Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Cousin,” she said, timidly, “are you displeased?”

  “Why?”

  “At my tyranny to make you bear me across the stream — with all your heavier burdens, and my own—”

  “I ask no sweeter burdens,” I replied.

  She seated herself in the sand and placed a scarlet berry between lips that matched it.

  “I have tried very hard to talk to you,” she said.

  “I don’t know what to say, Dorothy,” I muttered. “Truly I do desire to amuse you and make you laugh — as once I did. But the heart of everything seems dead. There! I did not mean that! Don’t hide your face, Dorothy! Don’t look like that! I — I cannot bear it. And listen, cousin; we are to be quite happy. I have thought it all out, and I mean to be gay and amuse you.... Won’t you look at me, Dorothy?” “Wh — why?” she asked, unsteadily.

  “Just to see how happy I am — just to see that I pull no long faces — idiot that I was!... Dorothy, will you smile just once?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, lifting her head and raising her wet lashes. Presently her lips parted in one of her adorable smiles. “Now that you have made me weep till my nose is red you may pick me every strawberry in sight,” she said, winking away the bright tears. “You have heard of the penance of the Algonquin witch?”

  I knew nothing of Northern Indian lore, and I said so.

  “What? You never heard of the Stonish Giants? You never heard of the Flying Head? Mercy on the boy! Sit here and we’ll eat strawberries and I shall tell you tales of the Long House.... Sit nearer, for I shall speak in a low voice lest old Atotarho awake from his long sleep and the dead pines ring hollow, like witch-drums under the yellow-hammer’s double blows.... Are you afraid?”

  “All a-shiver,” I whispered, gayly.

  “Then listen,” she breathed, raising one pink-tipped finger. “This is the tale of the Eight Thunders, told in the oldest tongue of the confederacy and to all ensigns of the three clans ere the Erians sued for peace. Therefore it is true.

  “Long ago, the Holder of the Heavens made a very poisonous blue otter, and the Mohawks killed it and threw its body into the lake. And the Holder of Heaven came to the eastern door of the Long House and knocked, saying: ‘Where is the very poisonous blue otter that I made, O Keepers of the Eastern Door?’

  “‘Who calls?’ asked the Mohawks, peeping out to see.

  “Then the Holder of the Heavens named himself, and the Mohawks were afraid and hid in the Long House, listening.

  “‘Be afraid! O you wise men and sachems! The wisdom of a child alone can save you!’ said the Holder of the Heavens. Saying this he wrapped himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun.”

  My cousin’s voice had fallen into a low, melodious sing-song; her rapt eyes were fixed on me.

  “A youth of the Mohawks loved a maid, and they sat by the lake at night, counting the Dancers in the sky — which we call stars of the Pleiades.

  “‘One has fallen into the lake,’ said the youth.

  “‘It is the eye of the very poisonous blue otter,’ replied the maid, beginning to cry.

  “‘I see the lost Dancer shining down under the water,’ said the youth again. Then he bade the maid go back and wait for him; and she went back and built a fire and sat sadly beside it. Then she heard some one coming and turned around. A young man stood there dressed in white, and with white feathers on his head. ‘You are sad,’ he said to the maid, ‘but we will help you.’ Then he gave her a belt of purple wampum to show that he spoke the truth.

  “‘Follow,’ he said; and she followed to a place in the forest where smoke rose. There she saw a fire, and, around it, eight chiefs sitting, with white feathers on their heads.

  “‘These chiefs are the Eight Thunders,’ she thought; ‘now they will help me.’ And she said: ‘A Dancer has fallen out of the sky and a Mohawk youth has plunged for it.’

  “‘The blue otter has turned into a serpent, and the Mohawk youth beheld her eye under the waters,’ they said, one after the other. The maid wept and laid the wampum at her feet. Then she rubbed ashes on her lips and on her breasts and in the palms of her hands.

  “‘The Mohawk youth has wedded the Lake Serpent,’ they said, one after the other. The maid wept; and she rubbed ashes on her thighs and on her feet.

