Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Then six sachems rose, casting off their black-and-white blankets, and each in turn planted branches of yellow willow, green willow, red osier, samphire, witch-hazel, spice-bush, and silver birch along the edge of the silent throng of savages.

  “Until the night-sun comes be these your barriers, O Iroquois!” they chanted. And all answered:

  “The Cherry-maid shall lock the gates to the People of the Morning! A-e! ja-e! Wild cherry and cherry that is red!”

  Then came the Cherry-maid, a slender creature, hung from head to foot with thick bunches of wild cherries which danced and swung when she walked; and the False-Faces plucked the fruit from her as she passed around, laughing and tossing her black hair, until she had been despoiled and only the garment of sewed leaves hung from shoulder to ankle.

  A green blanket was spread for her and she sat down under the branch of witch-hazel.

  “The barrier is closed!” she said. “Kindle your coals from Onondaga, O you Keepers of the Central Fire!”

  An aged sachem arose, and, lifting his withered arm, swept it eastward.

  “The hearth is cleansed,” he said, feebly. “Brothers, attend! She-who-runs is coming. Listen!”

  A dead silence fell over the throng, broken only by the rustle of the flames. After a moment, very far away in the forest, something sounded like the muffled gallop of an animal, paddy-pad! paddy-pad, coming nearer and ever nearer.

  “It’s the Toad-woman!” gasped Mount in my ear. “It’s the Huron witch! Ah! My God! look there!”

  Hopping, squattering, half scrambling, half bounding into the firelight came running a dumpy creature all fluttering with scarlet rags. A coarse mat of gray hair masked her visage; she pushed it aside and raised a dreadful face in the red fire-glow — a face so marred, so horrible, that I felt Mount shivering in the darkness beside me.

  Through the hollow boom-boom of the witch-drums I heard a murmur swelling from the motionless crowd, like a rising wind in the pines. The hag heard it too; her mouth widened, splitting her ghastly visage. A single yellow fang caught the firelight.

  “O you People of the Mountain! O you Onondagas!” she cried. “I am come to ask my Cayugas and my Senecas why they assemble here on the Kennyetto when their council-fire and yours should burn at Onondaga! O you Oneidas, People of the Standing Stone! I am come to ask my Senecas, my Mountain-snakes, why the Keepers of the Iroquois Fire have let it go out? O you of the three clans, let your ensigns rise and listen. I speak to the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Bear! And I call on the seven kindred clans of the Wolf, and the two kindred clans of the Turtle, and the four kindred clans of the Bear throughout the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy, throughout the clans of the Lenni-Lenape, throughout the Huron-Algonquins and their clans!

  “And I call on the False-Faces of the Spirit-water and the Water of Light!”

  She shook her scarlet rags and, raising her arm, hurled a hatchet into a painted post which stood behind the central fire.

  “O you Cayugas, People of the Carrying-place! Strike that war-post with your hatchets or face the ghosts of your fathers in every trail!”

  There was a deathly silence. Catrine Montour closed her horrible little eyes, threw back her head, and, marking time with her flat foot, began to chant.

  She chanted the glory of the Long House; of the nations that drove the Eries, the Hurons, the Algonquins; of the nation that purged the earth of the Stonish Giants; of the nation that fought the dreadful battle of the Flying Heads. She sang the triumph of the confederacy, the bonds that linked the Elder Brothers and Elder Sons with the Esaurora, whose tongue was the sign of council unity.

  And the circle of savages began to sway in rhythm to her chanting, answering back, calling their challenge from clan to clan; until, suddenly, the Senecas sprang to their feet and drove their hatchets into the war-post, challenging the Lenape with their own battle-cry:

  “Yoagh! Yoagh! Ha-ha! Hagh! Yoagh!”

  Then the Mohawks raised their war-yelp and struck the post; and the Cayugas answered with a terrible cry, striking the post, and calling out for the Next Youngest Son — meaning the Tuscaroras — to draw their hatchets.

  “Have the Seminoles made women of you?” screamed Catrine Montour, menacing the sachems of the Tuscaroras with clinched fists.

