her, [117] but men do not associate with squaws. I see her little.” ”

“ And delay would be fatal to herself and perhaps to Jack. Metea would come for her at dawn. Before then she must make sure of Jack’s safety. Despairingly she looked to Stickney for help, only to find him half-unconscious, shaking with fever. Clearly he was incapable of doing more. If she was to gain immediate refuge she must gain it by her own efforts.
She looked at the captain and fury swelled in her bosom. Alagwa hated and loved with equal intensity, and she had hated Hibbs since the day she first saw him—the day he had scoffed at Jack. ”

“ I have married an American. I am an American. And I am proud of it! Yes! proud of it! I am proud of my husband and proud of the race that produced him. I hate their foes. I hate you. And, by the white man’s God I swear, that your triumph—if you win it—shall be hollow, for you will clasp a dead woman in your arms. And tomorrow—tomorrow—Tecumseh will come back and burn you at the stake!”
Brito did not answer in words. Instead, he leaped swiftly forward, clutching at the girl with outstretched arms.
Had Alagwa been bred in civilization he must have caught her. ”

“ Last of all, there arises the question of the Ilaguantan or Laguatan of Corippus, who are not, I think, to be identified with the Levata or Louata, but are the people who gave the name to the country now called Elakkos, or Alagwas, or Elakwas, to the east of Damergu and south-east of Air, at the southern end of the Lemta area of Leo. In view of the course taken by the migration of the Lemta southwards there is nothing inherently improbable in the people, who in late classical times appear in the north, having migrated to a new habitat near the Sudan. ”

“ Group of Anguru: Women with “Pelele”
The Anguru, or Alolo, are a tribe belonging to the Makua group who occupy the country inland from Mozambique. Some of them live in the Mlanje district. The Lomwe country, which is entirely inhabited by them (A-lomwe is either a synonym for Alolo, or the name of a tribe closely allied to them) , is west of Lake Chilwa. Some Alolo were, about forty years ago, living at the back of Morambala. ”

“ At length, the whole population of the city, comprehending every age and sex, was commanded to repair to the great courtyard of the alcazaba, which was overlooked on all sides by lofty ramparts garrisoned by the Spanish soldiery. To this place, the scene of many a Moorish triumph, where the spoil of the border foray had been often displayed, and which still might be emblazoned with the trophy of many a Christian banner, the people of Malaga now directed their steps. ”

“ Occasionally one finds him slipping. In his landscape, the purple mountains of Alhama rise wherever he considers them most effective in the picture; and the snow considerately never melts from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, which I have seen all brown at midsummer. He could look only through the magnifying glass of tradition at the hand and key on the Gate of Justice: symbols so gigantic in fiction, so insignificant in fact that one might miss them altogether, did not every book, paper, and paragraph, every cadging, swindling tout—I mean guide—in Granada bid one look for them. ”

“ One carries an earring, the other an egg. On way egg hatches and soon becomes a rooster which crows. They spread a belt on the water and ride across the river. When they bathe, the drops of water from their bodies turn to agate beads. Find way to Algaba's house by following the row of headbaskets, which reaches from the river to his dwelling. Defensive fence around the town is made up of boa constrictors, which sleep as they pass. Algaba seizes his spear and headaxe intending to kill the visitors, but weapons shed tears of oil. He takes other weapons, but they weep tears of blood. ”

“ Yet they were hospitable and prosperous, being skillful weavers and iron-workers. The country was mountainous, for he was on the divide between the waters which drain into Lake Nyassa and those which flow into the Loangwa on the west, the latter being an important affluent of the Zambesi. Striking the head-waters of the Lokushwa, a tributary of the Loangwa, he followed its course to the main stream, through a country of dwarf forests, and peoples collected in stockades, who were the smiths for a large region, making and selling hoes and other iron utensils. ”

“ Among the Amambwe, Winamwanga, Alungu, and other tribes of the great plateau to the west of Lake Tanganyika, “when a young girl knows that she has attained puberty, she forthwith leaves her mother's hut, and hides herself in the long grass near the village, covering her face with a cloth and weeping bitterly. Towards sunset one of the older women—who, as directress of the ceremonies, is called nachimbusa—follows her, places a cooking-pot by the cross-roads, and boils therein a concoction of various herbs, with which she anoints the neophyte. ”

“ The natives of Angola are specially fitted for the introduction of habits of industry and usages of civilization, as they are naturally of a peaceable, quiet, and orderly disposition. The difference between them and the natives of Sierra Leone and the rest of the West Coast is very striking and pleasing. They have none of the disgusting swagger, conceit, or cant of the former, but are invariably civil and kindly, and under a firm and enlightened policy they would become more really civilized and industrious than any other natives of the West Coast. ”

“ The rich and powerful of the land contended who should entertain and do honour to her; or rather, who should secure the charms of her lute to draw fashionable throngs to their saloons. Wherever she went her vigilant aunt kept a dragon watch at her elbow, awing the throngs of impassioned admirers who hung in raptures on her strains. The report of her wonderful powers spread from city to city. Malaga, Seville, Cordova, all became successively mad on the theme; nothing was talked of throughout Andalusia but the beautiful minstrel of the Alhambra. ”

“ The struggle was at an end; the town lay at the mercy of the Spaniards; it was given up to plunder, and immense was the booty taken. Gold and silver, rare jewels, rich silks, and costly goods were found in abundance; horses and cattle, grain, oil, and honey, all the productions of the kingdom, in fact, were there in quantities; for Alhama was the richest town in the Moorish territory, and from its strength and situation was called the Key of Granada. The soldiers were not content with plunder. Thinking that they could not hold the place, they destroyed all they could not carry away. ”