The rain fell thickly until midnight, and kept me listening to the
double roll of the drops along the shingles. I lay in my blanket under
the roof, and slept when the rain ceased, but awoke before dawn,
listening to the wind roaring around the eaves. Pale clouds, scudding
low, alternately hid and revealed the purple roof of sky on which
stars hung trembling like drops of dew.
My landlord, Timothy Boyd, was already astir below, and presently he
came up the ladder with a dish of porridge for me--a kindness, indeed,
for I had thought to set out for the Cayuga castle on an empty
stomach. He also brought me a bowl of coffee, the berries of which he
said had been sent for my use by Colonel Cresap. I drank the coffee
thankfully, sitting on my mattress of balsam tips. Then, by
lanthorn-light, I dressed me, taking only bullet-pouch, powder-horn,
and rifle, and bearing the six belts in the bosom of my shirt. I left
my pack with Boyd, commending it to his care; and the rugged old man
nodded placidly, bidding me rest assured of its safety.
"There is foul company at the 'Greathouse Inn,'" he said, as we
descended the ladder to the tap-room below. "Greathouse received four
guests an hour ago. Mount bade me warn you, sir. He said you would
understand."
I understood at once. Butler, Wraxall, Toby Tice, and the fourth
member of the band had arrived in Cresap's camp. But I cared not; I
was about to accomplish my mission under their four noses, and live to
balance my account with them later.
"Is Mount sleeping?" I asked.
The old man laughed.
"I have never seen him sleep," he said. "I know him well, but I have
never seen him asleep. He is out yonder, somewhere, prowling."
"And Shemuel?--and Cade Renard?" I inquired.
"Shemuel is on his way to Pittsburg; Renard mouses with Mount. Is your
rifle loaded, sir? There be foul company at the other inn. This night,
too, did Greathouse make nine savages drunk with spirits. Have a care
that they cross not your path, young man; for, drunk, your Indians go
blind like rattlesnakes in September, and like those serpents, too,
they strike without warning. Have a care, sir!"
"I wish you knew the Indians as well as I do," said I, smiling. "I
fear none of them, save the Lenni-Lenape, and these I fear only
because I have never known them. I think the whole world can be tamed
with kindness."
Boyd shook his gray head, watching me in silence.
A brisk southwest wind was singing through the pines as I stepped
out-of-doors and peered cautiously about. There was nothing stirring
save the wind and the unseen leaves in the forest. I primed my rifle
and sheltered the pan under the hollow of my arm, then stole forth
into the starlit road.
To gain the river, whence the trail ran northward to the Cayuga camp,
I was obliged to pass the fort, and consequently the "Greathouse Inn."
But I had no fear at this hour o' morning, and I trotted on along the
stump fence like a cub-fox in his proper runway, until the first curve
in the road brought me to Greathouse's inn.
Shutters were drawn and bolted over every window, but candle-light
streamed through loopholes in the tap-room, and I could hear men
singing within and tapping on bowls with spoons:
"My true love is old Brown Bess."
Nosing the house delicately, I perceived odours of cooking, of rum
toddy, and of tobacco smoke. Clearly Butler's company were supping
after their long jog on the back trail from Fortress Pitt.
Satisfied that all was safe, I had silently begun skirting the road
ditch shadowed by the fence, when a dark heap, which I had taken for a
stump in the road, moved, rolled over, and moaned.
I stopped, frozen motionless. After a moment's wary reconnoitring, I
crept forward again along the ditch, eyes fastened on the dim shape
ahead, a human form lying in the black shadows of the road.
When I came closer I understood. At my feet, in a drunken stupor,
sprawled a young Cayuga girl, limbs plastered with mud, body saturated
and reeking with the stench of spirits. Her black hair floated in a
pool of rain which spread out reflecting stars. One helpless hand
clutched the mud.
I lifted the little thing and bore her to the shadow of the fence; but
here, to my amazement, lay a drunken squaw, doubtless her mother,
still clinging to an empty bottle; and, along the ditch and fence,
flung in beastly, breathing heaps, I counted seven more barbarians,
old and young, from the infant of ten to the young buck of twenty, all
apparently of the same family, and all in a sodden swoon.
