_ CHAPTER XII. THENDARA
Motionless, intent, holding my breath, I listened at the paneled wall. Through the wainscot I could hear the low rustling of paper; and I seemed to sense some heavier movement within, though the solid floor did not creak, nor a window quiver, nor a footfall sound.
And now my eyes began traveling cautiously over the paneled wall, against which I had laid my ear. No crack or seam indicated a hidden door, yet I knew there must be one, and gently pressed the wainscot with my shoulder. It gave, almost imperceptibly; I pressed again, and the hidden door opened a hair's breadth, a finger's breadth, an inch, widening, widening noiselessly; and I bent forward and peered into another closet like the one I stood in, also lighted by a loop for rifle-fire. As my head advanced, first a corner of the floor littered with papers came into my range of vision, then an angle of the wall, then a shadowy something which I could not at first make out--and I opened the door a little wider--scarcely an inch--holding it there.
The shadowy something moved; it was a human foot; and the next instant my eyes fell on a figure, partly in shade, partly in the light from the loophole--an Indian, kneeling, absorbed in deciphering a document held flat on the bare floor.
Astounded, almost incredulous, I glared at the vision. Gradually the shock of the surprise subsided; details took shape under my wondering eyes--the slim legs, doubled under, clothed with fringed and beaded leggings to the hips, the gorgeously embroidered sporran, moccasins, and clout, the smooth, naked back, gleaming like palest amber under curtains of stiffly strung scarlet-and-gold traders' wampum--traders' wampum? What did _that_ mean? And what did those heavy, double masses of hair indicate--those soft, twisted ropes of glossy hair, braided half-way with crimson silk shot with silver, then hanging a cloudy shock of black to the belted waist?
Here was no Iroquois youth--no adolescent of the Long House attired for any rite I ever heard of. The hip-leggings were of magnificent Algonquin work; the quill-set, sinew-embroidered moccasins, too. That stringy, iridescent veil of rose, scarlet, and gold wampum on the naked body was _de fantasie_; the belt and knife-sheath pure Huron. As for the gipsy-like arrangement of the hair, no Iroquois boy ever wore it that way; it hinted of the _gens de prairie_. What on earth did it mean? There was no paint on limb or body to guide me. Never had I seen such a being so dressed for any rite or any practise in North America! Oh, if Little Otter were only here! I stole a glance out of the loop, but saw nothing save the pale sunshine on the weeds. If the Oneida had arrived, he had surely already found my horse tied in the lilac thicket, and surely he would follow me where the weeds showed him I had passed. He might wait for a while; but if I emerged not from the house I knew he would be after me, smelling along like a wolfhound until he had tracked me to a standstill. Should I wait for him? I looked at the kneeling figure. So absorbed was the strange young Indian in the document on the floor that I strained my eyes to make out its script, but could not decipher even the corner of the paper exposed to my view. Then it occurred to me that it was a strange thing for an Indian to read. Scarce one among the Iroquois, save Brant and the few who had been to Dr. Wheelock's school, knew A from Zed, or could more than scrawl their clan-mark to a birchen letter.
Suspicious lest, after all, I had to do with a blue-eyed Indian or painted Tory, I examined the unconscious reader thoroughly. And, after a little while, a strange apprehension settled into absolute conviction as I looked. So certain was I that every gathered muscle relaxed; I drew a deep, noiseless breath of relief, smiling to myself, and stepped coolly forward, letting the secret door swing to behind me with a deadened thud.
Like a startled tree-cat the figure sprang to its feet, whirling to confront me. And I laughed again, for I was looking into the dark, dilated eyes of a young girl.
"Have no fear," I began quietly; and the next instant the words were driven into my throat, for she was on me in one bound, hunting-knife glittering.
Round the walls we reeled, staggering, wrestling, clinched like infuriated wolverines. I had her wrist in my grip, squeezing it, and the bright, sparkling knife soon clattered to the boards, but she suddenly set her crooked knee inside mine and tripped me headlong, hurling us both sideways to the floor, where we rolled, desperately locked, she twisting and reaching for the knife again and again, until I kicked it behind me and staggered to my feet, dragging her with me in all her fury. But her maddened strength, her sinuous twisting, her courage, so astonished me that again and again she sent me reeling almost to my knees, taxing my agility and my every muscle to keep her from tripping me flat and recovering her knife. At length she began to sway; her dark, defiant eyes narrowed to two flaming slits; her distorted mouth weakened into sullen lines, through which I caught the flash of locked teeth crushing back the broken, panting breath. I held her like a vise; she could no longer move. And when at last she knew it, her rigid features, convulsed with rage, relaxed into a blank, smooth mask of living amber.
