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Title: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land (Lights And Shadows Of The South)

Author: Charles M. Skinner

Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6610]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 31, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS
                                   OF
                              OUR OWN LAND

                                   By
                           Charles M. Skinner

                                Vol. 5.


                    LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE SOUTH




CONTENTS:

The Swim at Indian Head
The Moaning Sisters
A Ride for a Bride
Spooks of the Hiawassee
Lake of the Dismal Swamp
The Barge of Defeat
Natural Bridge
The Silence Broken
Siren of the French Broad
The Hunter of Calawassee
Revenge of the Accabee
Toccoa Falls
Two Lives for One
A Ghostly Avenger
The Wraith Ringer of Atlanta
The Swallowing Earthquake
The Last Stand of the Biloxi
The Sacred Fire of Natchez
Pass Christian
The Under Land




                     LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE SOUTH


                         THE SWIM AT INDIAN HEAD

At Indian Head, Maryland, are the government proving-grounds, where the
racket of great guns and splintering of targets are a deterrent to the
miscellaneous visitations of picnics.  Trouble has been frequently
associated with this neighborhood, as it is now suggested in the noisy
symbolry of war.  In prehistoric days it was the site of an aboriginal
town, whose denizens were like other Indians in their love for fight and
their willingness to shed blood.  Great was the joy of all these
citizens when a scouting party came in, one day, bringing with them the
daughter of one of their toughest old hunters and a young buck, from
another faction, who had come a-courting; her in the neighboring shades.

Capture meant death, usually, and he knew it, but he held himself
proudly and refused to ask for mercy.  It was resolved that he should
die.  The father's scorn for his daughter, that she should thus consort
with an enemy, was so great that he was on the point of offering her as
a joint sacrifice with her lover, when she fell on her knees before him
and began a fervent appeal, not for herself, but for the prisoner.  She
would do anything to prove her strength, her duty, her obedience, if
they would set him free.  He had done injury to none.  What justice lay
in putting him to the torture?

Half in earnest, half in humor, the chief answered, "Suppose we were to
set him on the farther shore of the Potomac, do you love him well enough
to swim to him?"

"I do."

"The river is wide and deep."

"I would drown in it rather than that harm should come to him."

The old chief ordered the captive, still bound, to be taken to a point
on the Virginia shore, full two miles away, in one of their canoes, and
when the boat was on the water he gave the word to the girl, who
instantly plunged in and followed it.  The chief and the father embarked
in another birch--ostensibly to see that the task was honestly
fulfilled; really, perhaps, to see that the damsel did not drown.  It
was a long course, but the maid was not as many of our city misses are,
and she reached the bank, tired, but happy, for she had saved her lover
and gained him for a husband.




                           THE MOANING SISTERS

Above Georgetown, on the Potomac River, are three rocks, known as the
Three Sisters, not merely because of their resemblance to each other--
for they are parts of a submerged reef--but because of a tradition that,
more than a hundred years ago, a boat in which three sisters had gone
out for a row was swung against one of these rocks.  The day was gusty
and the boat was upset.  All three of the girls were drowned.  Either
the sisters remain about this perilous spot or the rocks have
prescience; at least, those who live near them on the shore hold one
view or the other, for they declare that before every death on the river
the sisters moan, the sound being heard above the lapping of the waves.
It is different from any other sound in nature.  Besides, it is an
unquestioned fact that more accidents happen here than at any other
point on the river.

Many are the upsets that have occurred and many are the swimmers who
have gone down, the dark forms of the sisters being the last shapes that
their water-blurred eyes have seen.  It is only before a human life is
to be yielded that this low wailing comes from the rocks, and when, on a
night in May, 1889, the sound floated shoreward, just as the clock in
Georgetown struck twelve, good people who were awake sighed and uttered
a prayer for the one whose doom was so near at hand.  Twelve hours
later, at noon, a shell came speeding down the Potomac, with a young
athlete jauntily pulling at the oars.  As he neared the Three Sisters
his boat appeared to be caught in an eddy; it swerved suddenly, as if
struck; then it upset and the rower sank to his death.




                            A RIDE FOR A BRIDE

When the story of bloodshed at Bunker Hill reached Bohemia Hall, in
Cecil County, Maryland, Albert De Courcy left his brother Ernest to
support the dignity of the house and make patriotic speeches, while he
went to the front, conscious that Helen Carmichael, his affianced wife,
was watching, in pride and sadness, the departure of his company.
Letters came and went, as they always do, until rumor came of a sore
defeat to the colonials at Long Island; then the letters ceased.

It was a year later when a ragged soldier, who had stopped at the hall
for supper, told of Albert's heroism in covering the retreat of
Washington.  The gallant young officer had been shot, he said, as he
attempted to swim the morasses of Gowanus.  But this soldier was in
error.  Albert had been vexatiously bogged on the edge of the creek.
While floundering in the mud a half dozen sturdy red-coats had lugged
him out and he was packed off to the prison-ships anchored in the
Wallabout.  In these dread hulks, amid darkness and miasma, living on
scant, unwholesome food, compelled to see his comrades die by dozens
every day and their bodies flung ashore where the tide lapped away the
sand thrown over them, De Courcy wished that death instead of capture
had been his lot, for next to his love he prized his liberty.

One day he was told off, with a handful of others, for transfer to a
stockade on the Delaware, and how his heart beat when he learned that
the new prison was within twenty miles of home!  His flow of spirits
returned, and his new jailers liked him for his frankness and laughed at
his honest expletives against the king.  He had the liberty of the
enclosure, and was not long in finding where the wall was low, the ditch
narrow, and the abatis decayed--knowledge that came useful to him sooner
than he expected, for one day a captured horse was led in that made
straight for him with a whinny and rubbed his nose against his breast.

