“’Son of the chiefs of the Beard,
  Thou shall know the mystery,
  Since, true to thy nature, with thine own blood
  Thy black beard thou hast turned to red.’

“Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez; for a mighty chief, worthy of the race of their Suns, has been born to them in thee, my son—­a noble chief with a beard on his chin.  Listen to the explanation of this prodigy.  In days of old a Natchez maid of the race of their Suns was on a visit to the Mobelians.  There she soon loved the youthful chief of that nation, and her wedding-day was nigh, when there came from the big Salt Lake on the south a host of bearded men, who sacked the town, slew the red chief with their thunder, and one of those accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid when her lover’s corpse was hardly cold in death.  She found in sorrow her way back to the Natchez hills, where she became a mother, and lo! the boy had a beard on his chin, and when he grew old enough to understand his mother’s words she whispered in his ear: 

  “’Son of the chiefs of the Beard,
  Born from a bloody day,
  Bloody be thy hand, and bloody be thy life
  Until thy black beard with blood becomes red.’

“Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez.  In my first ancestor a long line of the first of hunters, chiefs, and warriors of the race of their Suns had been born to them with beards on their chins.  What chase was ever unsuccessful over which they presided?  When they spoke in the council of the wise men of the nation, did it not always turn out that their advice, whether adopted or rejected, was the best in the end?  In what battle were they ever defeated?  When were they known to be worn out with fatigue—­with hardship, hunger or thirst, heat or cold, either on land or water?  Who ever could stem as they the rushing current of the Father of rivers?  Who can count the number of scalps which they brought from distant expeditions?  Their names have always been famous in the wigwams of all the red nations.  They have struck terror into the breasts of the boldest enemies of the Natchez; and mothers, when their sons paint their bodies in the colors of war, say to them: 

  “’Fight where, and with whom you please;
  But beware, oh! beware of the chiefs of the Beard. 
  Give way to them as you would to death,
  Or their black beards with your blood will be red.’

“Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez.  When the first chief of the Beard first trimmed the sacred fire in the temple, a voice was heard which said:  ’As long as there lives a chief of the race of the Suns with a beard on his chin, no evil can happen to the Natchez nation; but if the white race should ever resume the blood which it gave in a bloody day, woe, three times woe, to the Natchez!  Of them nothing will remain but the shadow of a name.’  Thus spake the invisible prophet.  Years rolled on, years thick on years, and none of the accursed white-faces were seen; but they appeared at last, wrapped up in their pale skins like shrouds of the dead, and the father of my father, whom tradition had taught to guard against the predicted danger, slew two of the hated strangers, and my father, in his turn, killed four.