The Hidden Children. Chambers Robert William
need.
I began by saluting him with the most insidious and stately compliment I could possibly offer to a Sagamore of a conquered race—a race which already was nearly extinct—investing this Mohican Sagamore with the prerogatives of his very conquerors by the subtlety of my opening phrase:
"O Sagamore! Roya-neh! Noble of the three free clans of a free Mohican people! Our people have need of you. The path is dark to Catharines-town. Terror haunts those frightful shades. Roya-nef! We need you!
"Brother! Is there occasion for belts between us to confirm a brother's words, when this leathern girth I wear around my body carries a red wampum which all may see and read—my war axe and my knife?"
I raised my right arm slowly, and drew with my forefinger a great circle in the air around us:
"Brother! Listen attentively! Since a Sagamore has read the belt I yesterday delivered, the day-sun has circled us where we now stand. It is another day, O Roya-neh! In yonder fireplace new ashes whiten, new embers redden. We have slept (touching my eyelids and then laying my right hand lightly over his); we have eaten (again touching his lips and then my own); and now—now here—now, in this place and on this day, I have returned to the Mohican fire—the Fire of Tamanund! Now I am seated (touching both knees). Now my ears are open. Let the Sagamore of the Mohicans answer my belt delivered! I have spoken, O Roya-neh!"
For a full five minutes of intense silence I knew that my bold appeal was being balanced in the scales by one of a people to whom tradition is a religion. One scale was weighted with the immemorial customs and usages of a great and proud people; the other with a white man's subtle and flattering recognition of these customs, conveyed in metaphor, which all Indians adore, and appealing to imagination—an appeal to which no Huron, no Iroquois, no Algonquin, is ever deaf.
In the breathless silence of suspense the irritable, high-pitched voice of Colonel Sheldon came to my ears. It seemed that after all he had sent out a few troopers and that one had just returned to report a large body of horsemen which had passed the Bedford road at a gallop, apparently headed for Ridgefield. But I scarcely noted what was being discussed in the further end of the hall, so intent was I on the Sagamore's reply—if, indeed, he meant to answer me at all. I could even feel Boyd's body quivering with suppressed excitement as our elbows chanced to come in contact; as for me, I scarce made out to control myself at all, and any nether lip was nearly bitten through ere the Mohican lifted his symmetrical head and looked me full and honestly in the eyes.
"Brother," he said, in a curiously hushed voice, "on this day I come to you here, at this fire, to acquaint you with my answer; answering my brother's words of yesterday."
I could hear Boyd's deep breath of profound relief. "Thank God!" I thought.
The Sagamore spoke again, very quietly:
"Brother, the road is dark to Catharines-town. There are no stars there, no moon, no sun—only a bloody mist in the forest. For to that dreadful empire of the Iroquois only blind trails lead. And from them ghosts of the Long House arise and stand. Only a thick darkness is there—an endless gloom to which the Mohican hatchets long, long ago dispatched the severed souls they struck! In every trail they stand, these ghosts of the Kanonsi, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga—ghosts of the Tuscarora. The Mohawk beasts who wear the guise of men are there. Mayaro spits upon them! And upon their League! And upon their Atotarho the Siwanois spit!"
Suddenly his arm shot out and he grasped the hilt of my knife, drew it from my belt, and then slowly returned it. I drew his knife and rendered it again.
"Brother," he said, "I have this day heard your voice coming to me out of the Northland! I have read the message on the belt you bore and wear; your voice has not lied to my ears; your message is clear as running springs to my eyes. I can see through to their pleasant depths. No snake lies hidden under them. So now—now, I say—if my brother's sight is dimmed on the trail to Catharines-town, Mayaro will teach him how to see under the night-sun as owls see, so that behind us, the steps of many men shall not stumble, and the darkness of the Long House shall become redder than dawn, lighted by the flames of a thousand rifles!
"Brother! A Sagamore never lies. I have drawn my brother's knife! Brother, I have spoken!"
And so it was done in that house and in the dark of dawn. Boyd silently gave him his hands, and so did I; then Boyd led him aside with a slight motion of dismissal to me.
As I walked toward the front door, which was now striding open, I saw Major Tallmadge go out ahead of me, run to the mounting-block, and climb into his saddle. Colonel Sheldon followed him to the doorway, and called after him:
"Take a dozen men with you, and meet Colonel Moylan! A dozen will be sufficient, Major!"
Then he turned back into the house, saying to Major Lockwood and Mr. Hunt he was positive that the large body of dragoons in rapid motion, which had been seen and reported by one of our videttes a few minutes since, could be no other than Moylan's expected regiment; and that he would mount his own men presently and draw them up in front of the Meeting House.
The rain had now nearly ceased; a cloudy, greyish horizon became visible, and the dim light spreading from a watery sky made objects dimly discernible out of doors.
I hastened back to the shed where I had left the strange maid swathed in her scarlet cape; and found her there, slowly pacing the trampled sod before it.
As I came up with her, she said:
"Why are the light dragoons riding on the Bedford road? Is aught amiss?"
"A very large body of horse has passed our videttes, making toward Ridgefield. Colonel Sheldon thinks it must be Moylan's regiment."
"Do you?"
"It may be so."
"And if it be the leather-caps?"
"Then we must find ourselves in a sorry pickle."
As I spoke, the little bugle-horn of Sheldon's Horse blew boots and saddles, and four score dragoons scrambled into their saddles down by the barns, and came riding up the sloppy road, their horses slipping badly and floundering through the puddles and across the stream, where, led by a captain, the whole troop took the Meeting House road at a stiff canter.
We watched them out of sight, then she said:
"I have awaited your pleasure, Mr. Loskiel. Pray, in what further manner can I be of service to—my country?"
"I have come back to tell you," said I, "that you can be of no further use. Our errand to the Sagamore has now ended, and most happily. You have served your country better than you can ever understand. I have come to say so, and to thank you with—with a heart—very full."
"Have I then done well?" she asked slowly.
"Indeed you have!" I replied, with such a warmth of feeling that it surprised myself.
"Then why may I not understand this thing that I have done—for my country?"
"I wish I might tell you."
"May you not?"
"No, I dare not."
She bit her lip, gazing at nothing over the ragged collar of her cape, and stood so, musing. And after a while she seemed to come to herself, wearily, and she cast a tragic upward glance at me. Then, dropping her eyes, and with the slightest inclination of her head, not looking at me at all, she started across the trampled grass.
"Wait–" I was by her side again in the same breath.
"Well, sir?" And she confronted me with cool mien and lifted brows. Under them her grey eyes hinted of a disdain which I had seen in them more than once.
"May I not suitably express my gratitude to you?" I said.
"You have already done so."
"I have tried to do so properly, but it is not easy for me to say how grateful to you we men of the Northland are—how deeply we must ever remain in your debt. Yet—I will attempt to express our thanks—if you care to listen."
After a pause: "Then—if there is nothing more to say—"
"There is, I tell you. Will you not listen?"
"I