"Why!"  he cried,--it's Cecil!  My horse, gentlemen--or, was.  Not a
better hunter in Maryland!"

"Yes," answered one of the officers.  We've just taken him from your
brother.  He's been stirring trouble with his speeches and has got to be
quieted.  But we'll have him to-day, for he's to be married, and a
scouting party is on the road to nab him at the altar."

"Married!  My brother!  What!  Ernest, the lawyer, the orator?  Ho, ho!
Ah, but it's rather hard to break off a match in that style!"

"Hard for him, maybe; but they say the lady feels no great love for him.
He made it seem like a duty to her, after her lover died."

"How's that?  Her own--what's her name?"

"Helen--Helen Carmichael, or something like that."

Field and sky swam before De Courcy's eyes for a moment; then he
resumed, in a calm voice, and with a pale, set face, "Well, you're
making an unhappy wedding-day for him.  If he had Cecil here he would
outride you all.  Ah, when I was in practice I could ride this horse and
snatch a pebble from the ground without losing pace!"

"Could you do it now?"

"I'm afraid long lodging in your prison-ships has stiffened my joints,
but I'd venture at a handkerchief."

"Then try," said the commandant.

De Courcy mounted into the saddle heavily, crossed the grounds at a
canter, and dropped a handkerchief on the grass.  Then, taking a few
turns for practice, he started at a gallop and swept around like the
wind.  His seat was so firm, his air so noble, his mastery of the steed
so complete, that a cheer of admiration went up.  He seemed to fall
headlong from the saddle, but was up again in a moment, waving the
handkerchief gayly in farewell--for he kept straight on toward the weak
place in the wall.  A couple of musket-balls hummed by his ears: it was
neck or nothing now!  A tremendous leap!  Then a ringing cry told the
astonished soldiers that he had reached the road in safety.  Through
wood and thicket and field he dashed as if the fiend were after him, and
never once did he cease to urge his steed till he reached the turnpike,
and saw ahead the scouting party on its way to arrest his brother.

Turning into a path that led to the rear of the little church they were
so dangerously near, he plied hands and heels afresh, and in a few
moments a wedding party was startled by the apparition of a black horse,
all in a foam, ridden by a gaunt man, in torn garments, that burst in at
the open chancel-door.  The bridegroom cowered, for he knew his brother.
The bride gazed in amazement.  "'Tis the dead come to life!"  cried one.
De Courcy had little time for words.  He rode forward to the altar,
swung Helen up behind him, and exclaimed, "Save yourselves!  The British
are coming!  To horse, every one, and make for the manor!"  There were
shrieks and fainting--and perhaps a little cursing, even if it was in
church,--and when the squadron rode up most of the company were in full
flight.  Ernest was taken, and next morning held his brother's place on
the prison-list, while, as arrangements had been made for a wedding,
there was one, and a happy one, but Albert was the bridegroom.





                         SPOOKS OF THE HIAWASSEE

The hills about the head of the Hiawassee are filled with "harnts,"
among them many animal ghosts, that ravage about the country from sheer
viciousness.  The people of the region, illiterate and superstitious,
have unquestioning faith in them.  They tell you about the headless bull
and black dog of the valley of the Chatata, the white stag of the
Sequahatchie, and the bleeding horse of the Great Smoky Mountains--the
last three being portents of illness, death, or misfortune to those who
see them.

Other ghosts are those of men.  Near the upper Hiawassee is a cave where
a pile of human skulls was found by a man who had put up his cabin near
the entrance.  For some reason, which he says he never understood, this
farmer gathered up the old, bleached bones and dumped them into his
shed.  Quite possibly he did not dare to confess that he wanted them for
fertilizers or to burn them for his poultry.

Night fell dark and still, with a waning moon rising over the mountains
--as calm a night as ever one slept through.  Along toward the middle of
it a sound like the coming of a cyclone brought the farmer out of his
bed.  He ran to the window to see if the house were to be uprooted, but
the forest was still, with a strange, oppressive stillness--not a twig
moving, not a cloud veiling the stars, not an insect chirping.  Filled
with a vague fear, he tried to waken his wife, but she was like one in a
state of catalepsy.

Again the sound was heard, and now he saw, without, a shadowy band
circling about his house like leaves whirled on the wind.  It seemed to
be made of human shapes, with tossing arms--this circling band--and the
sound was that of many voices, each faint and hollow, by itself, but
loud in aggregate.  He who was watching realized then that the wraiths
of the dead whose skulls he had purloined from their place of sepulture
were out in lament and protest.  He went on his knees at once and prayed
with vigor until morning.  As soon as it was light enough to see his way
he replaced the skulls, and was not troubled by the "haunts" again.  All
the gold in America, said he, would not tempt him to remove any more
bones from the cave-tombs of the unknown dead.




                         LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP

Drummond's Pond, or the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, is a dark and lonely
tarn that lies in the centre of this noted Virginia morass.  It is, in a
century-old tradition, the Styx of two unhappy ghosts that await the end
of time to pass its confines and enjoy the sunshine of serener worlds.
A young woman of a family that had settled near this marsh died of a
fever caused by its malarial exhalations, and was buried near the swamp.
The young man to whom she was betrothed felt her loss so keenly that for
days he neither ate nor slept, and at last broke down in mind and body.
He recovered a measure of physical health, after a time, but his reason
was hopelessly lost.

