IN WHICH CHATÉMUC FINDS THE INSPIRATION WHICH HE LACKED
“’Twas as I said it would be, my Chatémuc,” exclaimed Membré,
mournfully, as the friar and his convert retired from the immediate
presence of royalty. “As long as yonder temple protects its hellish
fire, the ears of this great monarch will be deaf to words of mine.
Mother of God, ’tis sad! He has a noble face! I would that I might live
to shrive him of the many sins his haughty pride begets!”
Chatémuc gave vent to what might have been a pious groan, though it
sounded to a listening group of sun-worshippers like the grunt of an
ill-tempered man. The half-civilized Mohican had good reasons for
his discontented mood. His unexpected discovery of a race of native
Americans taller, better proportioned, and seemingly more muscular than
his kinsmen of the North, had touched his sullen pride. Furthermore,
Chatémuc felt that he had been made a victim, at the very foot of the
throne, of a cleverly designed conspiracy. De Sancerre had spoken a
few words to Noco, and the latter had addressed the King himself. In
his native tongue the Great Sun had issued an order which had been
translated by Noco into Spanish, and which de Sancerre had turned into
French for the benefit--or, rather, for the disturbance--of Chatémuc.
The royal behest had been uncompromising in its curt simplicity. The
Brother of the Sun had ordered Noco to act as hostess to Katonah during
the latter’s sojourn within his domain. Annoyed as the Mohican had
been at this command, he had reluctantly recognized the futility of an
open protest against the disposition made, without his consent, of his
sister. He had retired with the Franciscan from the group surrounding
the King’s litter, with a burning desire in his heart to make mischief.
Quick to read the mind of Chatémuc, the gray friar, whose open zeal as
a proselyter had been changed, by the Great Sun’s stubborn indifference
to the awful significance of the crucifix, into the craft of a schemer,
was now pouring into the Mohican’s ears words emphasizing the glories
of martyrdom, and picturing the bliss which awaited those who perished
for the cause of Mother Church. The Franciscan and his convert
had withdrawn to a sunny slope a few yards to the eastward of the
flower-strewn hillock upon which the Brother of the Sun maintained the
pomp of royalty.
Had the eyes and ears of Chatémuc and Membré been open at that moment
to pleasant impressions, they would have found many sources of delight
in their surroundings. They gazed upon a multicolored scene whose most
striking features they had never, in their many years of forest-travel,
looked upon before. Bright-hued flowers, trees gay with the blossoms of
spring, birds whose brilliant plumage suggested the possibility that a
rainbow, shattered into small bits, had found wings for the remnants
of its glory, and, over all, a blue canopy across which floated white,
fleecy playthings of the breeze, whispered in vain their story of love
and peace to the zealous friar and his attentive tool.
From the westward came the inspiring shouts of the home-going multitude
and the noise of kettle-drums helping the army to keep perfect time
as it marched, a snow-white phalanx, toward the City of the Sun. From
their coigne of vantage Membré and the Mohican could see that a monarch
who had snubbed the former and enraged the latter harbored no present
intention of following his subjects and his army toward his city. In
fact, it soon became apparent that the Brother of the Sun was about to
regale his guests with a somewhat pretentious feast. Upon litters,
undecorated and simple in construction, servants belonging to the
lowest social caste--slaves in fact, if not by law--bore from the city
food designed to give a substantial foundation to the Great Sun’s _fête
champêtre_. Bustling women brought rudely-constructed wooden benches to
the grass-carpeted banquet-hall whose decorations were the flowers of
spring and whose roof was the smiling sky.
It was well for the good feeling that de Sancerre had done so much to
strengthen between the children of the sun and moon that the slaves
made ready the feast with great despatch, for the inopportune attempt
of Zenobe Membré to convert the King at one stroke from the religion of
his ancestors to a faith whose mysteries a sign-language was impotent
to explain had cast a damper upon the group surrounding royalty.
While it was true that the Great Sun had not taken offence at the
inexplicable demonstration made by the zealous friar, he had become
thoughtful and silent after the retreat of Membré and the Mohican. To
relieve the situation, Henri de Tonti, a soldier unfitted either by
disposition or habit for delicate feats of diplomacy, made no effort.
