Why did you not let me die, since all that was to be fancied about
me--my hair, my beard, and my buckskin coat, pants, and moccasins are
gone and destroyed?"
The maiden laughed wildly; it was not the laugh of mirth or mischief,
there was a madness in it that thrilled and awed.
"Do you know you are on the graves of a great nation?" she asked. "This
mound and yonder three, were, the burial-places of the Natchez Indians.
The Suns and Sachems sleep here, and he, the Great Sun, who came from
the orbit's self, and was their lawgiver, and in whom and whose
divinity they believed as the Jews in that of Moses, or the Christians
in the Redeemer. Is it not all a mystery--strange, strange,
incomprehensible, and unnatural? What is your faith?"
"To worship where I love; the divinity of my soul's worship is the
devotion of my wild heart.'
"Why, you are mysterious! Have you, as had the Natchez, a holy fire
which is never extinguished in your heart? Is the flame first kindled
burning still? Did your sun come to you with fire in her hand and
kindle it in your heart? Your words mean so much.
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