It was his hallucination that the girl was not dead, but had been exiled
to the lonely reaches of this watery wilderness.  He was heard to
mutter, "I'll find her, and when Death comes I'll hide her in the hollow
of a cypress until he passes on."  Evading restraint, he plunged into
the fen, and for some days he wandered there, eating berries, sleeping
on tussocks of grass, with water-snakes crawling over him and poisonous
plants shedding their baneful dew on his flesh.  He came to the lake at
last.  A will-o'the-wisp played along the surface.  "'Tis she!"  he
cried.  "I see her, standing in the light."  Hastily fashioning a raft
of cypress boughs he floated it and pushed toward the centre of the
pond, but the eagerness of his efforts and the rising of a wind
dismembered the frail platform, and he fell into the black water to rise
no more.  But often, in the night, is seen the wraith of a canoe, with a
fire-fly lamp burning on its prow, restlessly urged to and fro by two
figures that seem to be vainly searching for an exit from the place, and
that are believed to be those of the maiden and her lover.




                           THE BARGE OF DEFEAT

Rappannock River, in Virginia, used to be vexed with shadowy craft that
some of the populace affirmed to be no boats, but spirits in disguise.
One of these apparitions was held in fear by the Democracy of Essex
County, as it was believed to be a forerunner of Republican victory.
The first recorded appearance of the vessel was shortly after the Civil
War, on the night of a Democratic mass-meeting at Tappahannock.  There
were music, refreshments, and jollity, and it was in the middle of a
rousing speech that a man in the crowd cried, "Look, fellows!  What is
that queer concern going down the river?"

The people moved to the shore, and by the light of their torches a hulk
was seen drifting with the stream--a hulk of fantastic form unlike
anything that sails there in the daytime.  As it came opposite the
throng, the torchlight showed gigantic negroes who danced on deck,
showing horrible faces to the multitude.  Not a sound came from the
barge, the halloos of the spectators bringing no response, and some
boatmen ventured into the stream, only to pull back in a hurry, for the
craft had become so strangely enveloped in shadow that it seemed to melt
into air.

Next day the Democracy was defeated at the polls, chiefly by the negro
vote.  In 1880 it reappeared, and, as before, the Republicans gained the
day.  Just before the election of 1886, Mr. Croxton, Democratic nominee
for Congress, was haranguing the people, when the cry of "The Black
Barge!" arose.  Argument and derision were alike ineffectual with the
populace.  The meeting broke up in silence and gloom, and Mr. Croxton
was defeated by a majority of two thousand.




                              NATURAL BRIDGE

Though several natural bridges are known in this country, there is but
one that is famous the world over, and that is the one which spans Clear
Creek, Virginia--the remnant of a cave-roof, all the rest of the cavern
having collapsed.  It is two hundred and fifteen feet above the water,
and is a solid mass of rock forty feet thick, one hundred feet wide, and
ninety feet in span.  Thomas Jefferson owned it; George Washington
scaled its side and carved his name on the rock a foot higher than any
one else.  Here, too, came the youth who wanted to cut his name above
Washington's, and who found, to his horror, when half-way up, that he
must keep on, for he had left no resting-places for his feet at safe and
reachable distances--who, therefore, climbed on and on, cutting handhold
and foothold in the limestone until he reached the top, in a fainting
state, his knife-blade worn to a stump.  Here, too, in another tunnel of
the cavern, flows Lost River, that all must return to, at some time, if
they drink of it.  Here, beneath the arch, is the dark stain, so like a
flying eagle that the French officer who saw it during the Revolution
augured from it a success for the united arms of the nations that used
the eagle as their symbol.

The Mohegans knew this wonder of natural masonry, for to this point they
were pursued by a hostile tribe, and on reaching the gulf found
themselves on the edge of a precipice that was too steep at that point
to descend.  Behind them was the foe; before them, the chasm.  At the
suggestion of one of their medicine-men they joined in a prayer to the
Great Spirit for deliverance, and when again they looked about them,
there stood the bridge.  Their women were hurried over; then, like so
many Horatii, they formed across this dizzy highway and gave battle.
Encouraged by the knowledge that they had a safe retreat in case of
being overmastered, they fought with such heart that the enemy was
defeated, and the grateful Mohegans named the place the Bridge of God.




                            THE SILENCE BROKEN

It was in 1734 that Joist Hite moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia, with
his wife and boys, and helped to make a settlement on the Shenandoah
twelve miles south of Woodstock.  When picking berries at a distance
from the village, one morning, the boys were surprised by Indians, who
hurried with them into the wilderness before their friends could be
apprised.  Aaron, the elder, was strong, and big of frame, with coarse,
black hair, and face tanned brown; but his brother was small and fair,
with blue eyes and yellow locks, and it was doubtless because he was a
type of the hated white race that the Indians spent their blows and
kicks on him and spared the sturdy one.  Aaron was wild with rage at the
injuries put upon his gentle brother, but he was bound and helpless, and
all that he could do was to encourage him to bear a stout heart and not
to fall behind.

But Peter was too delicate to keep up, and there came a day when he
could go no farther.  The red men consulted for a few moments, then all
of them stood apart but one, who fitted an arrow to his bow.  The
child's eyes grew big with fear, and Aaron tore at his bonds, but
uselessly, and shouted that he would take the victim's place, but no
one understood his speech, and in another moment Peter lay dead on the
earth, with an arrow in his heart.  Aaron gave one cry of hate and
despair, and he, too, sank unconscious.  On coming to himself he found
that he was in a hut of boughs, attended by an old Indian, who told him
in rude English that he was recovering from an illness of several weeks'
duration, and that it was the purpose of his tribe to adopt him.  When
the lad tried to protest he found to his amazement that he could not
utter a sound, and he learned from the Indian that the fever had taken
away his tongue.  In the dulness and weakness of his state he submitted
to be clothed in Indian dress, smeared with a juice that browned his
skin, and greeted by his brother's slayers as one of themselves.  When
he looked into a pool he found that he had, to all intents, become an
Indian.  In time he became partly reconciled to this change, for he did
not know and could not ask where the white settlements lay; his
appearance and his inability to speak would prevent his recognition by
his friends, the red men were not unkind to him, and every boy likes a
free and out-door life.  They taught him to shoot with bow and arrow,
but they kept him back if a white settlement was to be plundered.