  “‘Listen,’ they said, one after another; ‘take strawberries and go to the lake. You will know what to do. When that is done we will come in the form of a cloud on the lake, not in the sky.’

  “So she found strawberries in the starlight and went to the lake, calling, ‘Friend! Friend! I am going away and wish to see you!’

  “Out on the lake the water began to boil, and coming out of it she saw her friend. He had a spot on his forehead and looked like a serpent, and yet like a man. Then she spread the berries on the shore and he came to the land and ate. Then he went back to the shore and placed his lips to the water, drinking. And the maid saw him going down through the water like a snake. So she cried, ‘Friends! Friends! I am going away and wish to see you!’

  “The lake boiled and her friend came out of it. The lake boiled once more; not in one spot alone, but all over, like a high sea spouting on a reef.

  “Out of the water came her friend’s wife, beautiful to behold and shining with silver scales. Her long hair fell all around her, and seemed like silver and gold. When she came ashore she stretched out on the sand and took a strawberry between her lips. The young maid watched the lake until she saw something moving on the waters a great way off, which seemed like a cloud.

  “In a moment the stars went out and it grew dark, and it thundered till the skies fell down, torn into rain by the terrible lightning. All was still at last, and it grew lighter. The maid opened her eyes to find herself in the arms of her friend. But at their feet lay the dying sparks of a shattered star.

  “Then as they went back through the woods the eight chiefs passed them in Indian file, and they saw them rising higher and higher, till they went up to the sky like mists at sunrise.”

  Dorothy’s voice died away; she stretched out one arm.

  “THIS IS THE END, O YOU WISE MEN AND SACHEMS!”.

  “This is the end, O you wise men and sachems, told since the beginning to us People of the Morning. Hiro [I have spoken]!”

  Then a startling thing occurred; up from the underbrush behind us rose a tall Indian warrior, naked to the waist, painted from belt to brow with terrific, nameless emblems and signs. I sprang to my feet, horror-struck; the savage folded his arms, quietly smiling; and I saw knife and hatchet resting in his belt and a long rifle on the moss at his feet.

  “Kôue! That was a true tale,” he said, in good English. “It is a miracle that one among you sings the truth concerning us poor Mohawks.”

  “Do you come in peace?” I asked, almost stunned.

  He made a gesture. “Had I come otherwise, you had known it!” He looked straight at Dorothy. “You are the patroon’s daughter. Does he speak as truthfully of the Mohawks as do you?”

  “Who are you?” I asked, slowly.

  He smiled again. “My name is Brant,” he said.

  “Joseph Brant! Thayendanegea!” murmured Dorothy, aloud.

  “A cousin of his,” said the savage, carelessly. Then he turned sternly on me. “Tell that man who follows me that I could have slain him twice within the hour; once at the ford, once on Stoner’s hill. Does he take me for a deer? Does he believe I wear war-paint? There is no war betwixt the Mohawks and the Boston people — yet! Tell that fool to go home!”

  “What fool?” I asked, troubled.

  “You will meet him — journeying the wrong way,” said the Indian, grimly.

  With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and passed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening there together long after he had disappeared.

  “That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint,” whispered my cousin. “He was painted for the secret r
ites of the False-Faces.”

  “He could have slain us as we sat,” I said, bitterly humiliated.

  She looked up at me thoughtfully; there was not in her face the slightest trace of the deep emotions which had shocked me.

  “A tribal fire is lighted somewhere,” she mused. “Chiefs like Brant do not travel alone — unless — unless he came to consult that witch Catrine Montour, or to guide her to some national council-fire in the North.”

  She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a moment since.

  “Do you know,” she said, “that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The smoke we saw was a secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces for a council. They may mean war; I’m sure they mean it, though Brant wore no war-paint. But war has not yet been declared; it is no scant ceremony when a nation of the Iroquois decides on war. And if the confederacy declares war the ceremonies may last a fortnight. The False-Faces must be heard from first. And, Heaven help us! I believe their fires are lighted now.”

  “What ghastly manner of folk are these False-Faces?” I asked.

  “A secret clan, common to all Northern and Western Indians, celebrating secret rites among the six nations of the Iroquois. Some say the spectacle is worse than the orgies of the Dream-feast — a frightful sight, truly hellish; and yet others say the False-Faces do no harm, but make merry in secret places. But this I know; if the False-Faces are to decide for war or peace, they will sway the entire confederacy, and perhaps every Indian in North America; for though nobody knows who belongs to the secret sect, two-thirds of the Mohawks are said to be numbered in its ranks; and as go the Mohawks, so goes the confederacy.”

  “How is it you know all this?” I asked, amazed.

  “My playmate was Magdalen Brant,” she said. “Her playmates were pure Mohawk.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that this painted savage is kin to that lovely girl who came with Sir John and the Butlers?” I demanded.

  “They are related. And, cousin, this ‘painted savage’ is no savage if the arts of civilization which he learned at Dr. Wheelock’s school count for anything. He was secretary to old Sir William. He is an educated man, spite of his naked body and paint, and the more to be dreaded, it appears to me.... Hark! See those branches moving beside the trail! There is a man yonder. Follow me.”

  On the sandy bank our shoes made little sound, yet the unseen man heard us and threw up a glittering rifle, calling out: “Halt! or I fire.”

  Dorothy stopped short, and her hand fell on my arm, pressing it significantly. Out into the middle of the trail stepped a tall fellow clad from throat to ankle in deer-skin. On his curly head rested a little, round cap of silvery mole-skin, light as a feather; his leggings’ fringe was dyed green; baldrick, knife-sheath, bullet-pouch, powder-horn, and hatchet-holster were deeply beaded in scarlet, white, and black, and bands of purple porcupine-quills edged shoulder-cape and moccasins, around which were painted orange-colored flowers, each centred with a golden bead.

  “A forest-runner,” she motioned with her lips, “and, if I’m not blind, he should answer to the name of Mount — and many crimes, they say.”

  The forest-runner stood alert, rifle resting easily in the hollow of his left arm.

  “Who passes?” he called out.

  “White folk,” replied Dorothy, laughing. Then we stepped out.

  “Well, well,” said the forest-runner, lifting his mole-skin cap with a grin; “if this is not the pleasantest sight that has soothed my eyes since we hung that Tory whelp last Friday — and no disrespect to Mistress Varick, whose father is more patriot than many another I might name!”

  “I bid you good-even, Jack Mount,” said Dorothy, smiling.

  “To you, Mistress Varick,” he said, bowing the deeper; then glanced keenly at me and recognized me at the same moment. “Has my prophecy come true, sir?” he asked, instantly.

  “God save our country,” I said, significantly.

  “Then I was right!” he said, and flushed with pleasure when I offered him my hand.

  “If I am not too free,” he muttered, taking my hand in his great, hard paw, almost affectionately.

  “You may walk with us if you journey our way,” said Dorothy; and the great fellow shuffled up beside her, cap in hand, and it amused me to see him strive to shorten his strides to hers, so that he presently fell into a strange gait, half-skip, half-toddle.

  “Pray cover yourself,” said Dorothy, encouragingly, and Mount did so, dumb as a Matanzas oyster and crimson as a boiled sea-crab. Then, doubtless, deeming that gentility required some polite observation, he spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a “sweet profusion” of Indians; and I nigh stifled with laughter to see this lumbering, free-voiced forest-runner transformed to a mincing, anxious, backwoods macaroni at the smile of a pretty woman.

  “Do you bring no other news save of the birds and blossoms?” asked Dorothy, mischievously. “Tell us what we all are fearful of. Have the Senecas and Cayugas risen to join the British?”

  Mount stole a glance at me.

  “I wish I knew,” he muttered.

  “We will know soon, now,” I said, soberly.

  “Sooner, perhaps, than you expect, sir,” he said. “I am summoned to the manor to confer with General Schuyler on this very matter of the Iroquois.”

