TECUMSEH. Our Spirit great and good!
He comes not here for nought. What has he promised?

BRAVE. Much! for henceforth we are invulnerable.
The bullets of the Long-Knives will rebound,
Like petty hailstones, from our naked breasts;
And, in the misty morns of our attack,
Strange lights will shine on them to guide our aim,
Whilst clouds of gloom will screen us from their sight.

TECUMSEH. The Prophet is a wise interpreter,
And all his words, by valour backed, will stand;
For valour is the weapon of the soul,
More dreaded by our vaunting enemies
Than the plumed arrow, or the screaming ball.
What wizardry and witchcraft has he found
Conspiring 'gainst our people's good?

BRAVE. Why, none! Wizard and witch are weeded out, he
says;
Not one is left to do us hurt.

TECUMSEH. 'Tis well! My brother has the eyeball of the
horse,
And swerves from danger. (Aside.) Bid our
warriors come! I wait them here.

[Exit BRAVE.]

The Prophet soon will follow.

LEFROY. Now opportunity attend my heart
Which waits for Iena! True love's behest,
Outrunning war's, will bring her to my arms
Ere cease the braves from gasping wonderment.

TECUMSEH. First look on service ere you look on love;
You shall not see her here.

LEFROY. My promises
Are sureties of my service -

TECUMSEH. But your deeds,
Accomplishments; our people count on deeds.
Be patient! Look upon our warriors
Roped round with scars and cicatrized wounds,
Inflicted in deep trial of their spirit
Their skewered sides are proofs of manly souls,
Which - had one groan escaped from agony -
Would all have sunk beneath our women's heels,
Unfit for earth or heaven. So try your heart,
And let endurance swallow all love's sighs.
Yoke up your valour with our people's cause,
And I, who love your nation, which is just,
When deeds deserve it, will adopt you here,
By ancient custom of our race, and join Iena's hand to
yours.

LEFROY. Your own hand first In pledge of this!

TECUMSEH. It ever goes with truth!

LEFROY. Now come some wind of chance, and show me her
But for one heavenly moment! as when leaves
Are blown aside in summer, and we see
The nested oriole.

[_Enter Chiefs and warriors - The warriors cluster
around TECUMSEH, shouting and discharging their
pieces_.]

TECUMSEH. My chiefs and braves!

MIAMI CHIEF. Fall back! Fall back! Ye press too close
on him.

TECUMSEH. My friends! our joy is like to meeting
streams,
Which draw into a deep and prouder bed.

[Shouts from the warriors.]

DELAWARE CHIEF. Silence, ye braves! let great Tecumseh
speak!

[The warriors fall back.]

TECUMSEH. Comrades, and faithful warriors of our race!
Ye who defeated Hartnar and St Clair,
And made their hosts a winter's feast for wolves!
I call on you to follow me again,
Not now for war, but as forearmed for fight.
As ever in the past so is it still:
Our sacred treaties are infringed and torn;
Laughed out of sanctity, and spurned away;
Used by the Long-Knife's slave to light his fire,
Or turned to kites by thoughtless boys, whose wrists
Anchor their fathers' lies in front of heaven.
And now we're asked to Council at Vincennes;
To bend to lawless ravage of our lands,
To treacherous bargains, contracts false, wherein
One side is bound, the other loose as air!
Where are those villains of our race and blood
Who signed the treaties that unseat us here;
That rob us of rich plains and forests wide;
And which, consented to, will drive us hence
To stage our lodges in the Northern Lakes,
In penalties of hunger worse than death?
Where are they? that we may confront them now
With your wronged sires, your mothers, wives and babes,
And, wringing from their false and slavish lips
Confession of their baseness, brand with shame
The traitor hands which sign us to our graves.