"Pore, pore Kumshy! De good Lord hab pity on yo' soul an' gib you a mansion, ef it's only a wigwam, somewhar in his kingdom. You's a pore heathen, we know, but shorely somewhar in his kingdom he'll make room fur de like uf you." And with this simple oration over Tecumseh's body, Big Black Burl turned weeping away and followed his sorrowing master from the field, the stoniness and blindness of Calvinism gone from his creed forever.
That night, long after the somber autumn sun had set, and the somber autumn moon had risen, and the victorious foe had laid him down to sleep in his distant tent, silent as the shadows through which they glided, they returned to the battle-ground, the red warriors of the wilderness, to pay the last tribute of respect to their fallen chieftain. Beside a fallen oak that lay along the verge of the marsh--there, on the spot where he had made his last stand for the wild people, the wild land, the wild independence he had loved more than his life--they dug a grave, and in it laid the mortal remains of the immortal Tecumseh. Then they went their way, their wild hearts breaking with grief and despair, and he was left to that solitude of silence and shadow which, like a hallowing spell inspiring reverence and awe in the minds of the living, ever lingers round the resting-places of the illustrious dead. But for many a year thereafter they made it their wont to return thither, as on pilgrimage to a holy shrine, once more to look with reverent eyes on the green mound where he lay, and with reverent hands keep back the willows and wild roses growing too thick around it, that, unshadowed, it might be ever open to the loving, pitying light of the setting sun.
Thus he died, this Indian Hannibal; thus he set, this Glory of his Race. Let him sleep! Wahcoudah's will be done! Rule, great Wahcoudah!
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Burl, by Morrison Heady