Three years had elapsed, and Aaron, grown tall and strong, was a good
hunter who stood in favor with the tribe.  They had roamed back to the
neighborhood of Woodstock, when, at a council, Aaron overheard a plot to
fall on the village where his parents lived.  He begged, by signs, to be
allowed to go with them, and, believing that he could now be trusted,
they offered no objection.  Stoic as he had grown to be, he could not
repress a tear as he saw his old home and thought of the peril that it
stood in.  If only he could give an alarm!  The Indians retired into the
forest to cook their food where the smoke could not be seen, while Aaron
lingered at the edge of the wood and prayed for opportunity.  He was not
disappointed.  Two girls came up through the perfumed dusk, driving cows
from the pasture, and as they drew near, Aaron, pretending not to see
them, crawled out of the bush with his weapons, and made a show of
stealthily examining the town.  The girls came almost upon him and
screamed, while he dashed into the wood in affected surprise and
regained the camp.  The Indians had heard and seen nothing.  The girls
would surely give the alarm in town.

One by one the lights of the village went out, and when it seemed locked
in sleep the red marauders crept toward the nearest house--that of Joist
Hite.  They arose together and rushed upon it, but at that moment a gun
was fired, an Indian fell, and in a few seconds more the settlers, whom
the girls had not failed to put on their guard, were hurrying from their
hiding-places, firing into the astonished crowd of savages, who dashed
for the woods again, leaving a dozen of their number on the ground.
Aaron remained quietly standing near his father's house, and he was
captured, as he hoped to be.  When he saw how his parents had aged with
time and grief he could not repress a tear, but to his grief was added
terror when his father, after looking him steadily in the eye without
recognition, began to load a pistol.  "They killed my boys," said he,
"and I am going to kill him.  Bind him to that tree."

In vain the mother pleaded for mercy; in vain the dumb boy's eyes
appealed to his father's.  He was not afraid to die, and would do so
gladly to have saved the settlement; but to die by his father's band!
He could not endure it.  He was bound to a tree, with the light of a
fire shining into his face.

The old man, with hard determination, raised the weapon and aimed it
slowly at the boy's heart.  A surge of feeling shook the frame of the
captive--he threw his whole life into the effort--then the silence of
three years was broken, and he cried, "Father!"  A moment later his
parents were sobbing joyfully, and he could speak to them once more.




                        SIREN OF THE FRENCH BROAD

Among the rocks east of Asheville, North Carolina, lives the Lorelei of
the French Broad River.  This stream--the Tselica of the Indians--
contains in its upper reaches many pools where the rapid water whirls
and deepens, and where the traveller likes to pause in the heats of
afternoon and drink and bathe.  Here, from the time when the Cherokees
occupied the country, has lived the siren, and if one who is weary and
downcast sits beside the stream or utters a wish to rest in it, he
becomes conscious of a soft and exquisite music blending with the plash
of the wave.

Looking down in surprise he sees--at first faintly, then with
distinctness--the form of a beautiful woman, with hair streaming like
moss and dark eyes looking into his, luring him with a power he cannot
resist.  His breath grows short, his gaze is fixed, mechanically he
rises, steps to the brink, and lurches forward into the river.  The arms
that catch him are slimy and cold as serpents; the face that stares into
his is a grinning skull.  A loud, chattering laugh rings through the
wilderness, and all is still again.




                         THE HUNTER OF CALAWASSEE

Through brisk November days young Kedar and his trusty slave, Lauto,
hunted along the Calawassee, with hope to get a shot at a buck--a buck
that wore a single horn and that eluded them with easy, baffling gait
whenever they met it in the fens.  Kedar was piqued at this.  He drained
a deep draught and buttoned his coat with an air of resolution.  "Now,
by my soul," quoth he, "I'll have that buck to-day or die myself!"  Then
he laughed at the old slave, who begged him to unsay the oath, for there
was something unusual about that animal--as it ran it left no tracks,
and it passed through the densest wood without halting at trees or
undergrowth.  "Bah!" retorted the huntsman.  "Have up the dogs.  If that
buck is the fiend himself, I'll have him before the day is out!"  The
twain were quickly in their saddles, and they had not been long in the
wood before the one-horned buck was seen ahead, trotting with easy pace,
yet with marvellous swiftness.

Kedar, who was in advance, whipped up his horse and followed the deer
into a cypress grove near the Chechesee.  As the game halted at a pool
he fired.  The report sounded dead in the dense wood, and the deer
turned calmly, watched his pursuer until he was close at hand, then
trotted away again.  All day long he held the chase.  The dogs were
nowhere within sound, and he galloped through the forest, shouting and
swearing like a very devil, beating and spurring the horse until the
poor creature's head and flanks were reddened with blood.  It was just
at sunset that Kedar found himself again on the bank of the Calawassee,
near the point he had left in the morning, and heard once more the
baying of his hounds.  At last his prey seemed exhausted, and, swimming
the river, it ran into a thicket on the opposite side and stood still.
"Now I have him!" cried the hunter.  "Hillio, Lauto!  He's mine!"  The
old negro heard the call and hastened forward.  He heard his master's
horse floundering in the swamp that edged the river--then came a plash,
a curse, and as the slave arrived at the margin a few bubbles floated on
the sluggish current.  The deer stood in the thicket, staring with eyes
that blazed through the falling darkness, and, with a wail of fear and
sorrow, old Lauto fled the spot.




                          REVENGE OF THE ACCABEE

The settlement made by Lord Cardross, near Beaufort, South Carolina, was
beset by Spaniards and Indians, who laid it in ashes and slew every
person in it but one.  She, a child of thirteen, had supposed the young
chief of the Accabees to be her father, as he passed in the smoke, and
had thrown herself into his arms.  The savage raised his axe to strike,
but, catching her blue eye raised to his, more in grief and wonder than
alarm, the menacing hand fell to his side, and, tossing the girl lightly
to a seat on his shoulder, he strode off into the forest.  Mile after
mile he bore her, and if she slept he held her to his breast as a father
holds a babe.  When she awoke it was in his lodge on the Ashley, and he
was smiling in her face.  The chief became her protector; but those who
marked, with the flight of time, how his fierceness had softened, knew
that she was more to him than a daughter.  Years passed, the girl had
grown to womanhood, and her captor declared himself her lover.  She
seemed not ill pleased at this, for she consented to be his wife.  After
the betrothal the chief joined a hunting party and was absent for a
time.  On his return the girl was gone.  A trader who had been bartering
merchandise for furs had seen her, had been inspired by passion, and,
favored by suave manners and a white skin, he had won in a day a
stronger affection than the Indian could claim after years of loving
watchfulness.

When this discovery was made the chief, without a word, set off on the
trail, and by broken twig, by bended grass and footprints at the brook-
edge, he followed their course until he found them resting beneath a
tree.  The girl sprang from her new lover's arms with a cry of fear as
the savage, with knife and tomahawk girt upon him, stepped into view,
and she would have clasped his knees, but he motioned her away; then,
ordering them to continue their march, he went behind them until they
had reached a fertile spot on the Ashley, near the present site of
Charleston, where he halted.  "Though guilty, you shall not die," said
he to the woman; then, to his rival, "You shall marry her, and a white
priest shall join your hands.  Here is your future home.  I give you
many acres of my land, but look that you care for her.  As I have been
merciful to you, do good to her.  If you treat her ill, I shall not be
far away."

The twain were married and went to live on the acres that had been so
generously ceded to them, and for a time all went well; but the true
disposition of the husband, which was sullen and selfish, soon began to
disclose itself; disagreements arose, then quarrels; at last the man
struck his wife, and, seizing the deed of the Accabee land and a paper
that he had forced her to sign without knowing its contents, he started
for the settlements, intending to sell the property and sail for
England.  On the edge of the village his flight was stayed by a tall
form that arose in his path-that of the Indian.  "I gave you all," said
the chief, "the woman who should have been my wife, and then my land.
This is your thanks.  You shall go no farther."

With a quick stroke of the axe he cleft the skull of the shrinking
wretch, and then, cutting off his scalp, the Indian ran to the cottage
where sat the abandoned wife, weeping before the embers of her fire.
He roused her by tossing on fresh fuel, but she shrank back in grief and
shame when she saw who had come to her.  Do not fear," he said.  "The
man who struck you meant to sell your home to strangers"--and he laid
the deed of sale before her, but he will never play you false or lay
hands on you again.  Look!"  He tossed the dripping scalp upon the
paper.  "Now I leave you forever.  I cannot take you back among my
people, who do not know deceit like yours, nor could I ever love you as
I did at first."  Turning, without other farewell he went out at the
door.  When this gift of Accabee land was sold--for the woman could no
longer bear to live on it, but went to a northern city--a handsome house
was built by the new owner, who added game preserves and pleasure
grounds to the estate, but it was "haunted by a grief."  Illness and ill
luck followed the purchase, and the house fell into ruin.




                               TOCCOA FALLS

Early in the days of the white occupation of Georgia a cabin stood not
far from the Falls of Toccoa (the Beautiful).  Its only occupant was a
feeble woman, who found it ill work to get food enough from the wild
fruits and scanty clearing near the house, and she had nigh forgotten
the taste of meat; for her two sons, who were her pride no less than her
support, had been killed by savages.  She often said that she would
gladly die if she could harm the red men back, in return for her
suffering--which was not Christian doctrine, but was natural.  She was
brooding at her fire, one winter evening, in wonder as to how one so
weak and old as she could be revenged, when her door was flung open and
a number of red men filled her cabin.  She hardly changed countenance.
She did not rise.  "You may take my life," she said, "for it is useless,
now that you have robbed it of all that made it worth living."

"Hush!" said the chief.  "What does the warrior want with the scalps of
women?  We war on your men because they kill our game and steal our
land."

"Is it possible that you come to our homes except to kill?"

"We are strangers and have lost our way.  You must guide us to the foot
of Toccoa and lead us to our friends."

"I lead you?  Never!"

The chief raised his axe, but the woman did not flinch.  There was a
pause, in which the iron still hung menacing.  Suddenly the dame looked
up and said, "If you promise to protect me, I will lead you."

The promise was given and the band set forth, the aged guide in advance,
bending against the storm and clasping her poor rags about her.  In the
darkest part of the wood, where the roaring of wind and groaning of
branches seemed the louder for the booming of waters, she cautioned the
band to keep in single file, but to make haste, for the way was far and
the gloom was thickening.  Bending their heads against the wind they
pressed forward, she in advance.  Suddenly, yet stealthily, she sprang
aside and crouched beneath a tree that grew at the very brink of the
fall.  The Indians came on, following blindly, and in an instant she
descried the leader as he went whirling over the edge, and one after
another the party followed.  When the last had gone to his death she
arose to her feet with a laugh of triumph.  "Now I, too, can die!"  she
cried.  So saying, she fell forward into the grayness of space.



