In which we are the Guests of an Emperor
I had before this spent days among the Indians, on voyages of discovery,
as conqueror, as negotiator for food, exchanging blue beads for corn and
turkeys. Other Englishmen had been with me. Knowing those with whom we
dealt for sly and fierce heathen, friends to-day, to-morrow deadly foes,
we kept our muskets ready and our eyes and ears open, and, what with the
danger and the novelty and the bold, wild life, managed to extract some
merriment as well as profit from these visits. It was different now.
Day after day I ate my heart out in that cursed village. The feasting
and the hunting and the triumph, the wild songs and wilder dances, the
fantastic mummeries, the sudden rages, the sudden laughter, the great
fires with their rings of painted warriors, the sleepless sentinels, the
wide marshes that could not be crossed by night, the leaves that rustled
so loudly beneath the lightest footfall, the monotonous days, the
endless nights when I thought of her grief, of her peril, maybe,--it was
an evil dream, and for my own pleasure I could not wake too soon.
Should we ever wake? Should we not sink from that dream without pause
into a deeper sleep whence there would be no waking? It was a question
that I asked myself each morning, half looking to find another hollow
between the hills before the night should fall. The night fell, and
there was no change in the dream.
I will allow that the dark Emperor to whom we were so much beholden gave
us courteous keeping. The best of the hunt was ours, the noblest fish,
the most delicate roots. The skins beneath which we slept were fine and
soft; the women waited upon us, and the old men and warriors held with
us much stately converse, sitting beneath the budding trees with the
blue tobacco smoke curling above our heads. We were alive and sound of
limb, well treated, and with the promise of release; we might have
waited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content. We did not
so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were growing
green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold, black
earth and naked forest, it rose like an exhalation. We knew not what it
was, but we breathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our bones.
Opechancanough we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to him
that his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within his
lodge with the winding passage, and the hanging mats between him and the
world without. At other times, issuing from that retirement, he would
stride away into the forest. Picked men went with him, and they were
gone for hours; but when they returned they bore no trophies, brute or
human. What they did we could not guess. We might have had much comfort
in Nantauquas, but the morning after our arrival in this village the
Emperor sent him upon an embassy to the Rappahannocks, and when for the
fourth time the forest stood black against the sunset he had not
returned. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited the
doubtful fulfilment of that promise made to us below the Uttamussac
temples. But the vigilance of the Indians never slept; they watched us
like hawks, night and day. And the dry leaves under foot would not hold
their peace, and there were the marshes to cross and the river.
Thus four days dragged themselves by, and in the early morning of the
fifth, when we came from our wigwam, it was to find Nantauquas sitting
by the fire, magnificent in the paint and trappings of the ambassador,
motionless as a piece of bronze, and apparently quite unmindful of the
admiring glances of the women who knelt about the fire preparing our
breakfast. When he saw us he rose and came to meet us, and I embraced
him, I was so glad to see him. "The Rappahannocks feasted me long," he
said. "I was afraid that Captain Percy would be gone to Jamestown before
I was back upon the Pamunkey."
"Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantauquas?" I demanded. "I have my
doubts."
He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candour of
his own. "You go with the next sunrise," he answered. "Opechancanough
has given me his word."
"I am glad to hear it," I said. "Why have we been kept at all? Why did
he not free us five days agone?"
He shook his head. "I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughts
which he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents for
the Governor, and with messages of his love to the white men. There will
be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens will
dance before you. Then in the morning you will go."
"Will you not come with us?" I asked, "You are ever welcome amongst us,
Nantauquas, both for your sister's sake and for your own. Rolfe will
rejoice to have you with him again; he ever grudgeth you to the forest."
He shook his head again. "Nantauquas, the son of Powhatan, hath had much
talk with himself lately," he said simply. "The white men's ways have
seemed very good to him, and the God of the white men he knows to be
greater than Okee, and to be good and tender; not like Okee, who sucks
the blood of the children. He remembers Matoax, too, and how she loved
and cared for the white men, and would weep when danger threatened them.