  “Let the Lenape tell you of women!” retorted a Tuscarora sachem, calmly.

  At this opening of an old wound the Oneidas called on the Lenape to answer; but the Lenape sat sullen and silent, with flashing eyes fixed on the Mohawks.

  Then Catrine Montour, lashing herself into a fury, screamed for vengeance on the people who had broken the chain-belt with the Long House. Raving and frothing, she burst into a torrent of prophecy, which silenced every tongue and held every Indian fascinated.

  “Look!” whispered Mount. “The Oneidas are drawing their hatchets! The Tuscaroras will follow! The Iroquois will declare for war!”

  Suddenly the False-Faces raised a ringing shout:

  “Kree! Ha-ha! Kre-e!”

  And a hideous creature in yellow advanced, rattling his yellow mask.

  Catrine Montour, slavering and gasping, leaned against the painted war-post. Into the fire-ring came dancing a dozen girls, all strung with brilliant wampum, their bodies and limbs painted vermilion, sleeveless robes of wild iris hanging to their knees. With a shout they chanted:

  “O False-Faces, prepare to do honor to the truth! She who Dreams has come from her three sisters — the Woman of the Thunder-cloud, the Woman of the Sounding Footsteps, the Woman of the Murmuring Skies!”

  And, joining hands, they cried, sweetly: “Come, O Little Rosebud Woman! — Ke-neance-e-qua! O-gin-e-o-qua! — Woman of the Rose!”

  And all together the False-Faces cried: “Welcome to Ta-lu-la, the leaping waters! Here is I-é-nia, the wanderer’s rest! Welcome, O Woman of the Rose!”

  Then the grotesque throng of the False-Faces parted right and left; a lynx, its green eyes glowing, paced out into the firelight; and behind the tawny tree-cat came slowly a single figure — a young girl, bare of breast and arm; belted at the hips with silver, from which hung a straight breadth of doeskin to the instep of her bare feet. Her dark hair, parted, fell in two heavy braids to her knees; her lips were tinted with scarlet; her small ear-lobes and finger-tips were stained a faint rose-color.

  In the breathless silence she raised her head. Sir George’s crushing grip clutched my arm, and he fell a-shuddering like a man with ague.

  The figure before us was Magdalen Brant.

  The lynx lay down at her feet and looked her steadily in the face.

  Slowly she raised her rounded arm, opened her empty palm; then from space she seemed to pluck a rose, and I saw it there between her forefinger and her thumb.

  A startled murmur broke from the throng. “Magic! She plucks blossoms from the empty air!”

  “O you Oneidas,” came the sweet, serene voice, “at the tryst of the False-Faces I have kept my tryst.

  “You wise men of the Six Nations, listen now attentively; and you, ensigns and attestants, attend, honoring the truth which from my twin lips shall flow, sweetly as new honey and as sap from April maples.”

  She stooped and picked from the ground a withered leaf, holding it out in her small, pink palm.

  “Like this withered leaf is your understanding. It is for a maid to quicken you to life, ... as I restore this last year’s leaf to life,” she said, deliberately.

  In her open palm the dry, gray leaf quivered, moved, straightened, slowly turned moist and fresh and green. Through the intense silence the heavy, gasping breath of hundreds of savages told of the tension they struggled under.

  She dropped the leaf to her feet; gradually it lost its green and curled up again, a brittle, ashy flake.

  “O you Oneidas!” she cried, in that clear voice which seemed to leave a floating melody in the air, “I have talked with my Sisters of the Murmuring Skies, and none but the lynx at my feet heard us.”

  She bent her
lovely head and looked into the creature’s blazing orbs; after a moment the cat rose, took three stealthy steps, and lay down at her feet, closing its emerald eyes.

  The girl raised her head: “Ask me concerning the truth, you sachems of the Oneida, and speak for the five war-chiefs who stand in their paint behind you!”

  An old sachem rose, peering out at her from dim, aged eyes.