                            TWO LIVES FOR ONE

The place of Macon, Georgia, in the early part of this century was
marked only by an inn.  One of its guests was a man who had stopped
there on the way to Alabama, where he had bought land.  The girl who
was, to be his wife was to follow in a few days.  In the morning when he
paid his reckoning he produced a well-filled pocket-book, and he did not
see the significant look that passed between two rough black-bearded
fellows who had also spent the night there, and who, when he set forth,
mounted their horses and offered to keep him company.  As they rode
through the deserted village of Chilicte one of the twain engaged the
traveller in talk while the other, falling a little behind, dealt him a
blow with a loaded whip that unseated him.  Divining their purpose, and
lacking weapons for his own defence, he begged for mercy, and asked to
be allowed to return to his bride to be, but the robbers had already
made themselves liable to penalty, and two knife-thrusts in the breast
silenced his appeals.  The money was secured, the body was dropped into
a hollow where the wolves would be likely to find and mangle it, and the
outlaws went on their way.

Men of their class do not keep money long, and when the proceeds of the
robbery had been wasted at cards and in drink they separated.  As in
fulfilment of the axiom that a murderer is sure to revisit the scene of
his crime, one of the men found himself at the Ocmulgee, a long time
afterward, in sight of the new town--Macon.  In response to his halloo a
skiff shot forth from the opposite shore, and as it approached the bank
he felt a stir in his hair and a touch of ice at his heart, for the
ferryman was his victim of years ago.  Neither spoke a word, but the
criminal felt himself forced to enter the boat when the dead man waved
his hand, and he was rowed across, his horse swimming beside the skiff.
As the jar of the keel was felt on the gravel he leaped out, urged his
horse to the road, sprang to the saddle, and rushed away in an agony of
fear, that was heightened when a hollow voice called, "Stay!"

After a little he slackened pace, and a farmer, who was standing at the
roadside, asked, in astonishment, "How did you get across?  There is a
freshet, and the ferryman was drowned last night."  With a new thrill he
spurred his horse forward, and made no other halt until he reached the
tavern, where he fell in a faint on the steps, for the strain was no
longer to be endured.  A crowd gathered, but he did not see it when he
awoke--he saw only one pair of eyes, that seemed to be looking into his
inmost soul--the eyes of the man he had slain.  With a yell of terror
and of insane fury he rushed upon the ghost and thrust a knife into its
breast.  The frenzy passed.  It was no ghost that lay on the earth
before him, staring up with sightless eyes.  It was his fellow-murderer
--his own brother.  That night the assassin's body hung from a tree at
the cross-roads.




                            A GHOSTLY AVENGER

In Cuthbert, Georgia, is a gravestone thus inscribed: "Sacred to the
memory of Jim Brown."  No date, no epitaph--for Jim Brown was hanged.
And this is the story: At the close of the Civil War a company of
Federal soldiers was stationed in Cuthbert, to enforce order pending the
return of its people to peaceful occupations.  Charles Murphy was a
lieutenant in this company.  His brother, an officer quartered in a
neighboring town, was sent to Cuthbert one day to receive funds for the
payment of some men, and left camp toward evening to return to his
troop.  That night Charles Murphy was awakened by a violent flapping of
his tent.  It sounded as though a gale was coming, but when he arose to
make sure that the pegs and poles of his canvas house were secure, the
noise ceased, and he was surprised to find that the air was clear and
still.  On returning to bed the flapping began again, and this time he
dressed himself and went out to make a more careful examination.  In the
shadow of a tree a man stood beckoning.  It was his brother, who, in a
low, grave voice, told him that he was in trouble, and asked him to
follow where he should lead him.  The lieutenant walked swiftly through
fields and woods for some miles with his relative--he had at once
applied for and received a leave of absence for a few hours--and they
descended together a slope to the edge of a swamp, where he stumbled
against something.  Looking down at the object on which he had tripped,
he saw that it was his brother's corpse--not newly dead, but cold and
rigid--the pockets rifled, the clothing soaked with mire and blood.

Dazed and terrified, he returned to camp, roused some of his men, and at
daybreak secured the body.  An effort to gain a clue to the murderer was
at once set on foot.  It was not long before evidence was secured that
led to the arrest of Jim Brown, and there was a hint that his
responsibility for the crime was revealed through the same supernatural
agency that had apprised Lieutenant Murphy of his bereavement.  Brown
was an ignorant farm laborer, who had conceived that it was right to
kill Yankees, and whose cupidity had been excited by learning that the
officer had money concealed about him.  He had offered, for a trifling
sum, to take his victim by a short cut to his camp, but led him to the
swamp instead, where he had shot him through the heart.  On the
culprit's arrival in Cuthbert he was lynched by the soldiers, but was
cut down by their commander before life was extinct, and was formally
and conclusively hanged in the next week, after trial and conviction.




