“It will be such as will make Mahéga _tremble_,” replied the maiden with dignity. “Warriors of the Washashe, you have heard the treaty. Before the sun has reached yon western peak, the answer of the Great Spirit will be known.” Having thus spoken, she withdrew into the tent, leaving the Osages gazing upon each other with undisguised awe and amazement. The maiden threw herself upon her couch in an agony of suspense, greater than can be described! It was terrible to think that her every hope of escaping from the dreadful alternative, was staked upon a sentence in an almanack, of the correctness of which she had not the slightest power to judge. Even the well–intentioned attempts at consolation made by her affectionate Lita were of no avail; her unhappy mistress entreated her to remain at the door of the tent, and report whatever might occur; within and without a profound stillness reigned. The prisoner stood motionless by the sapling to which he was bound; Mahéga smoked his pipe in the full confidence of anticipated triumph, surrounded by his warriors, who, less sceptical, or more superstitious than their chief, looked and listened, expecting some confirmation of the last words of Prairie–bird. Although the sun could not be opposite the rock which she had pointed out for nearly three hours, of which not a fourth part had yet elapsed, the anxious girl began to imagine that hope was at an end. Visions of future degradation and misery shot through her brain; she tore from her hot brow the fillet that confined her hair, which floated in glossy luxuriance over her shoulders. The reproaches of Reginald Brandon rung in her ears. The loathed embrace of Mahéga crept over her shuddering frame! At this crisis her eye fell upon the handle of the sharp knife concealed in her bosom; she drew it forth; the triumph of the powers of Evil seemed at hand, when a cry of surprise and terror from Lita recalled her wandering senses. She sprang to the door; visible darkness was spreading over the scene, and the terrified Osages were looking upward to the partially obscured disk of the sun, over the centre of which an opaque circular body was spread; a brilliant ring being left around its outer ridge.[58] Prairie–bird gazed upon the wondrous spectacle like one entranced; the late fearful struggle in her breast had given a supernatural lustre to her eye; her frame was still under high nervous excitement, and as, with long hair floating down her back, she pointed with one hand to the eclipsed sun, and with the other to Mahéga, well might the savage imagine that he saw before him a prophetess whose will the Spirit of Fire must obey. Under the influence of awe and dread, which he strove in vain to conceal, he moved forward, and said to her, “It is enough! let Olitipa speak to the Great Spirit that the light may come again.”