The Maid-At-Arms Part 47

Catrine Montour, slavering and gasping, leaned against the painted war-post. Into the fire-ring came dancing a dozen girls, all strung with brilliant wampum, their bodies and limbs painted vermilion, sleeveless robes of wild iris hanging to their knees. With a shout they chanted:

"O False-Faces, prepare to do honor to the truth! She who Dreams has come from her three sisters--the Woman of the Thunder-cloud, the Woman of the Sounding Footsteps, the Woman of the Murmuring Skies!"

And, joining hands, they cried, sweetly: "Come, O Little Rosebud Woman!--Ke-neance-e-qua! O-gin-e-o-qua!--Woman of the Rose!"

And all together the False-Faces cried: "Welcome to Ta-lu-la, the leaping waters! Here is I-e-nia, the wanderer's rest! Welcome, O Woman of the Rose!"

Then the grotesque throng of the False-Faces parted right and left; a lynx, its green eyes glowing, paced out into the firelight; and behind the tawny tree-cat came slowly a single figure--a young girl, bare of breast and arm; belted at the hips with silver, from which hung a straight breadth of doeskin to the instep of her bare feet. Her dark hair, parted, fell in two heavy braids to her knees; her lips were tinted with scarlet; her small ear-lobes and finger-tips were stained a faint rose-color.

In the breathless silence she raised her head. Sir George's crushing grip clutched my arm, and he fell a-shuddering like a man with ague.

The figure before us was Magdalen Brant.

The lynx lay down at her feet and looked her steadily in the face.

Slowly she raised her rounded arm, opened her empty palm; then from s.p.a.ce she seemed to pluck a rose, and I saw it there between her forefinger and her thumb.

A startled murmur broke from the throng. "Magic! She plucks blossoms from the empty air!"

"O you Oneidas," came the sweet, serene voice, "at the tryst of the False-Faces I have kept my tryst.

"You wise men of the Six Nations, listen now attentively; and you, ensigns and attestants, attend, honoring the truth which from my twin lips shall flow, sweetly as new honey and as sap from April maples."

She stooped and picked from the ground a withered leaf, holding it out in her small, pink palm.

"Like this withered leaf is your understanding. It is for a maid to quicken you to life, ... as I restore this last year's leaf to life,"

she said, deliberately.

In her open palm the dry, gray leaf quivered, moved, straightened, slowly turned moist and fresh and green. Through the intense silence the heavy, gasping breath of hundreds of savages told of the tension they struggled under.

She dropped the leaf to her feet; gradually it lost its green and curled up again, a brittle, ashy flake.

"O you Oneidas!" she cried, in that clear voice which seemed to leave a floating melody in the air, "I have talked with my Sisters of the Murmuring Skies, and none but the lynx at my feet heard us."

She bent her lovely head and looked into the creature's blazing orbs; after a moment the cat rose, took three stealthy steps, and lay down at her feet, closing its emerald eyes.

The girl raised her head: "Ask me concerning the truth, you sachems of the Oneida, and speak for the five war-chiefs who stand in their paint behind you!"

An old sachem rose, peering out at her from dim, aged eyes.

"Is it war, O Woman of the Rose?" he quavered.

"Neah!" she said, sweetly.

An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag, Catrine.

"A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks!

It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!"

"And I of peace!" came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh echoes of the hag's shrieking appeal. "Take heed, you Mohawks, and you Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this council-fire!"

"The Oneidas are women!" yelled the hag.

Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked, something did strike the ground--something that coiled and hissed and rattled--a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.

"Mohawks and Cayugas!" she cried; "are you to judge the Oneidas?--you who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?"

There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes.

The lynx growled.

"Quiet!" she said, soothingly. "The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One has gone."

It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.

"Will you be swept away by this young witch's magic?" shrieked Catrine Montour.

"Oneidas!" cried Magdalen Brant, "the way is cleared! Hiro [I have spoken]!"

Then the sachems of the Oneida stood up, wrapping themselves in their blankets, and moved silently away, filing into the forest, followed by the war-chiefs and those who had accompanied the Oneida delegation as attestants.

"Tuscaroras!" said Magdalen Brant, quietly.

The Tuscarora sachems rose and pa.s.sed out into the darkness, followed by their suite of war-chiefs and attestants.

"Onondagas!"

All but two of the Onondaga delegation left the council-fire. Amid a profound silence the Lenape followed, and in their wake stalked three tall Mohicans.

Walter Butler sprang up from the base of the tree where he had been sitting and pointed a shaking finger at Magdalen Brant:

"d.a.m.n you!" he shouted; "if you call on my Mohawks, I'll cut your throat, you witch!"

Brant bounded to his feet and caught Butler's rigid, outstretched arm.

"Are you mad, to violate a council-fire?" he said, furiously. Magdalen Brant looked calmly at Butler, then deliberately faced the sachems.

"Mohawks!" she called, steadily.

There was a silence; Butler's black eyes were almost starting from his bloodless visage; the hag, Montour, clawed the air in helpless fury.

"Mohawks!" repeated the girl, quietly.

Slowly a single war-chief rose, and, casting aside his blanket, drew his hatchet and struck the war-post. The girl eyed him contemptuously, then turned again and called:

"Senecas!"

A Seneca chief, painted like death, strode to the post and struck it with his hatchet.