  “Is it war, O Woman of the Rose?” he quavered.

  “Neah!” she said, sweetly.

  An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag, Catrine.

  “A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks! It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!”

  “And I of peace!” came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh echoes of the hag’s shrieking appeal. “Take heed, you Mohawks, and you Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this council-fire!”

  “The Oneidas are women!” yelled the hag.

  Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked, something did strike the ground — something that coiled and hissed and rattled — a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.

  “Mohawks and Cayugas!” she cried; “are you to judge the Oneidas? — you who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?”

  There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes. The lynx growled.

  “Quiet!” she said, soothingly. “The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One has gone.”

  It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.

  “Will you be swept away by this young witch’s magic?” shrieked Catrine Montour.

  “Oneidas!” cried Magdalen Brant, “the way is cleared! Hiro [I have spoken]!”

  Then the sachems of the Oneida stood up, wrapping themselves in their blankets, and moved silently away, filing into the forest, followed by the war-chiefs and those who had accompanied the Oneida delegation as attestants.

  “Tuscaroras!” said Magdalen Brant, quietly.

  The Tuscarora sachems rose and passed out into the darkness, followed by their suite of war-chiefs and attestants.

  “Onondagas!”

  All but two of the Onondaga delegation left the council-fire. Amid a profound silence the Lenape followed, and in their wake stalked three tall Mohicans.

  Walter Butler sprang up from the base of the tree where he had been sitting and pointed a shaking finger at Magdalen Brant:

  “Damn you!” he shouted; “if you call on my Mohawks, I’ll cut your throat, you witch!”

  Brant bounded to his feet and caught Butler’s rigid, outstretched arm.

  “Are you mad, to violate a council-fire?” he said, furiously. Magdalen Brant looked calmly at Butler, then deliberately faced the sachems.

  “Mohawks!” she called, steadily.

  There was a silence; Butler’s black eyes were almost starting from his bloodless visage; the hag, Montour, clawed the air in helpless fury.

  “Mohawks!” repeated the girl, quietly.

  Slowly a single war-chief rose, and, casting aside his blanket, drew his hatchet and struck the war-post. The girl eyed him contemptuously, then turned again and called:

  “Senecas!”

  A Seneca chief, painted like death, strode to the post and struck it with his hatchet.

  “Cayuga!” called the girl, steadily.

  A Cayuga chief sprang at the post and struck it twice.

  Roars of applause shook the silence; then a masked figure leaped towards the central fire, shouting: “The False-Faces’ feast! Ho! Hoh! Ho-ooh!”

  In a moment the circle was a scene of terrific excesses. Masked figures pelted each other with live coals from the fires; dancing, shrieking, yelping demons leaped about whirling their blazing torches; witch-drums boomed; chant after chant was raised as new dancers plunged into the delirious throng, whirling the carcasses of white dogs, painted with blue and yellow stripes. The nauseating stench of burned roast meat filled the air, as the False-Faces brought quarters of venison and baskets of fish into the circle and dumped them on the coals.

  Faster and more furious grew the dance of the False-Faces. The flying coals flew in every direction, streaming like shooting-stars across the fringing darkness. A grotesque masker, wearing the head-dress of a bull, hurled his torch into the air; the flaming brand lodged in the feathery top of a pine, the foliage caught fire, and with a crackling rush a vast whirlwind of flame and smoke streamed skyward from the forest giant.

  “To-wen-yon-go [It touches the sky]!” howled the crazed dancers, leaping about, while faster and faster came the volleys of live coals, until a young girl’s hair caught fire.

  “Kah-none-ye-tah-we!” they cried, falling back and forming a chain-around her as she wrung the sparks from her long hair, laughing and leaping about between the flying coals.

  Then the nine sachems of the Mohawks rose, all covering their breasts with their blankets, save the chief sachem, who is called “The Two Voices.” The serried circle fell back, Senecas, Cayugas, and Mohawks shouting their battle-cries; scores of hatchets glittered, knives flashed.

