THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS CONTINUED. 161 



turbed the dead. This is a part of the simple faith of 

 the tribe ; and they affirm that after decay has taken 

 the body, the departed chief is safe beyond earthly 

 harm. 



" Ortez was the first in order that had assigned to him 

 this honorable duty, and in the early part of a summer 

 eve he took his post by the dead man. The sun laid 

 down in his golden bed in the western waters, and the 

 stars one by one stepped to their places in the sky, as 

 the watcher paced to and fro by the side of the scaffold- 

 ing where the dead chief slept. He heard the distant 

 wailing of music from the village, and the nearer hooting 

 of the owls, and the honking of the herons from the 

 wood. He saw the pawpaw wave its purple bells between 

 him and the sky, and the green balls of the buttonwood 

 looked liked the olives on the hills of his native land. But 

 it was not of the storied peaks of Spain the soldier was 

 then thinking nor was he listening to the twittering of 

 the birds in the reeds. He was watching the path that 

 led toward the village, and his heart was beating thick 

 and heavy with the anticipation of meeting some one 

 that was fairer than the pawpaw bell, and dearer than the 

 towers of his native town. He listens on his beat with 

 one foot raised he turns his ear aside, and his thin nos- 

 tril quivers like that of a horse. He hears a splash in the 

 water it was not the grey duck. A canoe touches the 

 shore, and a girl steps out on the strand. Her luminous 

 eye is half veiled by its lashes her limbs are trem- 

 bling with delight. She falls into the arms of Ortez, and 



