SHALAH.
I came out of the wood a new being. My wounded arm and my torn and
inflamed limbs were forgotten. I held my head high, and walked like a
free man. It was not that I had slain my enemy and been delivered from
deadly peril, nor had I any clearer light on my next step. But I had
suddenly got the conviction that God was on my side, and that I need
not fear what man could do unto me. You may call it the madness of a
lad whose body and spirit had been tried to breaking-point. But,
madness or no, it gave me infinite courage, and in that hour I would
have dared every savage on earth.
I found some Indians at the edge of the wood, and told one who spoke
Powhatan the issue of the fight. I flung the broken arrow on the
ground.
"That is my token," I said. "You will find the other in the pool below
the cascade."
Then I strode towards the tents, looking every man I passed squarely in
the eyes. No one spoke, no one hindered me; every face was like a
graven image.
I reached the teepee in which I had spent the night, and flung myself
down on the rude couch. In a minute I was sunk in a heavy sleep.
I woke to see two men standing in the tent door. One was the chief
Onotawah, and the other a tall Indian who wore no war paint.
They came towards me, and the light fell on the face of the second. To
my amazement I recognized Shalah. He put a finger on his lip, and,
though my heart clamoured for news, I held my peace.
They squatted on a heap of skins and spoke in their own tongue. Then
Shalah addressed me in English.
"The maiden is safe, brother. There will be no more fighting at the
stockade. Those who assaulted us were of my own tribe, and yesterday I
reasoned with them."
Then he spoke to the chief, and translated for me.
"He says that you have endured the ordeal of the stake, and have slain
your enemy in fight, and that now you will go before the great Sachem
for his judgment. That is the custom of our people."
He turned to Onotawah again, and his tone was high and scornful. He
spoke as if he were the chief and the other were the minion, and, what
was strangest of all, Onotawah replied meekly. Shalah rose to his feet
and strode to the door, pointing down the glen with his hand. He seemed
to menace the other, his nostrils quivered with contempt, and his voice
was barbed with passion. Onotawah bowed his head and said nothing.
Then he seemed to dismiss him, and the proud chief walked out of the
teepee like a disconsolate schoolboy.
Instantly Shalah turned to me and inquired about my wounds. He looked
at the hole in my arm and at my scorched legs, and from his belt took a
phial of ointment, which he rubbed on the former. He passed his cool
hands over my brow, and felt the beating of my heart.
"You are weary, brother, and somewhat scarred, but there is no grave
hurt. What of the Master?"
I told him of Ringan's end. He bent his head, and then sprang up and
held his hands high, speaking in a strange tongue. I looked at his
eyes, and they were ablaze with fire.
"My people slew him," he cried. "By the shades of my fathers, a score
shall keep him company as slaves in the Great Hunting-ground."
"Talk no more of blood," I said. "He was amply avenged. 'Twas I who
slew him, for he died to save me. He made a Christian end, and I will
not have his memory stained by more murders. But oh, Shalah, what a man
died yonder!"
He made me tell every incident of the story, and he cried out,
impassive though he was, at the sword-play in the neck of the gorge.
"I have seen it," he cried. "I have seen his bright steel flash and men
go down like ripe fruit. Tell me, brother, did he sing all the while,
as was his custom? Would I had been by his side!"
Then he told me of what had befallen at the stockade.
"The dead man told me a tale, for by the mark on his forehead I knew
that he was of my own house. When you and the Master had gone I went
into the woods and picked up the trail of our foes. I found them in a
crook of the hills, and went among them in peace. They knew me, and my
word was law unto them. No living thing will come near the stockade
save the wild beasts of the forest. Be at ease in thy mind, brother."
The news was a mighty consolation, but I was still deeply mystified.
"You speak of your tribe. But these men were no Senecas."
He smiled gravely. "Listen, brother," he said. "The white men of the
Tidewater called me Seneca, and I suffered the name. But I am of a
greater and princelier house than the Sons of the Cat. Some little
while ago I spoke to you of the man who travelled to the Western Seas,
and of his son who returned to his own people. I am the son of him who
returned. I spoke of the doings of my own kin."
"But what is your nation, then?" I cried.
"One so great that these little clanlets of Cherokee and Monacan, and
even the multitudes of the Long House, are but slaves and horseboys by
their side. We dwelt far beyond these mountains towards the setting
sun, in a plain where the rivers are like seas, and the cornlands wider
than all the Virginian manors. But there came trouble in our royal
house, and my father returned to find a generation which had forgotten
the deeds of their forefathers. So he took his own tribe, who still
remembered the House of the Sun, and, because his heart was unquiet
with longing for that which is forbidden to man, he journeyed
eastward, and found a new home in a valley of these hills. Thine eyes
have seen it. They call it the Shenandoah."
I remembered that smiling Eden I had seen from that hill-top, and how
Shalah had spoken that very name.
"We dwelt there," he continued, "while I grew to manhood, living
happily in peace, hunting the buffalo and deer, and tilling our
cornlands. Then the time came when the Great Spirit called for my
father, and I was left with the kingship of the tribe. Strange things
meantime had befallen our nation in the West. Broken clans had come
down from the north, and there had been many battles, and there had
been blight, and storms, and sickness, so that they were grown poor and
harassed. Likewise men had arisen who preached to them discontent, and
other races of a lesser breed had joined themselves to them. My own
tribe had become fewer, for the young men did not stay in our valley,
but drifted back to the West, to that nation we had come from, or went
north to the wars with the white man, or became lonely hunters in the
hills. Then from the south along the mountain crests came another
people, a squat and murderous people, who watched us from the ridges
and bided their chance."
"The Cherokees?" I asked.
"Even so. I speak of a hundred moons back, when I was yet a stripling,
with little experience in war. I saw the peril, but I could not think
that such a race could vie with the Children of the Sun. But one black
night, in the Moon of Wildfowl, the raiders descended in a torrent and
took us unprepared. What had been a happy people dwelling with full
barns and populous wigwams became in a night a desolation. Our wives
and children were slain or carried captive, and on every Cherokee belt
hung the scalps of my warriors. Some fled westwards to our nation, but
they were few that lived, and the tribe of Shalah went out like a torch
in a roaring river.
"I slew many men that night, for the gods of my fathers guided my arm.
Death I sought, but could not find it; and by and by I was alone in the
woods, with twenty scars and a heart as empty as a gourd. Then I turned
my steps to the rising sun and the land of the white man, for there was
no more any place for me in the councils of my own people.
"All this was many moons ago, and since then I have been a wanderer
among strangers. While I reigned in my valley I heard of the white
man's magic and of the power of his gods, and I longed to prove them.
Now I have learned many things which were hid from the eyes of our
oldest men. I have learned that a man may be a great brave, and yet
gentle and merciful, as was the Master, I have learned that a man may
be a lover of peace and quiet ways and have no lust of battle in his
heart, and yet when the need comes be more valiant than the best, even
as you, brother. I have learned that the God of the white men was
Himself a man who endured the ordeal of the stake for the welfare of
His enemies. I have seen cruelty and cowardice and folly among His
worshippers; but I have also seen that His faith can put spirit into a
coward's heart, and make heroes of mean men. I do not grudge my years
of wandering. They have taught me such knowledge as the Sachems of my
nation never dreamed of, and they have given me two comrades after my
own heart. One was he who died yesterday, and the other is now by my
side."
These words of Shalah did not make me proud, for things were too
serious for vanity. But they served to confirm in me my strange
exaltation. I felt as one dedicated to a mighty task.
"Tell me, what is the invasion which threatens the Tidewater?"
"The whole truth is not known to me; but from the speech of my
tribesmen, it seems that the Children of the West Wind, twelve moons
ago, struck their tents and resolved to seek a new country. There is a
restlessness comes upon all Indian peoples once in every five
generations. It fell upon my grandfather, and he travelled towards the
sunset, and now it has fallen upon the whole race of the Sun. As they
were on the eve of journeying there came to them a prophet, who told
them that God would lead them not towards the West, as was the
tradition of the elders, but eastwards to the sea and the dwellings of
the Palefaces."
"Is that the crazy white man we have heard of?"
"He is of your race, brother. What his spell is I know not, but it
works mightily among my people. They tell me that he hath bodily
converse with devils, and that God whispers His secrets to him in the
night-watches. His God hath told him--so runs the tale--that He hath
chosen the Children of the Sun for His peculiar people, and laid on
them the charge of sweeping the white men off the earth and reigning in
their stead from the hills to the Great Waters."
"Do you believe in this madman, Shalah?" I asked.
"I know not," he said, with a troubled face. "I fear one possessed of
God. But of this I am sure, that the road of the Children of the West
Wind lies not eastward but westward, and that no good can come of war
with the white man. This Sachem hath laid his magic on others than our
people, for the Cherokee nation and all the broken clans of the hills
acknowledge him and do his bidding. He is a soldier as well as a
prophet, for he has drilled and disposed his army like a master of
war."
"Will your tribe ally themselves with Cherokee murderers?"
"I asked that question of this man Onotawah, and he liked it little. He
says that his people distrust this alliance with a race they scorn, and
I do not think they pine for the white man's war. But they are under
the magic of this prophet, and presently, when blood begins to flow,
they will warm to their work. In time they will be broken, but that
time will not be soon, and meanwhile there will be nothing left alive
between the hills and the bay of Chesapeake."
"Do you know their plans?" I asked.
"The Cherokees have served their purpose," he said. "Your forecast was
right, brother. They have drawn the fire of the Border, and been driven
in a rabble far south to the Roanoke and the Carolina mountains. That
is as the prophet planned. And now, while the white men hang up their
muskets and rejoice heedlessly in their triumph, my nation prepares to
strike. To-night the moon is full, and the prophet makes intercession
with his God. To-morrow at dawn they march, and by twilight they will
have swarmed across the Border."
"Have you no power over your own people?"
"But little," he answered. "I have been too long absent from them, and
my name is half forgotten. Yet, were they free of this prophet, I think
I might sway them, for I know their ways, and I am the son of their
ancient kings. But for the present his magic holds them in thrall. They
listen in fear to one who hath the ear of God."
I arose, stretched my arms, and yawned.
"They carry me to this Sachem," I said. "Well and good. I will outface
this blasphemous liar, whoever he may be. If he makes big magic, I will
make bigger. The only course is the bold course. If I can humble this
prophet man, will you dissuade your nation from war and send them back
to the sunset?"
"Assuredly," he said wonderingly. "But what is your plan, brother?"
"None," I answered. "God will show me the way. Honesty may trust in Him
as well as madness."
"By my father's shade, you are a man, brother," and he gave me the
Indian salute.
"A very weary, feckless cripple of a man," I said, smiling. "But the
armies of Heaven are on my side, Shalah. Take my pistols and Ringan's
sword. I am going into this business with no human weapons." And as
they set me on an Indian horse and the whole tribe turned their eyes to
the higher glens, I actually rejoiced. Light-hearted or light-headed, I
know not which I was, but I know that I had no fear.