All day long the bands gathered; each stopping, none passing indifferently by. At length, when evening came and the shadow of the wood fell long and cool, the burials began. A shallow grave was scooped at Wallulah's feet for the bodies of the two canoe-men. Then chiefs--for they only might bury Multnomah's daughter--entombed her in a cairn; being Upper Columbia Indians, they buried her, after the manner of their people, under a heap of stone. Rocks and bowlders were built around and over her body, yet without touching it, until the sad dead face was shut out from view. And still the stones were piled above her; higher and higher rose the great rock-heap, till a mighty cairn marked the last resting-place of Wallulah. And all the time the women lifted the death-wail, and Snoqualmie stood looking on with folded arms and sullen baffled brow. At length the work was done. The wail ceased; the gathering broke up, and the sachems and their bands rode away, Snoqualmie and his troop departing with them.
Only the roar of the cascades broke the silence, as night fell on the wild forest and the lonely river. The pine-tree beside the trail swayed its branches in the wind with a low soft murmur, as if lulling the sorrow-worn sleeper beneath it into still deeper repose. And she lay very still in the great cairn,--the sweet and beautiful dead,--with the grim warriors stretched at her feet, stern guardians of a slumber never to be broken.
Gazing alone To him are wild shadows shown. Deep under deep unknown.
If Multnomah was grieved at his daughter's death, if his heart sunk at the unforeseen and terrible blow that left his empire without an heir and withered all his hopes, no one knew it; no eye beheld his woe. Silent he had ever been, and he was silent to the last. The grand, strong face only grew grander, stronger, as the shadows darkened around him; the unconquerable will only grew the fiercer and the more unflinching. But ere the moon that shone first on Wallulah's new-made cairn had rounded to the full, there was that upon him before which even his will bowed and gave way,--death, swift and mysterious. And it came in this wise.
We have told how at the great _potlatch_ he gave away his all, even to the bear-skins from his couch, reserving only those cases of Asiatic textures never yet opened,--all that now remained of the richly laden ship of the Orient wrecked long ago upon his coast. They were opened now. His bed was covered with the magnificent fabrics; they were thrown carelessly over the rude walls and seats, half-trailing on the floor; exquisite folds of velvet and damask swept the leaves and dust,--so that all men might see how rich the chief still was, though he had given away so much. And with his ostentation was mixed a secret pride and tenderness that his dead wife had indirectly given him this wealth. The war-chief's woman had brought him these treasures out of the sea; and now that he had given away his all, even to the bare poles of his lodge, she filled it with fine things and made him rich again,--she who had been sleeping for years in the death-hut on _mimaluse_ island. Those treasures, ere the vessel that carried them was wrecked, had been sent as a present from one oriental prince to another. Could it be that they had been purposely impregnated with disease, so that while the prince that sent them seemed to bestow a graceful gift, he was in reality taking a treacherous and terrible revenge? Such things were not infrequent in Asiatic history; and even the history of Europe, in the middle ages, tells us of poisoned masks, of gloves and scarfs charged with disease.