For a moment I held her, feeling her whole body falling loose-limbed and limp--held her until her sobbing breath grew quieter and more regular. Then I released her; she reeled, steadying herself against the wall with one hand; and, stepping back, I sank one knee, and whipped the knife from the floor.
That she now looked for death at my hands was perfectly evident, I being dressed as a forest-runner who knows no sex when murder is afoot. I saw the flushed face pale slightly; the lip curl contemptuously. Proudly she lifted her head, haughtily faced me.
"Dog of bastard nation!" she panted; "look me between the eyes and strike!"
"Little sister," I answered gravely, using the soft Oneida idiom, "let there be peace between us."
A flash of wonder lit her dark eyes. And I said again, smiling: "O Heart-divided-into-two-hearts, te-ha-eho-eh, you are like him whom we name, after 'The Two Voices'--we of the Wolf. Therefore is there peace and love 'twixt thee and me."
The wonder in her eyes deepened; her whole body quivered.
"Who are you with a white skin who speak like a crested sachem?" she faltered.
"Tat-sheh-teh, little sister. I bear the quiver, but my war-arrows are broken."
"Oneida!" she exclaimed softly, clasping her hands between her breasts.
I stepped closer, holding out my arms; slowly she laid her hands in mine, looking fearlessly up into my face. I turned her palms upward and placed the naked knife across them; she bent her head, then straightened up, looking me full in the eyes.
Still smiling, I laid both my hands on the collar of my hunting-shirt, baring throat and chest; and, as the full significance of the tiny tattoo dawned upon her, she shivered.
"Tharon!" she stammered. "Thou! What have I done!" And, shuddering, cast the knife at my feet as though it had been the snake that rattles.
"Little sister----"
"Oh, no! no! What have I done! What have I dared! I have raised my hand against Him whom you have talked with face to face----"
"Only Tharon has done that," I said gently, "I but wear his sign. Peace, Woman of the Morning. There is no injury where there is no intent. We are not yet '_at the Forest's Edge_.'"
Slowly the color returned to lip and cheek, her fascinated eyes roamed from my face to the tattooed wolf and mark of Tharon crossing it. And after a little she smiled faintly at my smile, as I said:
"I have drawn the fangs of the Wolf; fear no more, Daughter of the Sun."
"I--I fear no more," she breathed.
"Shall an ensign of the Oneida cherish wrath?" I asked. "He who bears a quiver has forgotten. See, child; it is as it was from the beginning. Hiro."
I calmly seated myself on the floor, knees gathered in my clasped hands; and she settled down opposite me, awaiting in instinctive silence my next words.
"Why does my sister wear the dress of an adolescent, mocking the False Faces, when the three fires are not yet kindled?" I asked.
"I hold the fire-right," she said quickly. "Ask those who wear the mask where cherries grow. O sachem, those cherries were ripe ere I was!"
I thought a moment, then fixed my eager eyes on her.
"Only the Cherry-Maid of Adriutha has that right," I said. My heart, beating furiously, shook my voice, for I knew now who she was.
"I am Cherry-Maid to the three fires," she said; "in bud at Adriutha, in blossom at Carenay, in fruit at Danascara."
"Your name?"
"Lyn Montour."
I almost leaped from the floor in my excitement; yet the engrafted Oneida instinct of a sachem chained me motionless. "You are the wife of Walter Butler," I said deliberately, in English.
A wave of crimson stained her face and shoulders. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands.
"Little sister," I said gently, "is it not the truth? Does a Quiver-bearer lie, O Blossom of Carenay?"
Her hands fell away; she raised her head, the tears shining on her heavy lashes: "It is the truth."
"His wife?" I repeated slowly.
"His wife, O Bearer of Arrows! He took me at the False Faces' feast, and the Iroquois saw. Yet the cherries were still green at Danascara. Twice the Lenape covered their faces; twice 'The Two Voices' unveiled his face. So it was done there on the Kennyetto." She leaned swiftly toward me: "Twice he denied me at Niagara. Yet once, when our love was new--when I still loved him--he acknowledged me here in this very house, in the presence of a County Magistrate, Sir John Johnson. I am his wife, I, Lyn Montour! I have never lied to woman or man, O my elder brother!"
