Perhaps because of this they felt secure, at leisure, acquiescently allowing the event to develop as it needs must,—­or perhaps realizing the significance of the discovery to the young strangers, their palpitant eagerness to gauge its result, their dread of reprisal, of forced renunciation of their booty, the Indians permitted themselves a relish of the torture of an enemy on a more aesthetic scheme than their wont.

The two cheera-taghe, the shadow of their feather-crested heads in the moonlight on the sand of the grotto almost as distinct as the reality, spoke suddenly to each other, and the discomfited gold-seekers, who had learned to comprehend to a certain extent the language, perceived with dismay the sarcasm that lengthened their suspense.  For it was thus that the rulers among the Cherokees rebuked their own young people, not upbraiding them with their misdeeds, but with gentle satire complimenting them for that in which they had notably failed.

“A reward for hospitality we find in these young men,” said one, whose voice was hoarse and croaking and guttural and who was called Kanoona (the Bull-frog).

“Strangers to us, yet they requite us, for we treated them as our own,” said Oo-koo-koo.

“They treat us as their own!” the croaking, satiric, half-smothered laughter of this response intimated an aside.  Then Kanoona in full voice went on, “Open and frank as the day, they keep no secrets from us!”

“They are honest!  They rob us not of the yellow stone which the Carolina people think so precious!” rejoined Oo-koo-koo, while O’Kimmon and L’Epine looked from one to the other as the cheera-taghe sustained this fugue of satiric accusation.

“Not they,” croaked the responsive voice, “for behold, we have long time fed and lodged them and given them of our best.  We have believed them and trusted them.  We have befriended them and loved them.”

“And they have befriended and loved us!” said Oo-koo-koo.

Then silence.  The river sang, but only a murmurous rune; the mute moonlight lay still on the mountains; the wind had sunk, and the motionless leaves glistened as the dew fell; a nighthawk swept past the portal of the grotto with the noiseless wing of its kind.

“Had they desired to explore our land they would have asked our consent,” the croaking voice of Kanoona resumed the antiphonal reproach.  “They would not have brought upon us the hordes of British colonists, who would fain drive us from our habitations for their greed of the yellow stone.”

“Oh, no! never would they make so base a recompense!—­to bring upon us the destruction of our men and women and children, the wresting from us of our land, the casting of us forth from our homes,—­because the poor, unsuspecting Indians gave them food and shelter and a haven of rest while waiting for the pettiaugres that are coming up from New Orleans.”

“The pettiaugres from New Orleans!” Kanoona repeated with a burst of raucous laughter.  “Hala!  Hala!”