die!  Strike:  eighty winters are on my head—­they are heavier than your sword!  They weigh me to the earth!  Strike, and let me go to my squaw, my sons, and my daughters, and let me forget my wrongs!  Strike, and let my grave be here, where all I have is in the ground!  Strike:  I would sleep where I was born—­all around me are the graves of my people, let mine be among them; and when the Great Spirit shall come, let Him find us all together, here with our fathers of a thousand winters, who first built their wigwams here, and who first taught their children to be more cautious than the panther—­more watchful than the turkey!”

“I will not strike you,” said the General.  “No, I will not strike my foe, a prisoner; but here is my hand in friendship.”

“No,” said the chief; “you have put your sword in its pocket, put your hand in its pocket; do not let it reach out to blind me, or to take my home.  I am the white man’s enemy; his friendship I fear more than his anger.  It is more fatal to the red man.  It takes away his home, and forces him living to go away and grieve for his country, and the graves of his fathers, and to starve in a strange land.  In his anger he kills, and its mercy shuts his eyes and his heart away from the wrongs and the miseries of his people.  I have lived and I will die the white man’s enemy.  I have done you all the harm in my power.  If I could, I would do you more.  My tongue is not forked like yours, my heart has no lies to make it speak to deceive.  Strike, and let me go to the happy hunting-grounds where all my people are.”

He sat down upon the ground, and, in a low, monotonous, melancholy tone, chanted the death-song.

“Who-ah-who-allee! wait for me, I am coming.  Who-ah-who-allee! prepare the feast, the great warrior’s feast.  Who-ah-who-allee! let my boys and my braves come down to welcome me.  Who-ah-who-allee! those who went before me, tell them the old warrior is coming.  Who-ah-who-allee! the white man has come, he treads on their graves, and the graves of their fathers.  Who-ah-who-allee! the last of the Onchee is coming, prepare—­his bow is broken, his arrows are all gone.  Who-ah-who-allee!” Concluding his song with one shrill whoop, he dropped his head and lifted up his hands—­then prone upon the earth he threw himself, kissed it, rose up, and seemed prepared for the fate he surely expected.

Nehemathla spoke English fluently, and all his conversation was in that language.  He was informed that there was no intention of taking his life, but that he would be kept a close prisoner, until his people could be conquered and collected—­when they would be sent to join their brethren, who had gone with the Cussetas and Cowetas and Broken Arrows, beyond the Great River of the West.  Tamely and sullenly he submitted to his confinement, until the period approached, when all were collected and in detachments forwarded to their future homes.