"And that is why you have come back?"
"Yes; to search--for something to help me--some record--God knows!--I have searched and searched--" She stretched out her bare arms and gazed hopelessly around the paper-littered floor.
"Will not Sir John uphold you with his testimony?" I asked.
"He? No! He also denies it. What can a woman expect of a man who has broken parole?" she added, in contempt.
I leaned toward her, speaking slowly, and with deadly emphasis:
"Dare Walter Butler deny what the Iroquois Nation may attest?"
"He dare," she said, burning eyes on mine. "I am more Algonquin than Huron, and more than nine-tenths white. What is it to the Iroquois that this man puts me away? It was the Mohican and Lenape who veiled their faces, not the Iroquois. What is it to white men that he took me and has now put me away? What is it to them that he now takes another?"
"Another? Whom?" My lips scarcely formed the question.
"I do not know her name. When he returned from the horrors of Cherry Valley Sir Frederick Haldimand refused to see him. Yet he managed to make love to Sir Frederick's kinswoman--a child--as I was when he took me----"
She closed her eyes. I saw the lashes all wet again, but her voice did not tremble: "He is at Niagara with his Rangers--or was. And--when I came to him he laughed at me, bidding me seek a new lover at the fort----"
Her voice strangled. Twisting her fingers, she sat there, eyes closed, dumb, miserable. At last she gasped out: "O Quiver-bearer, with a white voice and a skin scarce whiter than my own, though your nation be sundered from the Long House, though I be an outcast of clans and nations, speak to me kindly, for my sadness is bitter, and the ghost of my dead honor confronts me in every forest-trail!" She stretched out her arms piteously:
"Teach me, brother; instruct me; heal my bruised heart of hate for this young man who was my undoing--cleanse my fierce, desirous heart. I love him no longer; I--I dare not hate him lest I slay him ere he rights my wrongs. My sorrow is heavier than I can bear--and I am young, O sachem--not yet eighteen--until the snow flies."
She laid her face in her hands once more; through her slim fingers the bright tears fell slowly.
"Are you Christian, little sister?" I asked, wondering.
"I do not know. They say so. A brave Jesuit converted me ere I was unstrapped from the cradle-board--ere I could lisp or toddle. God knows. My own brother died in war-paint; my grandmother was French Margaret, my mother--if she be my mother--is the Huron witch of Wyoming; some call her Catrine, some Esther. Yet I was chaste--till _he_ took me--chaste as an Iroquois maid. Thus has he wrought with me. Teach me to forgive him!"
And _this_ the child of Catrine Montour? This that bestial creature they described to me as some slim, fierce temptress of the forests?
"Listen," I said gently; "if you are wedded by a magistrate, you are his wife; yet if that magistrate falsely witnesses against you, you can not prove it. I would give all I have to prove your marriage. Do you understand?"
She looked at me, uncomprehending.
"The woman I love is the woman he now claims as wife," I said calmly. Then, in that strange place, alone there together in the dim light, she lying full length on the floor, her hands clasped on my knees, told me all. And there, together, we took counsel how to bring this man to judgment--not the Almighty's ultimate punishment, not even that stern retribution which an outraged world might exact, but a merciful penance--the public confession of the tie that bound him to this young girl. For, among the Iroquois, an unchaste woman is so rare that when a maiden commits the fault she is like a leper until death releases her from her awful isolation.
Together, too, we searched the littered papers on the floor, piece by piece, bit by bit, but all in vain. And while kneeling there I heard a stealthy step behind me, and looked back over my shoulder, to see the Oneida, Little Otter, peering in at us, eyeballs fairly starting from his painted face. Lyn Montour eyed him silently, and without expression, but I laughed to see how surely he had followed me as I had expected; and motioned him away to await my coming.
It was, I should judge, nearly five o'clock when we descended by the open stairway to the ground floor. I held the window wide; she placed her hands on the sill and leaped lightly to the grass. I followed. Presently the lilac thicket parted and the tall Oneida appeared, leading my horse. One keen, cunning glance he gave at the girl, then, impassive, stood bolt upright beside my horse. He was superb, stripped naked to clout and moccasin, head shaved, body oiled and most elaborately painted; and on his broad breast glimmered the Wolf lined in sapphire-blue. When the long roll of the dead thundered through the council-house, his name was the fourth to be called--Shononses. And never was chief of the Oneida nation more worthy to lift the antlers that no grave must ever cover while the Long House endures.
"Has my brother learned news of the gathering in the north?" I asked, studying the painted symbols on his face and body.
"The council sits at dawn," he replied quietly.
"At dawn!" I exclaimed. "Why, we have no time, then----"
"There is time, brother. There is always time to die."
"To--die!" I looked at him, startled. Did he, then, expect no mercy at the council? He raised his eyes to me, smiling. There was nothing of fear, nothing of boastfulness, even, in attitude or glance. His dignity appalled me, for I knew what it meant. And, suddenly, the full significance of his paint flashed upon me.
"You think there is no chance for us?" I repeated.
"None, brother."
"And yet you go?"
"And you, brother?"
"I am ordered; I am pledged to take such chances. But you need not go, Little Otter. See, I free you now. Leave me, brother. I desire it."
"Shononses will stay," he said impassively. "Let the Long House learn how the Oneidas die."
I shuddered and looked again at his paint. It was inevitable; no orders, no commands, no argument could now move him. He understood that he was about to die, and he had prepared himself. All I could hope for was that he had mistaken the temper of the council; that the insolence of a revolted nation daring to present a sachem at the Federal-Council might be overlooked--might be condoned, even applauded by those who cherished in their dark hearts, locked, the splendid humanity of the ancient traditions. But there was no knowing, no prophesying what action a house divided might take, what attitude a people maddened by dissensions, wrought to frenzy by fraternal conflict, might assume. God knows the white man's strife was barbarous enough, brother murdering brother beneath the natal roof. What, then, might be looked for from the fierce, proud people whose Confederacy was steadily crumbling beneath our touch; whose crops and forests and villages had gone roaring up into flames as the vengeance of Sullivan, with his Rangers, his Continentals, and his Oneidas, passed over their lands in fire!
"Where sits the council?" I asked soberly.
"At the Dead-Water."
It was an all-night journey by the Fish House-trails, for we dared not strike the road, with Sir John's white demons outlying from the confluence to Frenchman's creek.
I looked at my horse. Little Otter had strapped ammunition and provisions to the saddle, leaving room for a rider. I turned to Lyn Montour; she laid her hands on my shoulders, and I swung her up astride the saddle.
"Now," I said briefly; and we filed away into the north, the Oneida leading at a slow trot.
I shall never forget the gloom, the bitter misery of that dark trail where specters ever stared at me as I journeyed, where ghosts arose in every trail--pale wraiths of her I loved, calling me back to love again. And "Lost, lost, lost!" wept the little brooks we crossed, all sobbing, whispering her name.
What an end of all--to die now, leaving life's work unfinished, life's desire unsatisfied--all that I loved unprotected and alone on earth. What an end to it all--and I had done nothing for the cause, nothing except the furtive, obscure work which others shrank from! And now, skulking to certain death, was denied me even the poor solace of an honored memory. Here in this shaggy desolation no ray of glory might penetrate to gild my last hour with a hero's halo; contempt must be my reward if I failed. I must die amid the scornful laughter of Iroquois women, the shrill taunts of children, the jeers of renegade white men, who pay a thief more honor at the cross-roads gallows than they pay a convicted spy. Why, I might not even hope for the stern and dignified justice that the Oneida awaited--an iron justice that respected the victim it destroyed; for he came openly as a sachem of a disobedient nation in revolt, daring to justify his nation and his clan. But I was to act if not to speak a lie; I was to present myself as a sleek non-partizan, symbolizing only a nobility of the great Wolf clan. And if any man accused me as a spy, and if suspicion became conviction, the horrors of my degradation would be inconceivable. Yet, plying once more my abhorred trade, I could only obey, hope against hope, and strive to play the man to the end, knowing what failure meant, knowing, too, what my reward for success might be--a low-voiced "Thank you" in secret, a grasp of the hands behind locked doors--a sum of money pressed on me slyly--_that_ hurt most of all--to put it away with a smile, and keep my temper. Good God! Does a Renault serve his country for money! Why, _why_, can they not understand, and spare me that!--the wages of the wretched trade!
