The Hidden Children Part 12

I entered and listened a moment to Major Lockwood, urging this obstinate man to send out his patrols; then I walked over to the window where Boyd stood in whispered consultation with an Indian.

The savage towered at least six feet in his soaking moccasins; he wore neither lock nor plume, nor paint of any kind that I could see, carried neither gun nor blanket, nor even a hatchet. There was only a heavy knife at the beaded girdle, which belted his hunting shirt and breeches of muddy tow-cloth.

As I approached them, the Mohican turned his head and shot a searching glance at me. Boyd said:

"This is the great Sagamore, Mayaro, Mr. Loskiel; and I have attempted to persuade him to come north with us tomorrow. Perhaps your eloquence will succeed where my plain speech has failed." And to the tall Sagamore he said: "My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel Morgan's command--my comrade and good friend. What this man's lips tell you has first been taught them by his heart. Squirrels chatter, brooks babble, and the tongues of the Iroquois are split. But this is a man, Sagamore, such as are few among men. For he lies not even to women."

And though his countenance was very grave, I saw his eyes laughing at me.

The Indian made no movement until I held out my hand. Then his sinewy fingers touched mine, warily at first, like the exploring antennae of a nervous b.u.t.terfly. And presently his steady gaze began to disturb me.

"Does my brother the Sagamore believe he has seen me somewhere heretofore?" I asked, smilingly. "Perhaps it may have been so--at Johnson Hall--or at Guy Park, perhaps, where came many chiefs and sachems and Sagamores in the great days of the great Sir William--the days that are no more, O Sagamore!"

And: "My brother's given name?" inquired the savage bluntly.

"Euan--Euan Loskiel, once of the family of Guy Johnson, but now, for these three long battle years, officer in Colonel Morgan's regiment," I said. "Has the wise Sagamore ever seen me before this moment?"

The savage's eyes wavered, then sought the floor.

"Mayaro has forgotten," he replied very quietly, using the Delaware phrase--a tongue of which I scarcely understood a word. But I knew he had seen me somewhere, and preferred not to admit it. Indian caution, thought I, and I said:

"Is my brother Siwanois or Mohican?"

A cunning expression came into his features:

"If a Siwanois marries a Mohican woman, of what nation are the children, my new brother, Loskiel?"

"Mohican," I said in surprise,--"or so it is among the Iroquois," and the next moment could have bitten off my tongue for vexation that I should have so clumsily reminded a Sagamore of a subject nation of his servitude, by a.s.suming that the Lenni-Lenape had conformed even to the racial customs of their conquerors.

The hot flush now staining my face did not escape him, and what he thought of my stupid answer to him or of my embarra.s.sment, I did not know. His calm countenance had not altered--not even had his eyes changed, which features are quickest to alter when Indians betray emotion.

I said in a mortified voice:

"The Siwanois Sagamore will believe that his new brother, Loskiel, meant no offense." And I saw that the compliment had told.

"Mayaro has heard," he said, without the slightest emphasis of resentment. Then, proudly and delicately yielding me reason, and drawing his superb figure to its full and stately height: "When a Mohican Sagamore listens, all Algonquins listen, and the Siwanois clan grow silent in the still places. When a real man speaks, real men listen with respect. Only the Canienga continue to chirp and chatter; only the Long House is full of squirrel sounds and the noise of jays."

His lip curled contemptuously. "Let the echoes of the Long House answer the Kanonsis. Mayaro's ears are open."

Boyd, with a triumphant glance at me, said eagerly:

"Is not this hour the hour for the great Siwanois clan of the Lenni-Lenape to bid defiance to the Iroquois? Is it not time that the Mohawks listen to the reading of those ancient belts, and count their dishonoured dead with brookside pebbles from the headwaters of the Sacandaga to the Delaware Capes?"

"Can squirrels count?" retorted Mayaro disdainfully. "Does my white brother understand what the blue-jays say one to another in the yellowing October woods? Not in the Kanonsis, nor yet in the Kanonsionni may the Mohicans read to the Mohawks the ancient wampum records. The Lenni-Lenape are Algonquin, not Huron-Iroquois. Let those degraded Delawares who still sit in the Long House count their white belts while, from both doors of the Confederacy, Seneca and Mohawk belt-bearers hurl their red wampum to the four corners of the world."

"The Mohicans, while they wait, may read of glory and great deeds," I said, "but the belts in their hands are not white. How can this be, my brother?"

The Sagamore's eyes flashed:

"The belts we remember are red!" he said. "We Mohicans have never understood Iroquois wampum. Let the Lenape of the Kansonsionni bear Iroquois belts!"

"In the Long House," said I, "the light is dim. Perhaps the Canienga's amba.s.sadors can no longer perceive the red belts in the archives of the Lenape."

It had so far been a careful and cautious exchange of subtlest metaphor between this proud and sensitive Mohican and me; I striving to win him to our cause by recalling the ancient greatness and the proud freedom of his tribe, yet most carefully avoiding undue pressure or any direct appeal for an immediate answer to Boyd's request. But already I had so thoroughly prepared the ground; and the Sagamore's responses had been so encouraging, that the time seemed to have come to put the direct and final question. And now, to avoid the traditional twenty-four hours'

delay which an Indian invariably believes is due his own dignity before replying to a vitally important demand, I boldly cast precedent and custom to the four winds, and once more seized on allegory to aid me in this hour of instant need.

