The Hidden Children Part 32

She said in a quiet voice:

"I must go with you. And that is why--or partly why--I asked you here tonight. Find me some way to go to Catharines-town. For I must go!"

"Why not inquire of me the road to h.e.l.l?" I asked impatiently. She said between her teeth:

"Oh, any man might show me that. And guide me, too. Many have offered, Euan."

"What!"

"I ask your pardon. Two years of camps blunts any woman's speech."

"Lois," said I uneasily, "why do you wish to go to Catharines-town, when an armed force is going?"

She sat considering, then, in a low, firm voice:

"To tell you why, is why I asked you here.... And first I must show you what my packet held.... Shall I show you, Euan?"

"Surely, little comrade."

She drew the packet from her bosom, unlaced the thong, unrolled the deer-hide covering.

"Here is a roll of bark," she said. "This I have never had interpreted.

Can you read it for me, Euan?"

And there in the lantern light I read it, while she looked down over my shoulder.

"KADON!

"Aesa-yat-yen-enghdon, Lois!

"Etho!

[And here was painted a white dog lying dead, its tongue hanging out sideways.]

"Hen-skerigh-watonte.

"Jatthon-ten-yonk, Lois!

"Jin-isaya-dawen-ken-wed-e-wayen.

[Here was drawn in outline the foot and claws of a forest lynx.]

"Niyi-eskah-haghs, na-yegh-nyasa-kenra-dake, niya-wennonh!" [Then a white symbol.]

For a long time I gazed at the writing in shocked silence. Then I asked her if she suspected what was written there in the Canienga dialect.

"I never have had it read. Indians refuse, shake their heads, and look askance at me, and tell me nothing; interpreters laugh at me, saying there is no meaning in the lines. Is there, Euan?"

"Yes," I said.

"You can interpret?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been rendered plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.

"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I muttered.

"Here is a foul screed--and yet a message, too, to you."

Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was written:

"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed! Thus! (Here the white dog.) But I will frustrate their purpose. Keep listening to me, Lois. That which has befallen you we place it here (or, 'we draw it here'--i. e., the severed foot and claws of a lynx). Being born white (literally, 'being born having a white neck'), this happened." And the ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.

"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.

And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of the symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.

I said coolly: "It must have been Amochol--and his Erie sorcerers! How came you in Catharines-town?"

"I? In Catharines-town!" she faltered. "Was I, then, ever there?"

I pointed at the drawing of the dead white dog.

"Somebody saved you from that h.e.l.lish sacrifice. I tell you it is plain enough to read. The rite is practiced only by the red sorcerers of the Senecas.... Look! It was because your 'neck' was 'white'! Look again!

Here is the symbol of the Cat-People--the Eries--the acolytes of Amochol--here! This spread lynx-pad with every separate claw extended!

Yet, it is drawn severed--in symbol of your escape. Lois! Lois! It is plain enough. I follow it all--almost all--nearly--but not quite----"

I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at her with a new and keenly searching question in my gaze.

"You have not shown me all," I said.

"All that is written in the Iroquois tongue. But there were other things in the packet with this bark letter." She opened it again upon her lap.

"Here is a soldier's belt-buckle," she said, offering it to me for my inspection.

It was made of silver and there were still traces of French gilt upon the device.

"Regiment de la Reine," I read. "What regiment is that, Lois? I'm sure I've heard of it somewhere. Oh! Now I remember. It was a very celebrated French regiment--cut all to pieces at Lake George by Sir William Johnson in '55. This is an officer's belt-buckle."

"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"

"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men and new officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name."

"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces--the Regiment de la Reine?" she asked.

"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that b.l.o.o.d.y day."

She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together only by the narrow oval frame of gold.

There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might be, was this girl's father; and n.o.body who had ever seen her and this miniature could ever doubt it.

She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.