  All alone in the circle stood Magdalen Brant, slim, straight, motionless as a tinted statue, her hands on her hips. Reflections of the fires played over her, in amber and pearl and rose; violet lights lay under her eyes and where the hair shadowed her brow. Then, through the silence, a loud voice cried: “Little Rosebud Woman, the False-Faces thank you! Koon-wah-yah-tun-was [They are burning the white dog]!”

  She raised her head and laid a hand on each cheek.

  “Neah-wen-ha [I thank you],” she said, softly.

  At the word the lynx rose and looked up into her face, then turned and paced slowly across the circle, green eyes glowing.

  The young girl loosened the braids of her hair; a thick, dark cloud fell over her bare shoulders and breasts.

  “She veils her face!” chanted the False-Faces. “Respect the veil! Adieu, O Woman of the Rose!”

  Her hands fell, and, with bent head, moving slowly, pensively, she passed out of the infernal circle, the splendid lynx stalking at her heels.

  No sooner was she gone than hell itself broke loose among the False-Faces; the dance grew madder and madder, the terrible rite of sacrifice was enacted with frightful symbols. Through the awful din the three war-cries pealed, the drums advanced, thundering; the iris-maids lighted the six little fires of black-birch, spice-wood, and sassafras, and crouched to inhale the aromatic smoke until, stupefied and quivering in every limb with the inspiration of delirium, they stood erect, writhing, twisting, tossing their hair, chanting the splendors of the future!

  Then into the crazed orgie leaped the Toad-woman like a gigantic scarlet spider, screaming prophecy and performing the inconceivable and nameless rites of Ak-e, Ne-ke, and Ge-zis, until, in her frenzy, she went stark mad, and the devil worship began with the awful sacrifice of Leshee in Biskoonah.

  Horror-stricken, nauseated, I caught Mount’s arm, whispering: “Enough, in God’s name! Come away!”

  My ears rang with the distracted yelping of the Toad-woman, who was strangling a dog. Faint, almost reeling, I saw an iris-girl fall in convulsions; the stupefying smoke blew into my face, choking me. I staggered back into the darkness, feeling my way among the unseen trees, gasping for fresh air. Behind me, Mount and Sir George came creeping, groping like blind men along the cliffs.

&nbs
p; “This way,” whispered Mount.

  XVI

  ON SCOUT

  Like a pursued man hunted through a dream, I labored on, leaden-limbed, trembling; and it seemed hours and hours ere the blue starlight broke overhead and Beacraft’s dark house loomed stark and empty on the stony hill.

  Suddenly the ghostly call of a whippoorwill broke out from the willows. Mount answered; Elerson appeared in the path, making a sign for silence.

  “Magdalen Brant entered the house an hour since,” he whispered. “She sits yonder on the door-step. I think she has fallen asleep.”

  We stole forward through the dusk towards the silent figure on the door-step. She sat there, her head fallen back against the closed door, her small hands lying half open in her lap. Under her closed eyes the dark circles of fatigue lay; a faint trace of rose paint still clung to her lips; and from the ragged skirt of her thorn-rent gown one small foot was thrust, showing a silken shoe and ankle stained with mud.

  There she lay, sleeping, this maid who, with her frail strength, had split forever the most powerful and ancient confederacy the world had ever known.

  Her superb sacrifice of self, her proud indifference to delicacy and shame, her splendid acceptance of the degradation, her instant and fearless execution of the only plan which could save the land from war with a united confederacy, had left us stunned with admiration and helpless gratitude.

  Had she gone to them as a white woman, using the arts of civilized persuasion, she could have roused them to war, but she could not have soothed them to peace. She knew it — even I knew that among the Iroquois the Ruler of the Heavens can never speak to an Indian through the mouth of a white woman.

  As an Oneida, and a seeress of the False-Faces, she had answered their appeal. Using every symbol, every ceremony, every art taught her as a child, she had swayed them, vanquishing with mystery, conquering, triumphing, as an Oneida, where a single false step, a single slip, a moment’s faltering in her sweet and serene authority might have brought out the appalling cry of accusation: