It was
apprehended that he intended to starve himself to death; his people
approached him in trembling awe, and entreated him once more to uncover
his face and be comforted; but he remained unmoved. At length one of his
warriors brought in a small child, and laying it on the ground, placed
the foot of the Blackbird upon its neck. The heart of the gloomy savage
was touched by this appeal; he threw aside his robe; made an harangue
upon what he had done; and from that time forward seemed to have thrown
the load of grief and remorse from his mind.
He still retained his fatal and mysterious secret, and with it his
terrific power; but, though able to deal death to his enemies, he could
not avert it from himself or his friends. In 1802 the small-pox, that
dreadful pestilence, which swept over the land like a fire over the
prairie, made its appearance in the village of the Omahas. The poor
savages saw with dismay the ravages of a malady, loathsome and agonizing
in its details, and which set the skill and experience of their
conjurors and medicine men at defiance. In a little while, two thirds
of the population were swept from the face of the earth, and the doom of
the rest seemed sealed. The stoicism of the warriors was at an end; they
became wild and desperate; some set fire to the village as a last means
of checking the pestilence; others, in a frenzy of despair, put their
wives and children to death, that they might be spared the agonies of an
inevitable disease, and that they might all go to some better country.
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