A Spectre of Power by Mary Noailles Murfree

LAROCHE, however, as far as his safety was concerned, was more secure at Tellico Great than he could have been elsewhere, and he appreciated this, for both Moy Toy and he had been speedily advised of the untoward discovery of the secret of his presence here and the lame and futile effort of Tanaesto to account for it innocuously. Where the Cherokees were in force, as in one of the greater "mother towns," he could more effectually claim the national protection than if, seeking refuge in flight, he should be apprehended in some secluded outlying region where only a few scattered tribesmen would be receptive to his appeal. Therefore at Tellico he determined to stand his ground, albeit he doubted both the will and the capacity of the Indians to hold out against the demand of the English officer. He argued that with so small a force as the escort of the commissioners, coercion was manifestly not contemplated, and the British commander was risking the dangers of the Indian country, disaffected though it was, with no protection save the ostensible comity of the already jeopardized treaty. Unassisted reason and logic were hardly to be relied upon in Indian negotiation. Reproaches for a broken faith needs an unimpeachable counter-record to render them practicable. Laroche feared, as the last resource, bribes, large, tempting, irresistible.

At that moment his stanch scheme of empire, rebuilt on the ruins of a score of fantastic projections of old, braced and held to interdependent cohesion in a thousand details, seemed to him also a mere phantasm, the immaterial outline of the functions of a state, a spectre of power, to dissolve into nullity at the first cockcrow of the lordly realities of established rule. He had but expended himself, his time, his efforts, his liberty, it might even be his life itself, that the crafty Moy Toy should have the opportunity of driving a more thrifty bargain with the British interest because of the formidable character of the threatened defection; or mayhap, indeed, only for the sake of a personal gift, -- a finer rifle, or a trifle of embroidered and gold-laced suits of apparel, -- he would consent to bring anew the nation under British domination until such time as the yoke grew cumbersome to his fitful ambition and he was minded to throw it off again.