This was the work, then, done by a single agent of my Lord Dunmore,
Royal Governor of Virginia!
Like torpid snakes they lay there, glistening in the grass, the
children naked, the mother in rags, breathing out poison under the
stars. The very air of morn sweated rum; candle-light from the
loopholes fell across the bodies, flung limply on the grass.
There was nothing I could do for these victims of Greathouse; no aid
within my power to give them. Heartsick, I turned away, and,
quickening my steps, passed swiftly down the muddy trail, hastening to
mend my pace ere dawn should find me missing at the council-fires
burning for me on the dark Ohio.
There were no lights in the fort as I passed; the flag-staff stood out
bare against the stars. On the epaulement above the outer trench
something moved, probably a sentry.
But ere I reached the Ohio the eastern sky had turned saffron, through
which stars still twinkled; and the drifted mist-banks lay heaped far
out across the river, so I could not see the water, and must follow
its course along the edge of this phantom stream, whose current was
vapour and whose waves of piled-up clouds rolled noiselessly under the
stars.
No birds fluted from the mist; even the winds had blown far away
somewhere into the gray morning. But the Cayuga trail was broad and
plain, and I took it at a wolf-trot, thoughtfully reading its
countless signs by the yellow dawn as I went along, marks of white
men, marks of moccasins, imprint of deer and cattle, trail of rabbit
and following fox, and the hand-like traces of rambling raccoons. On,
on, north upon the broad Cayuga trail, while through the brightening
woods sleep fled with the mist and the world awoke around me. Land and
river roused with breathing and sigh and scarce-heard stir; through
earth and water the pulse of life fluttered and beat on, timed for the
moment by the swift rhythm of my flying feet.
And now a thread of blue smoke, drawn far down the trail, set my
nostrils wide and quivering; a flare of blinding yellow turned the
world into gold; I had met the sun at the Cayuga camp; the tryst had
been kept, thanks to the Lord!
Dark, uncertain forms loomed up in the eye of the sun, tall groups
that never moved as I drew nigh; men who stood motionless as the pines
where the council-fire smoked and flashed like a dull jewel in the
sun.
"Peace!" I said, halting, with upraised hand. "Peace, you wise men and
sachems!"
"Peace!" repeated a low voice. "Peace, bearer of belts!"
I moved nearer, head high, yet seeing in a blur, for the rising sun
blinded me. And when I came to the edge of the fire, I drew a white
belt of wampum from my bosom, and, passing it through the smoke, held
it aloft, flashing in the sun, until every chief and sachem had sunk
down into their blankets, forming a half-circle before me.
A miracle of speech came to me like the breath of my body; easy,
sober, flowing words followed. I spoke as I had never dared hope I
might speak. Forgotten phrases, caressing idioms, words long lost flew
to aid me, yet not so fast that they crowded, stumbling and choking
speech.
As I spoke, sight slowly returned to my dazzled eyes. I saw the
sachems' painted masks, the totems of three tribes repeated on blanket
and lodge, the Cayuga pipe-symbol hanging from the lodge posts, the
witch-drum swinging under a bush, where ten stems had been peeled
ivory white. Behind all this I saw the green amphitheatre of trees,
blue films of smoke floating from unseen lodges, and over all the
radiance of sunrise painting earth and sky with pale fire.
Belt after belt I passed through the fragrant birch-smoke; I spoke to
them as Sir William had spoken to Quider with three belts, and my
words were earnest and pitiful, for my heart was full of tenderness
for Sir William and for these patient children of his, these lost
ones, so far from the doors of the Long House.
The ceremony of condolence was more than a ceremony for me; with eager
sympathy I raised up the three stricken tribes; I sweetened the ashes
of the eternal fires; I cleared evil from the Cayuga trail, and laid
the ghastly ghosts of those who stood in forest highways to confront
the fifth nation of the great confederacy.
"Oonah! Oonah!" whimpered the wind in the pines, but I stilled the
winds and purified them, and I cleansed the million needles of the
pines with a belt and an enchanted word.
The last belt was passed, flashing through the smoke; the chief sachem
of the Cayugas rose to receive it, a tall, withered man of the Wolf
tribe, painted and draped in scarlet. His dim, wrinkled eyes peered at
me through the smoke.
For a long time the silence was broken only by the rustling flames
between us; then the old man placed the belt at his feet, straightened
up, and spoke feebly:
"_Brother_: It is to be known that the Six Nations never meet in
council when mourning, until some brother speaks as you have spoken.
"_Brother_: We mourn great men dead. Our Father, through you, our
Elder Brother, has purified our fires, our throats, our eyes. Where
the dead sat among us, three tribes have you raised up.
"_Brother_: Listen attentively!"
Behind him from the great painted lodge nine Indian boys entered the
fire-circle and stood proudly with folded arms and heads erect. And
the old sachem, in his scarlet robes, laid his shaking hand on each
youth as he passed, always turning his aged eyes to peer at me as he
repeated in his feeble, cracked voice of a child:
"We acquaint you that one of our sachems, called Quider, is dead; we
raise up this boy in his place and give him the same name."
And, after each boy had been named from one of the dead Cayugas, he
gave me a string of wampum to confirm it, while the chant of
condolence rose from the seated chiefs and sachems, a never-ending
repetition of brave histories, and prophecy of brave deeds from the
beginning of all things through the stilled centuries into the far
future locked in silence.
Hour after hour I stood with bent head and arms folded on my breast.
Sometimes I prayed as I stood, that evil be averted from these wards
of our King; sometimes I grew hot with anger at the men who could so
vilely misuse them.
Dreaming there amid the scented birch-smoke, the chant intoning with
the mourning pines, sombre visions took shape within my brain. I could
not lay these ghosts, awful spectres of ruin and death crowding around
a pallid, flabby, toothless creature of silks and laces, my Lord
Dunmore, smirking at Terror wearing the merciless mask of Butler.
Around me the ceremony of condolence seemed to change to the sinister
and grotesque Honnonouaroria or Dream Feast, with its naked demons
hurling fire-brands; I swayed where I stood, then stumbled back out of
the scented smoke which had nigh stupefied me. I opened my eyes
dizzily. My ears were ringing with the interminable chant:
"Sah-e-ho-na,
Sah-e-ho-na."
I crossed my arms and waited, careful to keep out of the sweet smoke
which had stolen away my senses and set me dreaming of horrors.
The sun hung above the pines; a slender purple cloud belted it, a
celestial belt in pledge of promised storms, gathering somewhere
beyond the world's green rim.
I watched the cloud growing; the sun died out through a golden smother
from which plumes of vapour swept over the heavens, thickening till
all the sky was covered with painted fleece. And, as I watched the
storm's banners hanging from midheaven, the chant ended, and, in
silence, three chiefs arose and moved towards me through the smoke.
One by one they spoke to me, naming themselves: Yellow Hand,
Tamarack, the ancient sachem robed in scarlet, and lastly the
war-chief, Sowanowane.
It was Tamarack who continued:
"_Brother_: We have heard. The Three Ensigns of our nation have
heard."
(_A belt._)
"_Brother_: We all bear patiently this great wrong done us by Colonel
Cresap. We are patient because Sir William asks it of us. But under
these tall pines around us lie hatchets, buried deep among the
pine-trees' roots. See, brother! Our hands are clean. We have not dug
in the earth for hatchets."
(_A belt of seven._)
"_Brother_: We pray that our elder cousin, Lord Dunmore, will remove
from us his agent Greathouse. We pray that no more spirits be sold to
the Cayugas. We pray this because we cannot resist an offered cup. We
pray this because we drink--and die. It is death to us, death to our
children, death to our nation."
(_A black belt._)
"_Brother_: Bear our belts to our Father, Sir William Johnson, and to
our elder cousin, Lord Dunmore. Intercede with them that they may heed
our prayers."