And Rolfe is his brother and his teacher. But Opechancanough is his
king, and the red men are his people, and the forest is his home. If,
because he loved Rolfe, and because the ways of the white men seemed to
him better than his own ways, he forgot these things, he did wrong, and
the One over All frowns upon him. Now he has come back to his home
again, to the forest and the hunting and the warpath, to his king and
his people. He will be again the panther crouching upon the bough----"
"Above the white men?"
He gazed at me in silence, a shadow upon his face.
"Above the Monacans," he answered slowly. "Why did Captain Percy say
'above the white men'? Opechancanough and the English have buried the
hatchet for ever, and the smoke of the peace pipe will never fade from
the air. Nantauquas meant 'above the Monacans or the Long House dogs.'"
I put my hand upon his shoulder. "I know you did, brother of Rolfe by
nature if not by blood! Forget what I said; it was without thought or
meaning. If we go indeed to-morrow, I shall be loath to leave you
behind; and yet, were I in your place, I should do as you are doing."
The shadow left his face and he drew himself up. "Is it what you call
faith and loyalty and like a knight?" he demanded, with a touch of
eagerness breaking through the slowness and gravity with which an Indian
speaks.
"Yea," I made reply. "I think you good knight and true, Nantauquas, and
my friend, moreover, who saved my life."
His smile was like his sister's, quick and very bright, and leaving
behind it a most entire gravity. Together we sat down by the fire and
ate of the sylvan breakfast, with shy brown maidens to serve us and with
the sunshine streaming down upon us through the trees that were growing
faintly green. It was a thing to smile at to see how the Indian girls
manoeuvred to give the choicest meat, the most delicate maize cakes,
to the young war chief, and to see how quietly he turned aside their
benevolence. The meal over, he went to divest himself of his red and
white paint, of the stuffed hawk and strings of copper that formed his
headdress, of his gorgeous belt and quiver and his mantle of racoon
skins, while Diccon and I sat still before our wigwam, smoking, and
reckoning the distance to Jamestown and the shortest time in which we
could cover it.
When we had sat there for an hour, the old men and the warriors came to
visit us, and the smoking must commence all over again. The women laid
mats in a great half-circle, and each savage took his seat with perfect
breeding; that is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone. The
peace paint was upon them all,--red, or red and white; they sat and
looked at the ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon the
air was dense with the fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweep
of painted figures had the seeming of some fantastic dream. An old man
arose and made a long and touching speech with much reference to
calumets and buried hatchets. When he had finished, a chief talked of
Opechancanough's love for the English, "high as the stars, deep as
Popogusso, wide as from the sunrise to the sunset," adding that the
death of Nemattanow last year and the troubles over the hunting grounds
had kindled in the breasts of the Indians no desire for revenge. With
which highly probable statement he made an end, and all sat in silence
looking at me and waiting for my contribution of honeyed words. These
Pamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but little
English to their credit, and the learning of the Paspaheghs was not much
greater. I sat and repeated to them the better part of the seventh canto
of the second book of Master Spenser's "Faery Queen." Then I told them
the story of the Moor of Venice, and ended by relating Smiths tale of
the three Turks' heads. It all answered the purpose to admiration. When
at length they went away to change their paint for the coming feast,
Diccon and I laughed at that foolery as though there were none beside us
who could juggle with words. We were as light-hearted as children--God
forgive us!
The day wore on, with relay after relay of food which we must taste at
least, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches that must be listened
to and answered. When evening came, and our entertainers drew off to
prepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long day's march.
The wind had been high during the day, but with the sunset it sank to a
desolate murmur. The sky wore the strange crimson of the past year at
Weyanoke. Against that sea of colour the pines were drawn in ink, and
beneath it the winding, threadlike creeks that pierced the marshes had
the look of spilt blood moving slowly and heavily to join the river that
was black where the pines shadowed it, red where the light touched it.
From the marsh arose the cry of some great bird that made its home
there; it had a lonely and a boding sound, like a trumpet blown above
the dead. The colour died into an ashen gray and the air grew cold, with
a heaviness beside that dragged at the very soul. Diccon shivered
violently, turned restlessly upon the log that served him as settle, and
began to mutter to himself.