  “Is it true that the Mohawks are in their war-paint?” asked Dorothy, maliciously.

  “Stoner and Timothy Murphy say so,” replied Mount. “Sir John and the Butlers are busy with the Onondagas and Oneidas; Dominic Kirkland is doing his best to keep them peaceable; and our General played his last cards at their national council. We can only wait and see, Mistress Varick.”

  He hesitated, glancing at me askance.

  “The fact is,” he said, “I’ve been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think.”

  He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile.

  “I’m counted a good tracker,” he muttered. “I’m as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan’s riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as Joseph Brant.”

  He paused, in hurt surprise, for we were laughing. And then I told him of the Indian and what message he had sent by us, and Mount listened, red as a pippin, gnawing his lip.

  “I am glad to know it,” he said. “This will be evil news to General Schuyler, I have no doubt. Lord! but it makes me mad to think how close to Brant I stood and could not drill his painted hide!”

  “He spared you,” I said.

  “That is his affair,” muttered Mount, striding on angrily.

  “There speaks the obstinate white man, who can see no good in any savage,” whispered Dorothy. “Nothing an Indian does is right or generous; these forest-runners hate them, distrust them, fear them — though they may deny it — and kill all they can. And you may argue all day with an Indian-hater and have your trouble to pay you. Yet I have heard that this man Mount is brave and generous to enemies of his own color.”

  We had now come to the road in front of the house, and Mount set his cap rakishly on his head, straightened cape and baldrick, and ran his fingers through the gorgeous thrums rippling from sleeve and thigh.

  “I’d barter a month’s pay for a pot o’ beer,” he said to me. “I learned to drink serving with Cresap’s riflemen at the siege of Boston; a godless company, sir, for an innocent man to fall among. But Morgan’s rifles are worse, Mr. Ormond; they drink no water save when it
rains in their gin toddy.”

  “Sir Lupus says you tried to join them,” said Dorothy, to plague him.

  “So I did, Mistress Varick, so I did,” he stammered; “to break ’em o’ their habits, ma’am. Trust me, if I had that corps I’d teach ’em to let spirits alone if I had to drink every drop in camp to keep ’em sober!”

  “There’s beer in the buttery,” she said, laughing; “and if you smile at Tulip she’ll see you starve not.”

  “Nobody,” said I, “goes thirsty or hungry at Varick Manor.”

  “Indeed, no,” said Dorothy, much amused, as old Cato came down the path, hat in hand. “Here, Cato! do you take Captain Mount and see that he is comfortable and that he lacks nothing.”

  So, standing together in the stockade gateway, we watched Cato conducting Mount towards the quarters behind the guard-house, then walked on to meet the children, who came dancing down the driveway to greet us.

  “Dorothy! Dorothy!” cried Cecile, “we’ve shaved candles and waxed the library floors. Lady Schuyler is here and the General and the Carmichael girls we knew at school, and their cousin, Maddaleen Dirck, and Christie McDonald and Marguerite Haldimand — cousin to the Tory general in Canada — and—”

  “I’m to walk a minuet with Madge Haldimand!” broke in Ruyven; “will you lend me your gold stock-buckle, Cousin Ormond?”

  “I mean to dance, too,” cried Harry, crowding up to pluck my sleeve. “Please, Cousin Ormond, lend me a lace handkerchief.”

  “Paltz Clavarack, of the Half-moon Regiment, asked me to walk a minuet,” observed Cecile, tossing her head. “I’m sure I don’t know what to say. He’s so persistent.”

  Benny’s clamor broke out: “Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth! Thammy thtole papath betht thnuff-boxth!”

  “Sammy!” cried Dorothy, “what did you steal your father’s best snuff-box for?”

  “I only desired to offer snuff to General Schuyler,” said Sammy, sullenly, amid a roar of laughter.

  “We’re to dine at eight! Everybody is dressing; come on, Dorothy!” cried Cecile. “Mr. Clavarack vowed he’d perish if I kept him waiting—”