Darkness had long since infolded us; we had slackened to a walk, moving forward between impervious walls of blackness. And always on the curtain of the inky shadow I saw Elsin's pallid face gazing upon me, until the vision grew so real that I could have cried out in my anguish, reeling forward, on, ever on, through a blackness thick as the very shadows of the pit that hides lost souls!
At midnight we halted for an hour. The Oneida ate calmly; Lyn Montour tasted the parched corn, and drank at an unseen spring that bubbled a drear lament amid the rocks. Then we descended into the Drowned Lands, feeling our spongy trail between osier, alder, and willow. Once, very far away, I saw a light, pale as a star, low shining on the marsh. It was the Fish House, and we were near our journey's end--perhaps the end of all journeys, save that last swift trail upward among those thousand stars!
It was near to dawn when we came out upon the marsh; and above, I heard the whir and whimpering rush of wild ducks passing, the waking call of birds, twittering all around us in the darkness; the low undertone of the black water flowing to the Sacandaga.
Over the quaking marsh we passed, keeping the trodden trail, now wading, now ankle-deep in cranberry, now up to our knees in moss, now lost in the high marsh-grass, on, on, through birch hummocks, willows, stunted hemlocks and tamaracks, then on firm ground once more, with the oak-mast under foot, and the white dawn silvering the east, and my horse breathing steam as he toiled on.
Suddenly I was aware of a dark figure moving through the marsh, parallel, and close to me. The Oneida stopped, stared, then drew his blanket around him and sat down at the foot of a great oak.
We had arrived at Thendara! Now, all around us in the dim glade, tall forms moved--spectral shapes of shadowy substance that drifted hither and thither, passing, repassing, melting into the gloom around, until I could scarce tell them from the shreds of marsh fog that rose and floated through the trees around us.
Slowly the heavens turned to palest gold, then to saffron. All about us shadowy throngs arose to face the rising sun. A moment of intense stillness, then a far, faint cry, "Koue!" And the glittering edge of the sun appeared above the wooded heights. Blinding level rays fell on the painted faces of the sachems of the Long House, advancing to the forest's edge; the Oneida strode forward, head erect, and I, with a sign to the girl at my side, followed.
As we walked through the long, dead grass, I, watching sidewise, noted the absence of the Senecas. Was it for them the condolence? Suddenly it struck me that to our side of the circle belonged the duty of the first rites. Who would speak? Not the Oneidas, for there was none, except Little Otter and myself. Who then? The Cayugas?
I shot a side glance among the slowly moving forms. Ah! that was it! A Cayuga sachem led the march.
The circle was already forming. I saw the Senecas now; I saw all the sachems seating themselves in a cleared space where a birch fire smoldered, sweetening the keen morning air with its writhing, aromatic smoke; I saw the Oneida cross proudly to his place on our side; and I seated myself beside him, raising my eyes to the towering figure of Tahtootahoo, the chief sachem and ensign of the great Bear Clan of the Onondaga nation, who stood beside the Cayuga spokesman in whispered conference.
To and fro strode the Cayuga, heavy head bent; to and fro, pacing the circle like a stupefied panther. Once his luminous eyes gleamed on mine, shifted blankly to the Oneida, and thence along the motionless circle of painted faces. Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga were there, forming half the circle; Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora welded it to a ring. I glanced fearfully from ensign to ensign, but saw no Delaware present; and my heart leaped with hope. Walter Butler had lied to me; the Lenni-Lenape had never sat at this rite; his mongrel clan had no voice here. He had lied.
The pipe had been lighted and was passing in grave silence. I received it from a Tuscarora, used it, and handed it to the Oneida, watching the chief sachem of the Senecas as he arose to deliver his brief address of welcome. He spoke in the Seneca dialect, and so low that I could understand him only with greatest difficulty, learning nothing except that a Seneca Bear was to be raised up to replace a dead chief slain at Sharon.
Then a very old sachem arose and made a sign which was the symbol of travel. We touched hands and waited, understanding the form prescribed. Alas, the mourning Senecas had no longer a town to invite us to; the rite must be concluded where we sat; we must be content with the sky for the roof which had fallen in on the Long House, the tall oaks for the lodge-poles, the east and west for the doors broken down by the invasion.