                       THE WRAITH RINGER OF ATLANTA

A man was killed in Elliott Street, Atlanta, Georgia, by a cowardly
stroke from a stiletto.  The assassin escaped.  Strange what a humming
there was in the belfry of St. Michael's Church that night!  Had the
murderer taken refuge there?  Was it a knell for his lost soul, chasing
him through the empty streets and beginning already an eternal
punishment of terror?  Perhaps the guilty one did not dare to leave
Atlanta, for the chimes sang in minor chords on several nights after.
The old policeman who kept ward in an antiquated guardhouse that stood
opposite the church--it was afterward shaken down by earthquake--said
that he saw a human form, which he would avouch to be that of the
murdered man, though it was wrapped in a cloak, stalk to the doors,
enter without opening them, glide up the winding stair, albeit he bent
neither arm nor knee, pass the ropes by which the chimes were rung, and
mount to the belfry.  He could see the shrouded figure standing beneath
the gloomy mouths of metal.  It extended its bony hands to the tongues
of the bells and swung them from side to side, but while they appeared
to strike vigorously they seemed as if muffled, and sent out only a low,
musical roar, as if they were rung by the wind.  Was the murderer abroad
on those nights?  Did he, too, see that black shadow of his victim in
the belfry sounding an alarm to the sleeping town and appealing to be
avenged?  It may be.  At all events, the apparition boded ill to others,
for, whenever the chimes were rung by spectral hands, mourners gathered
at some bedside within hearing of them and lamented that the friend they
had loved would never know them more on earth.




                        THE SWALLOWING EARTHQUAKE

The Indian village that in 1765 stood just below the site of Oxford,
Alabama, was upset when the news was given out that two of the squaws
had given simultaneous birth to a number of children that were spotted
like leopards.  Such an incident betokened the existence of some baneful
spirit among them that had no doubt leagued itself with the women, who
were at once tried on the charge of witchcraft, convicted, and sentenced
to death at the stake, while a watch was to be set on the infants, so
early orphaned, lest they, too, should show signs of malevolent
possession.  The whole tribe, seventeen hundred in number, assembled to
see the execution, but hardly were the fires alight when a sound like
thunder rolled beneath their feet, and with a hideous crack and groan
the earth opened and nearly every soul was engulfed in a fathomless and
smoking pit-all, indeed, save two, for a couple of young braves who were
on the edge of the crowd flung themselves flat on the heaving ground and
remained there until the earthquake wave had passed.  The hollow
afterward filled with water and was called Blue Pond.  It is popularly
supposed to be fathomless, but it was shown that a forest once spread
across the bottom, when, but a few years ago, a great tree arose from
the water, lifting first its branches, then turning so as to show its
roots above the surface, and afterward disappeared.




                         LAST STAND OF THE BILOXI

The southern part of this country was once occupied by a people called
the Biloxi, who had kept pace with the Aztecs in civilization and who
cultivated especially the art of music.  In lives of gentleness and
peace they so soon forgot the use of arms that when the Choctaws
descended on their fields they were powerless to prevent the onset.
Town after town they evacuated before the savages, and at last the
Biloxi, reduced to a few thousands, were driven to the mouth of the
Pascagoula River, Mississippi, where they intrenched themselves, and for
a few months withstood the invaders.  But the time came when their
supplies were exhausted, and every form was pinched with hunger.  Flight
was impossible.  Surrender commonly meant slaughter and outrage.  They
resolved to die together.

On a fair spring morning the river-ward gates of their fort were opened
and the survivors of that hapless tribe marched forth, their chief in
advance, with resolution on his wasted face, then the soldiers and
counsellors, the young men, the women and children, and the babes asleep
on the empty breasts of their mothers.  As they emerged from the walls
with slow but steady step they broke into song, and their assailants,
who had retired to their tents for their meal, listened with surprise to
the chorus of defiance and rejoicing set up by the starving people.
Without pause or swerving they entered the bay and kept their march.
Now the waters closed over the chief, then the soldiers--at last only a
few voices of women were heard in the chant, and in a few moments all
was still.  Not one shrank from the sacrifice.  And for years after the
echo of that death-song floated over he waves.

Another version of the legend sets forth that the Biloxi believed
themselves the children of the sea, and that they worshipped the image
of a lovely mermaid with wondrous music.  After the Spaniards had come
among this gay and gentle people, they compelled them, by tyranny and
murder, to accept the religion of the white man, but of course it was
only lip-service that they rendered at the altar.  The Biloxi were
awakened one night by the sound of wings and the rising of the river.
Going forth they saw the waters of Pascagoula heaped in a quivering
mound, and bright on its moonlit crest stood a mermaid that sang to
them, "Come to me, children of the sea.  Neither bell, book, nor cross
shall win you from your queen."  Entranced by her song and the potency
of her glances, they moved forward until they encircled the hill of
waters.  Then, with hiss and roar, the river fell back to its level,
submerging the whole tribe.  The music that haunts the bay, rising
through the water when the moon is out, is the sound of their revels in
the caves below--dusky Tannhausers of a southern Venusberg.  An old
priest, who was among them at the time of this prodigy, feared that the
want of result to his teachings was due to his not being in a perfect
state of grace.  On his death-bed he declared that if a priest would row
to the spot where the music sounded, at midnight on Christmas, and drop
a crucifix into the water, he would instantly be swallowed by the waves,
but that every soul at the bottom would be redeemed.  The souls have
never been ransomed.



                        THE SACRED FIRE OF NACHEZ

The Indians of the South, being in contact with the civilized races of
Central America, were among the most progressive and honorable of the
red men.  They were ruled by intelligence rather than force, and
something of the respect that Europeans feel for their kingly families
made them submit to woman's rule.  The valley of Nacooche, Georgia,
indeed, perpetuates in its name one of these princesses of a royal
house, for though she ruled a large tribe with wisdom she was not
impervious to the passions of common mortals.  The "Evening Star" died by
her own hand, being disappointed in love affair.  Her story is that of
Juliet, and she and her lover--united in death, as they could not be in
life--are buried beneath a mound in the centre of he valley.