"Art cold?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Something walked over my grave," he said. "I would
give all the pohickory that was ever brewed by heathen for a toss of
_aqua vitæ_!"
In the centre of the village rose a great heap of logs and dry branches,
built during the day by the women and children. When the twilight fell
and the owls began to hoot, this pile was fired, and lit the place from
end to end. The scattered wigwams, the scaffolding where the fish were
dried, the tall pines and wide-branching mulberries, the trodden
grass,--all flashed into sight as the flame roared up to the topmost
withered bough. The village glowed like a lamp set in the dead blackness
of marsh and forest. Opechancanough came from the forest with a score of
warriors behind him, and stopped beside me. I rose to greet him, as was
decent; for he was an Emperor, albeit a savage and a pagan. "Tell the
English that Opechancanough grows old," he said. "The years that once
were as light upon him as the dew upon the maize are now hailstones to
beat him back to the earth whence he came. His arm is not swift to
strike and strong as it once was. He is old; the warpath and the scalp
dance please him no longer. He would die at peace with all men. Tell the
English this; tell them also that Opechancanough knows that they are
good and just, that they do not treat men whose colour is not their own
like babes, fooling them with toys, thrusting them out of their path
when they grow troublesome. The land is wide and the hunting grounds are
many. Let the red men who were here as many moons ago as there are
leaves in summer and the white men who came yesterday dwell side by side
in peace, sharing the maize fields and the weirs and the hunting grounds
together." He waited not for my answer, but passed on, and there was no
sign of age in his stately figure and his slow, firm step. I watched him
with a frown until the darkness of his lodge had swallowed up him and
his warriors, and mistrusted him for a cold and subtle devil.
Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire, we were beset by a band of
maidens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their heads
and pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancing
until the green needles met above our heads, now retreating until there
was a space of turf between us. Their slender limbs gleamed in the
firelight; they moved with grace, keeping time to a plaintive song, now
raised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single voice. Pocahontas had
danced thus before the English many a time. I thought of the little
maid, of her great wondering eyes and her piteous, untimely death, of
how loving she was to Rolfe and how happy they had been in their brief
wedded life. It had bloomed like a rose, as fair and as early fallen,
with only a memory of past sweetness. Death was a coward, passing by men
whose trade it was to out-brave him, and striking at the young and
lovely and innocent....
We were tired with all the mummery of the day; moreover, every fibre of
our souls had been strained to meet the hours that had passed since we
left the gaol at Jamestown. The elation we had felt earlier in the day
was all gone. Now, the plaintive song, the swaying figures, the red
light beating against the trees, the blackness of the enshrouding
forest, the low, melancholy wind,--all things seemed strange, and yet
deadly old, as though we had seen and heard them since the beginning of
the world. All at once a fear fell upon me, causeless and unreasonable,
but weighing upon my heart like a stone. She was in a palisaded town,
under the Governor's protection, with my friends about her and my enemy
lying sick, unable to harm her. It was I, not she, that was in danger. I
laughed at myself, but my heart was heavy, and I was in a fever to be
gone.
The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed,
becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes,
faster and faster moved the dark limbs; then, quite suddenly, song and
motion ceased together. They who had danced with the abandonment of wild
priestesses to some wild god were again but shy brown Indian maids who
went and set them meekly down upon the grass beneath the trees. From the
darkness now came a burst of savage cries only less appalling than the
war whoop itself. In a moment the men of the village had rushed from the
shadow of the trees into the broad, firelit space before us. Now they
circled around us, now around the fire; now each man danced and stamped
and muttered to himself. For the most part they were painted red, but
some were white from head to heel,--statues come to life,--while others
had first oiled their bodies, then plastered them over with small
bright-coloured feathers. The tall head-dresses made giants of them all;
as they leaped and danced in the glare of the fire they had a fiendish
look. They sang, too, but the air was rude, and broken by dreadful
cries. Out of a hut behind us burst two or three priests, the conjurer,
and a score or more of old men. They had Indian drums upon which they
beat furiously, and long pipes made of reeds which gave forth no
uncertain sound. Fixed upon a pole and borne high above them was the
image of their Okee, a hideous thing of stuffed skins and rattling
chains of copper. When they had joined themselves to the throng in the
firelight, the clamour became deafening. Some one piled on more logs,
and the place grew light as day. Opechancanough was not there, nor
Nantauquas.
Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian masque, as
we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would
last, we knew, for the better part of the night. It was in our honour,
and for a while we must stay and testify our pleasure; but after a time,
when they had sung and danced themselves into oblivion of our presence,
we might retire, and leave the very old men, the women, and the children
sole spectators. We waited for that relief with impatience, though we
showed it not to those who pressed about us.
Time passed, and the noise deepened and the dancing became more frantic.
The dancers struck at one another as they leaped and whirled, the sweat
rolled from their bodies, and from their lips came hoarse, animal-like
cries. The fire, ever freshly fed, roared and crackled, mocking the
silent stars. The pines were bronze-red, the woods beyond a dead black.
All noises of marsh and forest were lost in the scream of the pipes, the
wild yelling, and the beating of the drums.
From the ranks of the women beneath the reddened pines rose shrill
laughter and applause as they sat or knelt, bent forward, watching the
dancers. One girl alone watched not them, but us. She stood somewhat
back of her companions, one slim brown hand touching the trunk of a
tree, one brown foot advanced, her attitude that of one who waits but
for a signal to be gone. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the
wheeling figures, or at the old men and the few warriors who took no
part in the masque, but her eyes always came back to us. She had been
among the maidens who danced before us earlier in the night; when they
rested beneath the trees she had gone away, and the night was much older
when I marked her again, coming out of the firelit distance back to the
fire and her dusky mates. It was soon after this that I became aware
that she must have some reason for her anxious scrutiny, some message to
deliver or warning to give. Once when I made a slight motion as if to go
to her, she shook her head and laid her finger upon her lips.
A dancer fell from sheer exhaustion, another and another, and warriors
from the dozen or more seated at our right began to take the places of
the fallen. The priests shook their rattles, and made themselves dizzy
with bending and whirling about their Okee; the old men, too, though
they sat like statues, thought only of the dance, and of how they
themselves had excelled, long ago when they were young.
I rose, and making my way to the werowance of the village, where he sat
with his eyes fixed upon a young Indian, his son, who bade fair to
outlast all others in that wild contest, told him that I was wearied and
would go to my hut, I and my servant, to rest for the few hours that yet
remained of the night. He listened dreamily, his eyes upon the dancing
Indian, but made offer to escort me thither. I pointed out to him that
my quarters were not fifty yards away, in the broad firelight, in sight
of them all, and that it were a pity to take him or any others from the
contemplation of that whirling Indian, so strong and so brave that he
would surely one day lead the war parties.
After a moment he acquiesced, and Diccon and I, quietly and yet with
some ostentation, so as to avoid all appearance of stealing away, left
the press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf between them
and our lodge. When we had gone fifty paces, I glanced over my shoulder
and saw that the Indian maid no longer stood where we had last seen her,
beneath the pines. A little farther on we caught a glimpse of her
winding in and out among a row of trees to our left. The trees ran past
our lodge. When we had reached its entrance we paused and looked back
to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to us, every eye
intent upon the leaping figures around the great fire. Swiftly and
quietly we walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees,
and found ourselves in a thin strip of shadow between the light of the
great fire we had left and that of a lesser one burning redly before the
Emperor's lodge. Beneath the trees, waiting for us, was the Indian maid,
with her light form, and large, shy eyes, and finger upon her lips. She
would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us as dusk and noiseless as
a moth, and we followed her into the darkness beyond the firelight,
well-nigh to the line of sentinels. A wigwam, larger than common and
shadowed by trees, rose in our path; the girl, gliding in front of us,
held aside the mats that curtained the entrance. We hesitated a moment,
then stooped and entered the place.