Solemnly the names of the score and three legendary towns were recited, first those of the Wolf, next of the Tortoise, then of the Bear; and I saw my Wolf-brethren of the four classes of the Mohawks and Cayugas staring at me as I rose when they did and seated myself at the calling of my towns. And, by heaven! I noted, too, that the Tuscaroras of the Grey Wolf and the Yellow Wolf knew their places, and rose only after we were seated. Except for the Onondaga Tortoise, a cleft clan awaits the pleasure of its betters. Even a Delaware should know that much, but Walter Butler was ever a liar, for it is not true that the Anowara or Tortoise is the noble clan, nor yet the Ocquari. It is the Wolf, the Oquacho Clan; and the chiefs of the Wolf come first of all!
Suddenly the sonorous voice of the Seneca broke the silence, pronouncing the opening words of the most sacred rite of the Iroquois people:
"_Now to-day I have been greatly startled by your voice coming through the forest to this opening_----"
The deep, solemn tones of the ancient chant fell on the silence like the notes of a sad bell. It was, then, to be a double rite. Which nation among the younger brothers mourned a chief? I looked at the Oneida beside me; his proud smile softened. Then I understood. Good God! They were mourning him, _him_, as though he were already dead!
The Seneca's voice was sounding in my ears: "_Now, therefore, you who are our friends of the Wolf Clan_----" I scarcely heard him. Presently the "Salute" rolled forth from the council; they were intoning the "Karenna."
I laid my hand on the Oneida's wrist; his pulse was calm, nor did it quicken by a beat as the long roll of the dead was called:
"_Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler,
Hiawatha!
Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler:
That was the roll of you--
You who began it--
You who completed
The Great League!--
Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler:
That was the roll of you_----"
The deep cadence of the chanting grew to a thunderous sound; name after name of the ancient dead was called, and the thrilling response swelled, culminating in a hollow shout. Then a pause, and the solemn tones of a single voice intoning the final words of gloom.
For ten full minutes there was not a sound except the faint snapping of the smoking birch twigs. Then up rose the chief sachem of the Cayugas, cast aside his blanket, faced the circle, dark, lean arm outstretched; and from his lips flowed the beautiful opening words of the Younger Nations:
"_Yo o-nen o-nen wen-ni-teh onen_----"
"_Now--now this day--now I come to your door where you mourn.... I will enter your door and come before the ashes and mourn with you there. And these words will I speak to comfort you!_" The music of the voice thrilled me:
"_To the warriors, to the women, and also to the children; and also to the little ones creeping on the ground, and also to those still tied to the cradle-board.... This we say, we three brothers...._
"_Now another thing we will say, we younger brothers. You mourn. I will clear the sky for you so that you shall not behold a cloud. And also I give the sun to shine upon you, so that you can look peacefully upon it when it goes down. You shall see it when it is going. Yea, ye shall look peacefully upon it when it goes down...._
"_Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any one should fall, then the antlers shall be left on the grave...._
"_Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the belt on you with the quiver, and the next death will receive the quiver whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, we three brothers._
"_Now I have finished. Now show me the man!_" Slowly the Oneida rose from my side and crossed the circle. Every eye was on him; he smiled as he halted, sweeping the throng with a tranquil glance. Then, drawing his blanket about him he stepped from the sanctuary of the council-ring out into the forest; and after him glided a Mohawk warrior, with face painted black, in token of his terrific office.
A dead silence fell upon the council.
The pulse was drumming in ears and throat when I arose; and, as the Mohawk executioner slipped noiselessly past me, I seized him by the clout-belt, and, summoning every atom of strength, hurled him headlong at my feet, so that he lay stunned and like one dead.
A roar of astonishment greeted me; a score of voices cried out savagely on my violation of the fire.
"It is you who violate it!" I answered, trembling with fury; "you who dare pronounce the sentence of death without consulting the four classes of the Oneida!"
A Mohawk sachem arose, casting his scarlet robes at his feet, and pointed at me, hissing: "Where are the Oneida classes? I dare you to tell us where the ensigns hide! Where are they? Speak!"
"Here!" I said, tearing my cape open. "Read that sign, O Canienga! I answer for the four classes of my nation, and I say that Oneida shall go free! Now let him who dare accuse me stand forth. It is a Wolf of Tharon who has spoken!"
