"He has made trees and shrubs," went on Senamee, "to grow before our eyes, and objects he held in his hands to vanish away into the air."
"Yes, curse him," now muttered Buck, who, unhappily, rarely spoke without an oath, "I taught him to. I would they had looked under his thumb or up his sleeve."
"And, above all, is it not he who bade us go forward on the warpath towards the home of the pale faces, telling us success should come to us, as it has truly come?"
Once more the Indians were roused, but this time it was towards the adoption of the chief's views. Hating ingratitude as they did, they seemed to think now--judging by the ejaculations of many of them--that there was danger of their testifying it to the medicine chief by turning so suddenly against him. Poor, ignorant savages! 'Twas easy to see that they believed, as doubtless their chief believed, that to this mean creature was owing the fact that their crops and their cattle had thrived so. They could not guess, their simple, unformed minds could not tell them, that it was to their own exertions, suggested by him, and not to his mumblings and gibberish over those crops and cattle, that their increase and fatness was due.
But no sooner had Senamee finished than Buck, who could be neither repressed nor subdued, lifted up his voice and, addressing him, exclaimed, "Sir! Chief! Listen to me a spell. What this fellow has done I taught him when he was a bought slave, as I was a transported one, to this our young lady here, whom you call the pale face woman. And what he can do I can do better, as I'll show you if you'll give me the chance. You say he can make objects vanish? Why, look here"; with which he picked up three stones from the earth, placed them on his open palm, clenched his hand and blew upon it, and, opening it again, showed to the astonished surrounders that it was empty. Then he approached an Indian squaw standing near, and putting out his finger drew each stone one by one from her long, matted hair, while her dusky skin turned white and she shrunk away from him muttering. Then he continued:
"Is that it? Well, 'tis simple enough--there hain't a conjuror or Jack Pudding at Bartholomew Fair, nor any other, that can't do better nor that, and they ain't children o' the Sun, nor more am I. No! not no more than _he_ is"--pointing his finger at the now trembling Roderick. "Children of the Sun, ha! ha! children born in a ditch more like; or in a prison." Whereupon, after laughing again, he stooped down once more and, seizing some larger stones, began to hurl them in the air one after the other and catch them as they descended. Yet, when he had caught them all, his hands were empty.