The Indians of that region had towns built for permanency, and possessed
some knowledge of the arts, while in religion their belief and rites
were curiously like those of the Persian fire-worshippers.  It was on
the site of the present city in Mississippi which bears their name that
the Natchez Indians built their Temple of the Sun.  When it was finished
a meteor fell from heaven and kindled the fire on their altar, and from
that hour the priests guarded he flame continually, until one night when
it was extinguished by mischance.  This event was believed to be an
omen, and the people so took it to heart that when the white men came,
directly after, they had little courage to prosecute a war, and fell
back before the conqueror, never to hold their ancient home again.




                              PASS CHRISTIAN

Senhor Vineiro, a Portuguese, having wedded Julia Regalea, a Spaniard,
in South America, found it needful to his fortunes to leave Montevideo,
for a revolution was breeding, and no less needful to his happiness to
take his wife with him from that city, for he was old and she was young.
But he chose the wrong ship to sail on, for Captain Dane, of the
Nightingale, was also young, presentable, and well schooled, but
heartless.  On the voyage to New Orleans he not only won the affection
of the wife, but slew the husband and flung his body overboard.  Vainly
the wife tried to repress the risings of remorse, and vainly, too, she
urged Dane to seek absolution from her church.  She had never loved her
husband, and she had loved Dane from the first, but she was not at heart
a bad woman and her peace was gone.  The captain was disturbed and
suspicious.  His sailors glanced at him out of the corners of their eyes
in a way that he did not like.  Had the woman in some unintentional
remark betrayed him?  Could he conceal his crime, save with a larger
one?

Pass Christian was a village then.  On a winter night its people saw a
glare in the sky, and hurrying to their doors found a ship burning in
the gulf.  Smacks and row-boats put off to the rescue, but hardly were
they under way ere the ship disappeared as suddenly as if the sea had
swallowed it.  As the night was thick the boats returned, but next
morning five men were encountered on the shore-all that were left of the
crew of the Nightingale.  Captain Dane was so hospitably received by the
people of the district, and seemed to take so great a liking for the
place, that he resolved to live there.  He bought a plantation with a
roomy old house upon it and took his fellow-survivors there to live, as
he hoped, an easy life.  That was not to be.  Yellow fever struck down
all the men but Dane, and one of them, in dying, raved to his negro
nurse that Dane had taken all the treasure from the ship and put it into
a boat, after serving grog enough to intoxicate all save the trusted
ones of the crew; that he and his four associates fired the ship and
rowed away, leaving an unhappy woman to a horrible fate.  Senhora
Vineiro was pale but composed when she saw the manner of death she was
to die.  She brought from her cabin a harp which had been a solace of
her husband and herself and began to play and sing an air that some of
the listeners remembered.  It was an "Ave Maria," and the sound of it
was so plaintive that even Dane stopped rowing; but he set his teeth
when his shoe touched the box of gold at his feet and ordered the men to
row on.  There was an explosion and the vessel disappeared.  On reaching
shore the treasure was buried at the foot of a large oak.

This story was repeated by the nurse, but she was ignorant, she had no
proofs, so it was not generally believed; yet there was a perceptible
difference in the treatment of Dane by his neighbors, and among the
superstitious negroes it was declared that he had sold himself to the
devil.  If he had, was it an air from hell that sounded in his ears when
he was alone?--the "Ave Maria" of a sinning but repentant woman.  The
coldness and suspicion were more than he could stand.  Besides, who
could tell?  Evidence might be found against him.  He would dig up his
treasure and fly the country.  It was a year from the night when he had
fired his ship.  Going out after dark, that none might see him, he stole
to the tree and began to dig.  Presently a red light grew through the
air, and looking up he saw a flaming vessel advancing over the sea.  It
stopped, and he could see men clambering into a boat at its side.  They
rowed toward him with such miraculous speed that the ocean seemed to
steam with a blue light as they advanced.  He stood like a stone, for
now he could see the faces of the rowers, and every one was the face of
a corpse--a corpse that had been left on board of that vessel and had
been in the bottom of the sea for the last twelvemonth.  They sprang on
shore and rushed upon him.  Next morning Dane's body was found beneath
the oak with his hands filled with gems and gold.




                              THE UNDER LAND

When the Chatas looked into the still depths of Bayou Lacombe,
Louisiana, they said that the reflection of the sky was the empyrean of
the Under Land, whither all good souls were sure to go after death.
Their chief, Opaleeta, having fallen into this bayou, was so long
beneath the water that he was dead when his fellows found him, but
by working over him for hours, and through resort to prayers and
incantations of medicine men, his life returned and he stood on his feet
once more.  Then he grieved that his friends had brought him back, for
he had been at the gates of the Under Land, where the air is blithe and
balmy, and so nourishing that people live on it; where it is never
winter; where the sun shines brightly, but never withers and parches;
and where stars dance to the swing of the breezes.  There no white man
comes to rob the Indian and teach him to do wrong.  Gorgeous birds fly
through changing skies that borrow the tints of flowers, the fields are
spangled with blossoms of red and blue and gold that load each wind with
perfume, the grass is as fine as the hair of deer, and the streams are
thick with honey.

At sunset those who loved each other in life are gathered to their
lodges, and raise songs of joy and thankfulness.  Their voices are soft
and musical, their faces are young again and beam with smiles, and there
is no death.  It was only the chiefs who heard his story, for, had all
the tribe known it, many who were old and ill and weary would have gone
to the bayou, and leaped in, to find that restful, happy Under Land.
Those who had gone before they sometimes tried to see, when the lake was
still and dappled with pictures of sunset clouds, but the dead never
came back--they kept away from the margin of the water lest they should
be called again to a life of toil and sorrow.  And Opaleeta lived for
many years and ruled his tribe with wisdom, yet he shared in few of the
merry-makings of his people, and when, at last, his lodge was ready in
the Under Land, he gave up his life without a sigh.





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