Upon his scarred and unsymmetrical countenance rested an expression of
sullen discontent as he stood, with folded arms, pretending to watch
the preparations for a feast for which he had no heart. His jealousy
of de Sancerre increased as he saw that, through the aid of Noco’s
tongue, the courtier was tempting back again the smile of friendly
interest to the black-eyed monarch’s face. Undecided whether to flee
to the hillock where her brother stood or to place herself in Noco’s
charge, according to the King’s command, Katonah lingered irresolutely
by de Sancerre’s side, while her heart beat fast with the dread of an
impending peril whose source she could not divine.
Presently the activity of the slaves ceased for a moment, and the
master of ceremonies--“_le maître d’hôtel_” as de Sancerre dubbed him
under his breath--approached the throne with arms stretched upward
above his head, and announced in one word that the preparations for the
banquet had been completed.
“Cahani!” exclaimed the Great Sun, seating himself upon a bench in
front of the royal litter, and motioning to de Sancerre to take the
place at his right hand. “Cahani! Sit down!”
At the monarch’s left stood Noco, duenna and interpreter, a useful
creature at that moment, but unfitted by birth to eat meat with her
sovereign. The Brother of the Sun smiled upon Katonah, and graciously
offered her the second place of honor by his side. What the maiden’s
rank among the Mohicans might be made no difference at this juncture.
She had been honored by the Great Sun’s gracious recognition, and
from that instant was looked up to as a princess by the ceremonious
sun-worshippers, who held that their monarch’s nod might serve as a
patent of nobility to a stranger from an alien land. Among themselves,
the road from the lowest social status to the highest was a hard one.
To enter the circle of the nobility, a low-caste man and wife among the
children of the sun must strangle one of their own offspring, having
proved, by this heroic sacrifice, their superiority to the humble rank
to which birth had consigned them.
On the royal bench beyond Katonah sat the restless and dissatisfied de
Tonti, silently protesting against the turn which events had taken,
but just now impotent to change their course. The Italian veteran had
walked far since breaking his fast, and had undergone the exhausting
conflict of many antagonistic emotions. Hunger and thirst combined
for the moment to postpone the withdrawal of his followers from the
too-hospitable grasp of the sun-worshippers, but the observant captain
realized the immediate necessity of a consultation with de la Salle
before proceeding further with negotiations which the impulsiveness
of de Sancerre might twist into an awkward shape. De Tonti had
started out that morning to visit, he had imagined, an insignificant
tribe of friendly Indians, and, behold, he had come upon a powerful
nation, equipped with an army of gigantic warriors and endowed with a
civilization whose outward manifestations were extremely impressive.
Distrustful of de Sancerre, and knowing well the extremes to which
Zenobe Membré’s zeal as a proselyter might carry him, the Italian
soldier scented danger in their present environment. He determined,
therefore, to withdraw his followers from the feast at an early moment,
to reject the Great Sun’s proffer of hospitality for the night--which,
he felt sure, would be extended to them--and to return to de la Salle’s
camp by the river as quickly as circumstances permitted.
On the small plateau below the hillock upon which the Great Sun and
his guests sat in state a hundred dusky noblemen had ranged themselves
along the benches, awaiting, in solemn silence, the signal from their
monarch which should reawaken the activity of the serving-women and
inaugurate a banquet bidding fair to last until sundown. The Great Sun
had raised his sceptre of painted feathers to indicate to his master of
ceremonies that the time had come for the serving of the first course,
when the royal eye lighted upon Zenobe Membré and the Mohican, who
still stood upon a hillock beyond the furthest line of benches, plunged
in deep converse.
“Go to your friend who sings the praises of his god, the Moon,”
exclaimed the King, turning to Noco, who stood behind him awaiting his
pleasure, and pointing his tawdry sceptre toward the Franciscan, “and
say to him that the Brother of the Sun invites him to meat and drink.
Have my people make a place for him, and for his captive who leans upon
his voice. Go quickly, and return to me at once.”
