"To the left," sobbed the voice from the bear's mask.
We turned between the trunks of the pines, the mat of fallen needles
springy underfoot. Behind us the fires of the Dancing-Place were a
faint radiance in the dusk. Branches crashed; bodies hurtled against
each other; a bedlam of shrieks resounded to the skies.
"Let me help you," I panted to our rescuer.
"There will be no need," she answered, running stride for stride
beside us.
"At the least, slip off your mask," urged Ta-wan-ne-ars.
"I shall be wanting it presently," she returned. "Do not be
concerned for me. Many a mile I have run with the gillies over the
Highland hills."
She stumbled as she spoke, and I set my hand under her elbow.
Ta-wan-ne-ars did the same on the other side, and so we ran for a
space, three and three, our bruised and rusty joints gradually
limbering with the effort.
Presently we came to an opening amongst the pines, with a huge, flat
rock in the center and before the rock the ashes of a fire. My foot
struck something round, and a human skull, blackened and charred,
bounded ahead of us. I felt a shudder pass through the slender
figure in the mask.
"'Tis the altar of the False Faces," she murmured. "If Père
Hyacinthe only knew!"
"What dreadful----" I started to say.
"No, no," she said. "Do not be asking me. I can not think of it
without pain. But there is this to be thankful for: none but the
Ga-go-sa will dare to follow us through the wood."
"Was that your thought?" I questioned.
"No. I was helpless. 'Twas the Mistress--she bade me call her
Ga-ha-no--thought of everything."
Ta-wan-ne-ars stopped in his stride.
"What of Ga-ha-no?" he demanded sternly.
She glanced fearfully backward along the way we had come.
"We may not stay," she answered rapidly. "I will talk as we run.
Oh, haste, haste, or all will be lost!"
The Seneca resumed his steady gait, but the moonlight filtering
through the branches revealed the agony in his face, an agony which
the ordeal at the stake had not been able to produce.
"Ga-ha-no thought of all," gasped our companion, her voice strangely
muffled by the mask. "She came to me this morning--whilst I was
pleading with them--told me how it might be done--fetched me
here--procured me the mask and costume--taught me the dance. 'Twas
she secured the delay--in your torture--made them send you
food--bolstered your strength."
"Where is she now?" asked Ta-wan-ne-ars hardly.
She looked sidewise at him--I think in pity.
"With the Chevalier de Veulle," she said reluctantly.
Then with quick earnestness:
"'Twas part of her plan. It might not--otherwise be done."
He was silent, and we ran on for as much as a quarter-hour, coming
then to the bank of a small stream, where a trail marked a ford.
"Under those bushes," she said, pointing, "you will find your clothes
and weapons. We hid them this evening."
I scurried into the undergrowth and started to don the tattered
leather garments which were fastened in a bundle to the barrel of my
musket--the musket that Juggins had given to me, years and years ago,
it seemed, in London, and which I had expected never to see again.
But she halted me.
"No, no, Mr. Ormerod!" she exclaimed. "There is not time. You must
go on alone, the two of you. They will expect you to strike into the
Doom Trail. 'Tis the quickest way to the settlements. Ga-ha-no bade
me tell you to go west instead, making for Oswego at the mouth of the
Onondagas River. So you may shake off the pursuit of the Keepers."
"But you?" I cried, standing up, bundle and musket in hand.
"'Tis my part to lead them into the Doom Trail."
Ta-wan-ne-ars joined with me in a violent protest. But she waved us
aside.
"There is no other way."
"We can fight them off," I asserted.
"But I do not wish to leave," she said.
"What? You would stay here in this place of evil, knowing what goes
on!"
"There is no other way," she repeated. "I will have learned much
since my coming here, Master Ormerod, and amongst other things, to
think the less harshly of you."
"For that I am thankful," I replied, "but sure, you must let us take
you back to Fort Orange. Governor Burnet will care for you."
"It can not be," she insisted. "My place is here. Wicked as they
be, these men here--and he who is called my father is not the
cleanest of them--they work in a good cause. 'Tis for me to stay by
and see they do what is expected of them for it."
"We will force you to come with us," I declared hotly.
She shook her cumbrous mask.
"You would not do so. Now be off, sir. The False Faces will be on
us any moment--and I am not wishing to be caught by them, even though
they would not venture to do me harm."
A burst of ferocious yelling came from the heart of the pine wood.
"They have seen traces of us in the open space by the altar,"
interpreted Ta-wan-ne-ars.
He swung musket and bundle to his shoulder, and faced the bear-mask,
a splendid figure in bronze.
"Sister Ne-e-ar-go-ye," he said gravely, "did Ga-ha-no give you any
message for Ta-wan-ne-ars?"
She hesitated.
"She said that if you asked for her I was to tell you to forget
Ga-ha-no, that she was unworthy of your memory. But you were to
believe that what she did for you tonight was in reparation for her
first great wrong."
He bowed his head.
"And oh, Ta-wan-ne-ars," she went on impulsively, "she pays a bitter
price. Forgive her."
Ta-wan-ne-ars looked up.
"Say this to Ga-ha-no," he answered. "Say Ta-wan-ne-ars thinks of
her as a Lost Soul, tarrying for a while with Ata-ent-sic, and in the
end he will come for her and bring her home again to his lodge. Say
that Ta-wan-ne-ars never forgets."
He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell, and stepped into
the current of the stream.
"We part once more, Marjory," I said, offering my hand.
She took it.
"For certain words I have spoken to you, I am sorry," she said. "I
know more now. You may be my enemy, but I believe you not to be a
traitor."
"Thank you. And is that all you have to say to me?"
"That is all," she replied softly, withdrawing her hand.
"Do you take this knife, then," I said, sparring for time against my
judgment and all expediency.
She refused it.
"If I am caught they will not harm me."
I shivered at thought of the hands of the brutal priests of
So-a-ka-ga-gwa on her unsullied body.
"I will not leave you," I cried, and made to walk with her along the
trail.
But she pushed me back.
"You will not be helping me by so acting," she insisted in her quaint
Gaelic speech which had won me when I first heard it. "And--and some
day I may need your help more than I do tonight."
"Will you call upon me then?"
"Yes."
The yelling of the False Faces burst forth much nearer in the wood.
"Please go, Master Ormerod," she begged. "If I am not overtaken,
this mask will protect me as far as the chapel, where my own clothes
are awaiting me. They dare not enter there."