I began by saluting him with the most insidious and stately compliment I could possibly offer to a Sagamore of a conquered race--a race which already was nearly extinct--investing this Mohican Sagamore with the prerogatives of his very conquerors by the subtlety of my opening phrase:

"O Sagamore! Roya-neh! n.o.ble of the three free clans of a free Mohican people! Our people have need of you. The path is dark to Catharines-town. Terror haunts those frightful shades. Roya-nef! We need you!

"Brother! Is there occasion for belts between us to confirm a brother's words, when this leathern girth I wear around my body carries a red wampum which all may see and read--my war axe and my knife?"

I raised my right arm slowly, and drew with my forefinger a great circle in the air around us:

"Brother! Listen attentively! Since a Sagamore has read the belt I yesterday delivered, the day-sun has circled us where we now stand. It is another day, O Roya-neh! In yonder fireplace new ashes whiten, new embers redden. We have slept (touching my eyelids and then laying my right hand lightly over his); we have eaten (again touching his lips and then my own); and now--now here--now, in this place and on this day, I have returned to the Mohican fire--the Fire of Tamanund! Now I am seated (touching both knees). Now my ears are open. Let the Sagamore of the Mohicans answer my belt delivered! I have spoken, O Roya-neh!"

For a full five minutes of intense silence I knew that my bold appeal was being balanced in the scales by one of a people to whom tradition is a religion. One scale was weighted with the immemorial customs and usages of a great and proud people; the other with a white man's subtle and flattering recognition of these customs, conveyed in metaphor, which all Indians adore, and appealing to imagination--an appeal to which no Huron, no Iroquois, no Algonquin, is ever deaf.

In the breathless silence of suspense the irritable, high-pitched voice of Colonel Sheldon came to my ears. It seemed that after all he had sent out a few troopers and that one had just returned to report a large body of hors.e.m.e.n which had pa.s.sed the Bedford road at a gallop, apparently headed for Ridgefield. But I scarcely noted what was being discussed in the further end of the hall, so intent was I on the Sagamore's reply--if, indeed, he meant to answer me at all. I could even feel Boyd's body quivering with suppressed excitement as our elbows chanced to come in contact; as for me, I scarce made out to control myself at all, and any nether lip was nearly bitten through ere the Mohican lifted his symmetrical head and looked me full and honestly in the eyes.

"Brother," he said, in a curiously hushed voice, "on this day I come to you here, at this fire, to acquaint you with my answer; answering my brother's words of yesterday."

I could hear Boyd's deep breath of profound relief. "Thank G.o.d!" I thought.

The Sagamore spoke again, very quietly:

"Brother, the road is dark to Catharines-town. There are no stars there, no moon, no sun--only a b.l.o.o.d.y mist in the forest. For to that dreadful empire of the Iroquois only blind trails lead. And from them ghosts of the Long House arise and stand. Only a thick darkness is there--an endless gloom to which the Mohican hatchets long, long ago dispatched the severed souls they struck! In every trail they stand, these ghosts of the Kanonsi, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga--ghosts of the Tuscarora. The Mohawk beasts who wear the guise of men are there.

Mayaro spits upon them! And upon their League! And upon their Atotarho the Siwanois spit!"

Suddenly his arm shot out and he grasped the hilt of my knife, drew it from my belt, and then slowly returned it. I drew his knife and rendered it again.

"Brother," he said, "I have this day heard your voice coming to me out of the Northland! I have read the message on the belt you bore and wear; your voice has not lied to my ears; your message is clear as running springs to my eyes. I can see through to their pleasant depths.

No snake lies hidden under them. So now--now, I say--if my brother's sight is dimmed on the trail to Catharines-town, Mayaro will teach him how to see under the night-sun as owls see, so that behind us, the steps of many men shall not stumble, and the darkness of the Long House shall become redder than dawn, lighted by the flames of a thousand rifles!

"Brother! A Sagamore never lies. I have drawn my brother's knife!

Brother, I have spoken!"

And so it was done in that house and in the dark of dawn. Boyd silently gave him his hands, and so did I; then Boyd led him aside with a slight motion of dismissal to me.

As I walked toward the front door, which was now striding open, I saw Major Tallmadge go out ahead of me, run to the mounting-block, and climb into his saddle. Colonel Sheldon followed him to the doorway, and called after him:

"Take a dozen men with you, and meet Colonel Moylan! A dozen will be sufficient, Major!"

Then he turned back into the house, saying to Major Lockwood and Mr.

Hunt he was positive that the large body of dragoons in rapid motion, which had been seen and reported by one of our videttes a few minutes since, could be no other than Moylan's expected regiment; and that he would mount his own men presently and draw them up in front of the Meeting House.

The rain had now nearly ceased; a cloudy, greyish horizon became visible, and the dim light spreading from a watery sky made objects dimly discernible out of doors.

I hastened back to the shed where I had left the strange maid swathed in her scarlet cape; and found her there, slowly pacing the trampled sod before it.