Absolute silence greeted me. I had risked all on the hazard.
The executioner had staggered to his feet again, and now stood outside the circle leaning against a young oak-tree, half stunned, mechanically rubbing the twigs and dead leaves from the sticky black paint that masked his visage. I wheeled on him and bade him remain where he was until the council's will was made known; then I walked into the circle; and when they cried out that I had no franchise, I laughed at them, challenging them to deny me my right to stand here for the entire Oneida nation.
For there was nothing now to do but to carry the desperate enterprise through or perish. I dared not stop to consider; to attempt to remember precedents. I turned on the Mohawks haughtily, demanding that privilege which even they could not refuse; I claimed clan-brotherhood from every Wolf in the Long House; and when the council accorded it, I spoke:
"Now I say to you, O you wise men and sachems, that this Oneida shall not die, because the four classes speak through my mouth! Who is there to give me the lie? Why are your eight score Oneidas absent--the eight score who still remain in the Long House? Surely, brothers, there are sachems among them? Why are they not here? Do you fear they might not agree to the punishment of the Oneida nation?"
I folded my arms and stared at the Mohawks.
"Clan ties are close, national ties closer, but strongest and closest of all, the six iron links that form the Great League! Why do you punish now? _How_ can you punish now? Is it well to break the oldest League law to punish those who have broken the law of the League?"
A Mohawk sachem answered in a dozen stinging words that the League itself was broken; but ere he could finish I stopped him with a gesture.
Then, summoning all my powers, I burst out into a passionate protest, denying that the Great League was broken, glorying in its endurance, calling on every nation to uphold it. And instantly, although not a muscle moved nor a word was uttered, I felt that I had the council with me, that my passion was swaying them, that what I asserted they believed. I laughed at the neutrality of the Tuscaroras, at the half-hearted attitude of the Onondagas; I made light of the rebellion of the greater portion of the Oneida nation.
"It is a passing fancy, a whim. The battle-breeze from this white man's war has risen to a tempest, unroofing the Long House, scattering you for the moment, creating a disorder, inciting a passion foreign to the traditions of the Iroquois. I tell you to let the tempest pass and blame no one, neither Tuscarora, Onondaga, nor Oneida. And when the storm has died out, let the Six Nations gather again from their hiding-places and build for the Long House a new roof, and raise new lodge-poles, lest the sky fall down and the Confederacy lie in ashes forever!"
I had ended. A profound hush followed, broken by a low word of approval, then another, then another. Excited, scarcely knowing what I had done, incredulous that I alone had actually stemmed the tide, and, in a breath, overturned the entire plan of the Butlers and of the demoralized Iroquois, I seated myself beside the Tuscaroras, breathing heavily, alert for a sound that might indicate how my harangue had been received.
Muttered expressions of approval, an emphatic word here and there, and not an orator to dispute me!--why, this was victory--though, until the clans had deliberated, I could not know the Federal verdict. But gradually it dawned on me that I had at least stopped the murder of my Oneida, and had lulled all suspicion concerning myself. With a thrill of joy I heard the Seneca spokesman call for the youth to be raised in place of the dead chief; with a long-drawn breath of relief I saw the ancient belts brought, and listened to the reading of the archives from them.
The council ended. One by one the sachems spoke to me kindly, then went their way, some taking to canoes, others filing off through the forest, until I found myself standing there alone before the smoldering fire, the forest before me, the noon sun blazing overhead.
The Oneida, motionless now in the midst of those who had but an hour before decreed his death, watched the plumed sachems pass him in silence. Neither he nor they uttered a word; but when the last canoe had glided off down the Dead Water toward the Sacandaga, and the last tall form faded from view in thicket, marsh, and forest, Little Otter turned and came quietly to me, laying my hands on his heart, and looking me steadily in the eyes. Then together we returned, picking our path through the marsh, until we came to Lyn Montour. As she rose to meet us, a distant sound in the forest attracted the Oneida's attention. I heard it, too; it was the gallop of horses, coming from the north. No Iroquois rode a horse.
Nearer, nearer sounded the drumming thud of the hoofs. I could feel the sodden marsh jarring now--hear the brush crackle and snap.
Suddenly a horseman galloped out of the forest's edge, drew bridle at the clearing, bent and examined the covered fire, struck his forehead, and stared around him.
The horseman was Walter Butler. _