< previous  next > 

170

ll you the history of an Indian who was noways willing to submit to this law. His name was _Elteacteal_; he contracted an alliance with the Suns, but the consequences which this honor brought along with it had like to have proved very unfortunate to him. His wife fell sick; as soon as he saw her at the point of death he fled, embarked in a piragua on the _Mississippi,_ and came to New Orleans. He put himself under the protection of M. de Bienville, the then governor, and offered to be his huntsman. The governor accepted his services, and interested himself for him with the Natchez, who declared that he had nothing more to fear, because the ceremony was past, and he was accordingly no longer a lawful prize.

_Elteacteal_, being thus assured, ventured to return to his nation, and, without settling among them, he made several voyages thither. He happened to be there when the Sun called the _Stung Serpent_, brother to the Great Sun, died. He was a relative of the late wife of _Elteacteal_, and they resolved to make him pay his debt. M. de Bienville had been recalled to France, and the sovereign of the Natchez thought that the protector's absence had annulled the reprieve granted to the protected person, and accordingly he caused him to be arrested. As soon as the poor fellow found himself in the hut of the grand chief of war, together with the other victims destined to be sacrificed to the _Stung Serpent_, he gave vent to the excess of his grief. The favorite wife of the late Son, who was likewise to be sacrificed, and who saw the preparations for her death with firmness, and seemed impatient to rejoin her husband, hearing _Elteacteal's_ complaints and groans, said to him: "Art thou no warrior?" He answered, "Yes: I am one." "However," said she, "thou cryest; life is dear to thee, and as that is the case, it is not good that thou shouldst go along with us; go with the women." Elteacteal replied: "True; life is dear to me. It would be well if I walked yet on earth till to the death of the Great Sun, and

 < previous  next >