(_A bunch of three._)
"_Brother_: Depart in health and honour, bearing these sacred belts of
peace--"
A frightful scream cut him short; scream after scream arose from the
hidden lodges.
The assembly, gathered at the sanctuary of the council-fire, rose in a
body, blankets falling to the ground, paralyzed, silent, while the
horrid screaming rose to an awful, long-drawn shriek.
Somebody was coming--somebody plodding heavily, shrieking at every
step, nearer, nearer--an old woman who staggered out into the circle
of the council, dragging the limp body of a young girl.
"Nine!" she gasped. "Nine slain at dawn by Greathouse! Nine of the
family of Logan! Look, you wise men and sachems! Look at Logan's
child! Dead! Slain by Greathouse! Nine! Mother and children lie by the
road, slain as they slept; slain, sleeping the poisoned sleep of
Greathouse! Dead! Dead! Dead!"
Stupidly the sachems stared at the naked corpse, flung on the blankets
at their feet. The scented smoke curled over the murdered child,
blowing east and south.
Dry-eyed, sick with horror, I moved forward, and the stir seemed to
arouse the sachems. One by one they looked down at the dead, then
turned their flashing eyes on me. I strove to speak; I could not utter
a sound.
The old sachem bent slowly and took a handful of ashes from the cold
embers. Then, rubbing them on his face, he flung down every belt I had
given him and signed to me to do the same with the belts delivered to
me.
When I had dropped the last belt, Yellow Hand made a sign, and every
chief, save Sowanowane, the war-chief, covered his head with his
blanket. I fixed my eyes on the war-chief, dreading lest he hurl a red
belt at my feet. But he only bent his head, bidding me depart with a
gesture. And I went, stunned by the calamity that had come as
lightning to blast the work I had done.
As I dragged myself back, heart-broken, leaden-footed, behind me I
heard the death-wail rising in the forest, the horrid screaming of
women, the fierce yelps of the young men, the thump! thump! thump! of
the drum, dry and sharp as a squirrel's barking.
Utterly overwhelmed by the catastrophe, I wandered aimlessly into the
forest and sat down. Hour after hour I sat there, and my shocked
senses strove only to find some way to avert the consequences of the
deed wrought by Greathouse. But the awful work had been done; the
Gordian knot cut; my Lord Dunmore's war had begun at last, in
deference to my Lord Dunmore's desires, and in accordance with his
plans. Now, Cresap must fight; now, the Six Nations would rise to
avenge the Cayugas on the colonies; now, the King of England would
have the savage allies he desired so ardently, and the foul pact would
be sealed with the blood of Logan's children!
"Never, by God's grace!" I cried out, in my agony; and I stumbled to
my feet, my head burning and throbbing as though it would burst. The
woods had grown dim; the day was already near its end--this bloody
day! this sad day which had dawned so hopefully for all! Suddenly I
began running through the forest, gnashing my teeth and cursing the
King whom such servants as Dunmore served.
"Faster, oh, faster," I muttered, as I ran; "faster to slay this
devil, Butler, who has counselled Greathouse to this deed!"
Again and again I stumbled and fell, but rose, not feeling the
bruises, crazed to do vengeance on the wicked men who outraged God by
living. But truly, vengeance is the Lord's, and He alone may repay,
nor was I the instrument He chose for His wrath. Swiftly I ran,
swifter ran His purpose; for, behold! a man rose up in my path and
held me fast, a soldier, who shook me and shouted at me until my
senses, which had sped before me with my vengeance, halted and
returned. Presently I began to understand his words, and listened.
"Are ye mad?" he repeated. "Can't ye see the savages across the river
following? The Cayugas are loose on the Ohio! It is war!"
Other men crept up and dropped into cover behind the trees around me;
some were colonial soldiers, some farmers from the camp, some hunters
in wool shirts and caps. All at once I saw Colonel Cresap come out
into the trail close by, and, when he perceived me, he cried: "Logan's
children have been murdered by Greathouse! The Cayugas are swarming on
the Ohio!"
I hastened to his side and begged him to let me carry his promise to
the Cayugas that Greathouse should be punished, and that his colonists
would retire. He shook his head.
"Greathouse has fled to Pittsburg," he said. "I cannot retire with my
people because they would not follow me. It is too late, Mr. Cardigan;
Dunmore has sprung his trap. Ha! Look at that!" And he turned and
shouted out an order to the soldiers around.
A dozen savages, naked to the waist, were fording the Ohio between us
and the settlement. Already the soldiers were running through the
woods along the river to head them off, and Cresap started after them,
calling back for those who remained to guard the trail in the rear.
Then a rifle went bang! among the trees; another report rang out,
followed instantly by twenty more in a volley.
Down a low oak ridge, close by, I saw an Indian tumbling like a stone
till he fell with a splash into a mossy hollow full of rain-water and
dead leaves. After him bounded a hunter in buckskins, long knife
flashing.
"Cresap!" I panted, "don't let him take that scalp! Have your men gone
mad? You can stop this war! It is not too late yet, but a scalp taken
means war--God in heaven! a scalp means war to the death!"
"Don't touch that scalp!" roared Cresap, hurrying towards the ranger,
who was kneeling on one knee beside the dead Cayuga. "Nathan Giles! Do
you hear me? Let that scalp alone, you bloody fool!"
It was too late; the ranger squatted, wrenching the scalp free with a
ripping sound, just as Cresap ran up in a towering rage.
"They take ours," remonstrated the ranger, tying the ghastly trophy to
his belt by its braided lock of hair; "I guess I have a right to scalp
my own game!" he added, sullenly.
Cresap turned to me with a gesture of despair.
"You see," he said; and walked slowly away towards the river, where
the rifles were ringing out shot on shot across the shoals below the
shallow camp-ford on the edge of the roaring riffles.
So now, at last, Lord Dunmore's war had begun without hope of
mediation. Too late now for embassy of peace, too late for truce or
promises or the arbitration of fair speech. There is nothing on earth
to compensate for a scalp taken, save a scalp taken in return. I had
failed--failed totally, and without hope of retrieving failure. The
first attempt must be the last. A scalp had been taken. My mission was
at an end.
Ay, ended irrevocably now, for all around me firelocks and rifles were
banging; the woods swam in smoke; the war-yelp sounded nearer and
nearer; the white cross-belts of the soldiers glimmered through the
trees.
Too miserable to shun danger, I sat down on a stone in the trail, my
head in my hands, rifle across my knees. Presently a soldier who had
been standing near me, firing across the river, fell down with a grunt
and lay there flat on his back.
I stared at him stupidly, not realizing that the man was dead, though
out of his head crawled a sluggish, dark red stream, dropping steadily
onto the withered leaves. It was only when a swift, dusky shape came
creeping out of the brush towards the dead man that I came to my
senses and dropped behind the stone I had been resting on, barely in
time, too, for a bullet came smack! against my rock, and after it,
bounding and yelping, flew an Indian. He was on me ere I could fire,
one sinewy fist twisted in my hair, but his knife snapped off short on
my rifle-stock, and together, over and over we rolled, down a ravine
among the willows, clawing, clutching, strangling each other, till of
a sudden my head struck a tree, crack! And I knew nothing after that
until the cool rain beating in my face awoke me. I lay very still,
listening.
Somebody near by was trying to light a fire; I smelled the flint and
the glowing tinder. Another odour hung heavily in the moist night air,
the wild, rank scent of savage men, strong and unmistakable as the
odour of a dog-fox in March.
I began to move noiselessly, working my head around so that I might
see. My head was aching heavily; I could scarce stir it. At length I
raised myself on my hands, and saw the spark from a flint fly into a
ball of dry moss and hang there like a fire-fly until the tiny circle
of light spread slowly into a glow, ringed with little flames that ate
their way through the tinder-moss.
A tufted head bobbed down beside the flame; unseen lips blew the fire
into a sudden blaze which brightened and flashed up, throwing ruddy
shadows over bush and earth.
Then I saw that I lay on a hill-top in the rain, with dark, shaggy
bushes hedging me. And under every bush crouched an Indian, whose
dusky, half-naked body glistened with paint, over which rain-drops
stood in brilliant beads.
Leggings, clouts, sporrans, and moccasins were soaked; the slippery,
wet buckskins glistened like the hides of serpents; fringes, beaded
belts, and sheaths shone as tinted frost sparkles at sunrise.
In the luminous shadow of the bushes I saw brilliant eyes watching me
as I dragged myself nearer the fire. The red embers' glow fell on
steel blades of hatchets, bathing them with blood-colour to the hilts.
Once, when I attempted to sit up, an arm shot out of the shadow,
making the sign for silence; and mechanically I repeated the signal
and laid my head down again on the cool, wet ground.
All night I lay, perfectly conscious, beside the Cayuga fire, yet not
alarmed, although a prisoner.
The Cayugas knew me as a belt-bearer from Sir William; they could not
ill-treat me. Tamarack, Yellow Hand, and Sowanowane would vouch for me
to this party of young men who had taken me. I had harmed none of
them; I had barely defended my life when attacked.
As I lay there on the windy hill-top, through the rain across the dim
valley I could see the battle-lanthorns hanging on Cresap's fort, and
I could hear the preparations for a siege, the hammering and chopping
and cries of teamsters, the rumble of wagons over the drawbridge, the
distant challenge of guards, the murmur and dulled tumult of many
people hastening urgent business.
Beside me, on their haunches, crouched my captors, alert and curious,
dressing their ears to the distant noises. There were eleven of them,
young men with all their lives before them in which to win the eagle's
plume; eleven lithe, muscular young savages, stripped to the belt,
well oiled, crowns shaved save for the lock, and every man freshly
painted for war. All wore the Wolf.
He who had taken me, now carried my pouch and powder-horn and bore my
rifle. A scalp hung at his yellow girdle, doubtless the scalp of the
soldier who had been shot beside me in the trail. I could smell the
pomatum on the queue.
I spoke to them calmly, and at first they seemed inclined to listen,
appearing surprised at my knowledge of their tongue. But they would
reply to none of my questions, and finally they silenced me with
sullen threats, which, however, did not disturb me, as I knew their
sachems must set me free.
My head ached a great deal from the blow I had suffered; I was
willing enough to lie quietly and watch the lights in the fort through
the slow veil of falling rain; and presently I fell asleep.
* * * * *
The hot glare of a torch awoke me. All around me crowded masses of
savages, young and old, women and youths and children. The woods
vomited barbarians; they came in packs, moving swiftly, muttering to
each other, and hastening as though on some pressing affair.
Women near me were digging a hole, and presently came a strong young
girl, bearing a post of buckeye, and set it heavily in the hole,
fitting it while the others stamped in the mud around it with naked
feet.
The main crowd, however, had surged down into a hollow to the left,
and, as I lay on the ground, watching the shadowy, retreating throng,
of a sudden came three Indians driving before them a white man, arms
tied, bloodless face stamped with horror indescribable.
As he passed the fire where I lay, I thought his starting eyes met
mine, but he staggered on without speaking, down into the darkness of
the hollow. I knew him. He was Nathan Giles, who had taken the first
scalp in Lord Dunmore's war.
Shuddering, I sat up, turning my head towards the gloom below. There
was not a sound. I waited, straining eyes and ears. My heart drummed
on my ribs. I caught my breath and clinched my hands.
Without the slightest warning, the black pit below burst out in a
sheet of light, shining on a thousand motionless savages; and in the
centre of the glare I saw a naked figure, bound to a tree, twisting
through smoke-shot flames.
For a second only the scene wavered before me; then I gripped my
temples and pressed my face down into the cool, wet grass. Awful cries
rang in my ears; the garrison at the fort heard them, too, for they
fired a cannon, and I heard distant drums beating to arms.
"Thus you are to die," repeated the Indians beside me. "Thus you will
die here on this hill at dawn. Thus you will suffer in plain view of
the fort! This for the death of Logan's children!"
And one to another they said: "He is weeping. He is a woman. He will
weep thus when he burns."
I heard them, but what they said left my mind numbed and cold. For me
there was no meaning in their words; none at all. My ears shrank from
the awful cries, now piercing the very clouds above me, hell's own
solo accompanied by the ceaseless, solemn murmur of the rain.
Into my nostrils crept the stench of burnt flesh; it grew stronger and
stronger. Silence fell, soothed by the whispering rain; then out of
the night came the dull noise of many people stirring. They were
coming!
As I rose, a Cayuga youth seized me and threw me heavily against the
post I had seen the woman embed in the mud. I fought and strained and
writhed, but they tied me, bracing me up stiff against the wet stake,
trussed like a fowl for basting.
Around me the crowd was thickening; hundreds of tongues loaded me with
insults; thrice a young girl reached out and struck me in the face.
They had begun piling wood around my feet, and stuffing the spaces
full of dry moss, but before the heap reached my knees they decided to
face me towards the fort, so the work accomplished had to be undone,
my bonds loosened and retied, and my body shifted to breast the south.
Through the falling rain I saw morning lurking behind the eastern
hills, and I cursed it, for the shock and terror had driven me out of
my senses. I remember hearing a voice calling on God, but for a long
time I did not know the voice was mine. It was only when the same
young girl who had struck me lighted a splinter of yellow pine and
thrust it through my arm that my senses returned. I opened my eyes as
from a swoon, seeing clearly the faces around me, red under the
torches. And foremost among those in front stood Tamarack in his
scarlet robes, just as I had seen him at dawn through the smoke of the
sacred fire. Now my voice came back, seeking my lips; my parched
tongue moved, and I called on Tamarack to hear me, but he shook his
head, though I adjured him by the belts I had borne and received, by
the sanctuary of the council-fire whose smoke I had sweetened, and by
the three tribes I had raised up.
"Lies," he said; "you come not from Johnstown! Your belts are lies;
your words lie; your tongue is forked! You come from Cresap! Cresap
shall see how you can die for him!"
"I speak the truth!" I cried out, in my agony. "I am a belt-bearer! I
have laid the ghosts of your slain ones! Who dares send my spirit to
teach your dead that you betray their ashes?"
There was a dead silence. Presently somebody in the throng said,
distinctly: "If he speaks the truth, let him go. We honour our dead."
And other voices repeated:
"We honour our dead."
"He lies," said Tamarack.
"I speak truth!" I groaned. "If you honour your dead, if you honour
those whom I have raised up in their places, free me, brothers of the
Cayugas!"
"Free him!" cried many.
For a space the throng was quiet, then a distant movement to my left
made me turn hopefully. The throng wavered, parted, opened, and a
white man came elbowing his way to the stake.
He whispered to Tamarack; the aged sachem stretched out his arm,
making a mystic sign.
Eagerly the white man turned and looked at me, and I cried out with
rage and horror, for I was face to face with Walter Butler.
He spoke, but I scarcely heard him urging my death.
Terror, which had gripped me, gave place to fury, and that in turn
left me faint but calm.
I heard the merciless words in which he delivered me to the savages; I
heard him denounce me as a spy of Cresap and an agent of rebels. Then
I lost his voice.
I was very still for a while, trying to understand that I must die.
The effort tired me; lassitude weighed on me like iron chains. To my
stunned mind death was but a word, repeated vaguely in the dark
chamber of life where my soul sat, listening. Thought was suspended;
sight and hearing failed; there was a void about me, blank and
formless as my mind.
[Illustration: "'THEY'VE HIT HIM,' SAID MOUNT, RELOADING HASTILY"]
Presently I became conscious that things were changing
around me. Lights moved, voices struggled into my ears;
forms took shape, pressing closer to me. An undertone, which I had
heard at moments through my stupor, grew, swelling into a steady
whisper. It was the ceaseless rustle of the rain.
A torch blazed up crackling close in front. My eyes opened; a thrill
of purest fear set every sense a-quiver. Amid the dull roar of voices,
I heard women laughing and little children prattling. Faces became
painfully distinct. I saw Sowanowane, the war-chief, thumb his
hatchet; I saw Butler, beside him, catch an old woman by the arm. He
told her to bring dry moss. It rained, rained, rained.
They were calling to me from the crowd now; everywhere voices were
calling to me: "Show us how Cresap's men die!" Others repeated: "He is
a woman; he will scream out! Logan's children died more bravely.
Oonah! The children of Logan!"
Butler watched me coolly, leaning on his rifle.
"So this ends it," he said, with his deathly grimace. "Well, it was to
be done in one way or another. I had meant to do it myself, but this
will do."
I was too sick with fear, too close to death, to curse him. Pain often
makes me weak; the fear of pain sickens me. It was that I dreaded, not
death. Where my father had gone, I dared follow, but the flames--the
thought of the fire--
I said, faintly, "Turn your back to me when I die; I have much pain to
face, Mr. Butler; I may not bear it well."
"No, by God! I will not!" he burst out, ferociously. "I'm here to see
you suffer, damn you!"
I turned my head from him, but he struck me in the face so that my
mouth was bathed in blood; twice he struck me, crying: "Listen!
Listen, I tell you!" And, planting himself before the stake, he cursed
me, vowing that he could tear me with his bared teeth for hatred.
"Know this before they roast you," he snarled; "I shall possess your
pretty baggage, Mistress Warren, spite of Sir William! I shall use her
to my pleasure; I shall whip her to my feet. I may wed her, or I may
choose to use her otherwise and leave her for Dunmore. Ah! Ah! Now you
rage, eh?"
I had hurled my trussed body forward on the cords, struggling,
convulsed with a fury so frantic that the blood sprayed me where the
bonds cut.
Indians struck me and thrust me back with clubs, for the great post at
my back had been partly dragged out of its socket by my frenzy, but I
did not feel the blows; I fixed my maddened eyes on Butler and
struggled.
But now the sachems were calling him sharply, and he backed away from
me as the circle surged forward. Again the girl came out, bearing a
flaming fagot. She looked up at me, laughed, and thrust the burning
sticks into the moss and tinder which was stacked around me. A billow
of black smoke rolled into my face, choking and blinding me, and the
breath of the flames passed over me.
Twice the rain quenched the fire. They brought fresh heaps of moss,
laughing and jeering. Through the smoke I saw the fort across the
valley, its parapets crowded with people. Jets of flame and distant
reports showed they were firing rifles, hoping perhaps to kill me ere
the torture began. It was too far. The last glimpse of the fort faded
through the downpour; a new pile of moss and birch-bark was heaped at
my feet.
This time the girl was thrust aside and a young Indian advanced,
waving a crackling branch of pitch-pine, roaring with flames. As he
knelt to push it between my feet, a terrific shout burst from the
throng--a yell of terror and amazement. Through the tumult I heard
women screaming; in front of me the crowd shrank away, huddling in
groups. Some backed into me, stumbling among the fagots; the young
Indian let his blazing pine-branch fall hissing on the wet ground and
stood trembling.
And now into the circle stalked a tall figure, coming straight towards
me through the sheeted rain--a spectre so hideous that the cries of
terror drowned his voice, for he was speaking as he came on, moving
what had once been a mouth, this dreadful thing, all raw and festering
to the bone.
Two blazing eyes met mine, then rolled around on the cringing throng;
and a voice like the voice of the dead broke out:
"I am come to the judgment of this man whom you burn!"
"Quider!" moaned the throng. "He returns from the grave! Oonah! He
returns!"
But the unearthly voice went on through the whimper of the crowd:
"From the dead I return. I return from the north. Madness drove me. I
come without belts, though belts were given.
"Peace, you wise men and sachems! Set free this man, my brother!"
"Quider!" I gasped. "Bear witness."
And the dead voice echoed, hollow:
"Brother, I witness."
Trembling fingers picked and plucked and tugged at my cords; the bonds
loosened; the sky spun round; down I fell, face splashing in the mud.