Without further delay, the monarch gave the impatiently-awaited
signal for the serving of the feast, and the hunger of his guests was
suddenly confronted by a throng of antagonists, any one of which was
fashioned to appease, in short order, the appetite of a European. The
coarser meats, the buffalo steaks and the clumsily cooked venison,
were relieved by fish prepared for the table with some skill, and by
old corn made palatable in a variety of ways. To Henri de Tonti’s
great satisfaction, he found that the _cuisine_ of the sun-worshippers
was the most admirable which he had encountered in his long years of
pilgrimages from one native tribe to another.
It was with a great deal of reluctance that the Franciscan friar,
followed by Chatémuc, had accepted the invitation extended to him from
the Great Sun through Noco’s overworked tongue. She had delivered her
message to the friar in her mongrel Spanish, and the Franciscan’s
knowledge of Latin had enabled him to grasp the general tenor of
her words. He had been endeavoring to throw upon the embers of the
Mohican’s religious enthusiasm sufficient fuel to beget a flame that
should result in immediate action of an heroic nature. But while
the Franciscan dwelt upon the glories of martyrdom and the splendor
of the rewards awaiting a servant of the Church who gave his life
for the faith, fatigue and hunger, having possessed themselves of
Chatémuc’s earthly tabernacle, formed a powerful alliance against that
self-abnegation which the priest labored earnestly to arouse in the
Mohican’s soul.
“To eat meat with these children of Satan, who worship the very fires
of hell, is, I fear, to commit a grave sin,” remarked the friar,
gazing upward at Chatémuc dubiously, as they followed Noco toward the
lower benches. Being a hungry barbarian, not a devout and learned
controversialist, the Mohican could vouchsafe in answer to this nothing
more satisfactory than a grunt, a guttural comment upon the delicate
point raised by the agitated friar which might mean much or nothing.
Seated at the very outskirts of the picturesque throng, Zenobe Membré
bent his tonsured head and told his beads for a time, watching Chatémuc
furtively as the Mohican indulged freely in roasted meats, half-cooked
fish, and various preparations made from last year’s corn.
“How proudly yonder temple rises toward the sky, my Chatémuc,” muttered
the friar, glancing toward the City of the Sun. “Great will be the
glory of the hand chosen by the saints to pull it to the ground.”
Chatémuc chewed a morsel of tough venison and said nothing, but his
eyes rested with a hostile gleam upon the Great Sun a hundred yards
beyond him, beside whom sat Katonah, seemingly removed from her
brother by the breadth of a mighty nation. Suddenly by the Mohican’s
side appeared a serving-woman, who placed upon the bench at his right
hand a gourd containing a fermented liquor made of the leaves of
the cassia-tree. The increasing loquacity of the banqueters beyond
the friar and his companion proved that the beverage, which had now
reached them, possessed exhilarating properties. If the Franciscan had
needed further evidence of the enlivening influence of the seductive
liquor, which had come late to the feast as an ally to good-fellowship,
the change in Chatémuc’s face would have offered it. After emptying
his gourd twice--for the Mohican liked the cinnamon flavor of the
drink--Chatémuc, flashing a glance of hatred at the Great Sun, looked
down at the attentive friar at his side.
“The fire of hell shall burn no more beyond,” he said, jerking his hand
toward the distant city, behind which the weary sun had begun to creep.
“The oath I swore to you shall be no idle boast.”
Having observed that the Mohican liked the wine she offered him,
the woman delegated to serve the friar and his comrade refilled the
latter’s gourd for the third time. Chatémuc swallowed the fiery liquor
eagerly, and turned to speak a final word to the priest.
At that instant Zenobe Membré’s eyes were fixed upon the royal group
beyond him. The Great Sun had arisen and stood waving his feathered
sceptre energetically, while he gazed down at Noco, to whom he seemed
to be talking with some excitement. Gazing up at the King, with a
satirical smile upon his delicate face, sat de Sancerre, while de Tonti
had sprung to his feet with an expression of anger upon his countenance.
When the friar turned to address Chatémuc, he discovered that the
Mohican had left his side and had been lost to sight in the long
shadows of the stealthy twilight.