The Hidden Children by Robert W. Chambers (books to improve english .TXT) 📗

child, outside the St. Regis village, fed by them, and her solitude respected. Then Munro came and his soldiers scattered the St. Regis and took her and her baby to the fort. And the St. Regis chief sent word that he would kill her if she ever married."

So painfully intent was I on his every low-spoken word that I scarce dared breathe as the story of my mother slowly unfolded.

"Guy Johnson and I took the young woman and her child to Edward," he said. "Her name was Marie Loskiel, and she told us that she was the widow of a Scotch fur trader, one Ian Loskiel, of Saint Sacrament."

There was another silence, as though he were not willing to continue. Then in a quiet voice I bade him speak; and he spoke, very gravely:

"Your mother's religion and Guy Johnson's were different. If that were the reason she would not marry him I do not know. Only that when he went away, leaving her at Edward, they both wept. I was standing by his stirrup; I saw him—and her.

"And—he rode away, Loskiel.... Why she tried to follow him the next spring, I do not know.... Perhaps she found that love was stronger than religion.... And after all the only difference seemed to be that she prayed to the mother of the God he prayed to.... We spoke of it together, the Great Serpent, young Uncas, and I. And Uncas told us this. But the Serpent and I could make nothing of it.

"And while Guy Johnson was at Edward, only he and I and your mother ever saw or touched you.... And ever you were tracing with your baby fingers the great Ghost Bear rearing on my breast——"

"Ah!" I exclaimed sharply. "That is what I have struggled to remember!"

He drew a deep, unsteady breath:

"Do you better understand our blood-brotherhood now, Loskiel?"

"I understand—profoundly."

"That is well. That is as it should be, O my blood-brother, pure from birth, and at adolescence undefiled. Of such Hidden Ones were the White-Plumed Sagamores. Of such was Tamanund, the Silver-Plumed; and the great Uncas, with his snowy-winged and feathered head—Hidden People, Loskiel—without stain, without reproach.

"And as it was to be recorded on the eternal wampum, you were found at Guy Johnson's landing place asleep beside a stranded St. Regis canoe; and your dead mother lay beside you with a half ounce ball through her heart. The St. Regis chief had spoken."

"Why do you think he slew her?" I whispered.

"Strike flint. It is safe here."

I drew myself to my elbow, struck fire and blew the tinder to a glow.

"This is yours," he said. And laid in my hand a tiny, lacquered folder striped with the pattern of a Scotch tartan.

Wondering, I opened it. Within was a bit of wool in which still remained three rusted needles. And across the inside cover was written in faded ink:

"Marie Loskiel."

"How came you by this?" I stammered, the quick tears blinding me.

"I took it from the St. Regis hunter whom Tahoontowhee slew."

"Was he my mother's murderer!"

"Who knows?" said the Sagamore softly. "Yet, this needle-book is a poor thing for an Indian to treasure—and carry in a pouch around his neck for twenty years."

The glow-worm spark in my tinder grew dull and went out. For a long while I lay there, thinking, awed by the ways of God—so certain, so inscrutable. And understood how at the last all things must be revealed—even the momentary and lightest impulse, and every deepest and most secret thought.

Lying there, I asked of the Master of Life His compassion on us all, and said my tremulous and silent thanks to Him for the dear, sad secret that His mercy had revealed.

And, my lips resting on my mother's needle-book, I thought of Lois, and how like mine in a measure was her strange history, not yet fully revealed.

"Sagamore, my elder brother?" I said at last.

"Mayaro listens."

"How is it then with Lois de Contrecoeur that you already knew she was of the Hidden Children?"

"I knew it when I first laid eyes on her, Loskiel."

"By what sign?"

"The moccasins. She lay under a cow-shed asleep in her red cloak, her head on her arms. Beside her the kerchief tied around her bundle lay unknotted, revealing the moccasins that lay within. I saw, and knew. And for that reason have I been her friend."

"You told her this?"

"Why should I tell her?"

There was no answer to this. An Indian is an Indian.

I said after a moment:

"What mark is there on the moccasins that you knew them?"

"The wings, worked in white wampum. A mother makes a pair with wings each year for her Hidden One, so that they will bring her little child to her one day, swiftly and surely as the swallow that returns with spring."

"Has she told you of these moccasins—how every year a pair of them is left for her, no matter where she may be lodged?"

"She has told me. She has shown me the letter on bark which was found with her; the relics of her father; this last pair of moccasins, and the new message written within. And she asked me to guide her to Catharines-town. And I have refused.

"No, Loskiel, I have never doubted that she was of the Hidden People. And for that reason have I been patient and kind when she has beset me with her pleading that I show to her the trail to Catharines-town.

"But I will not. For although in rifle dress she might go with us—nay, nor do I even doubt that she might endure the war-path as well as any stripling eager for honour and his first scalp taken—I will not have her blood upon my hands.

"For if she stir thither—if she venture within the Great Shadow—the ghouls of Amochol will know it. And they will take her and slay her on their altar, spite of us all—spite of you and me and your generals and colonels, and all your troops and riflemen—spite of your whole army and its mighty armament, I say it—I, a Siwanois Mohican of the Enchanted Clan. A Sagamore has spoken."

Chill after chill crept over me so that I shook as I lay there in the darkness "Who is this maiden, Lois?" I asked.

"Do you not guess, Loskiel?"

"Vaguely."

"Then listen, brother. Her grandfather was the great Jean Coeur who married the white daughter of the Chevalier de Clauzun. Her mother was Mlle. Jeanne Coeur; her father the young Vicomte de Contrecoeur, of the Regiment de la Reine—not that stupid Captain Contrecoeur of the regiment of Languedoc, who, had it depended on him, would never have ventured to attack Braddock at all.

"This is true, because I knew them both—both of these Contrecoeur captains. And the picture she showed to me was that of the officer in the Regiment de la Reine.

"I saw that regiment die almost to a man. I saw Dieskau fall; I saw that gay young officer, de Contrecoeur, who had nicknamed himself Jean Coeur, laugh at our Iroquois as he stood almost alone—almost the last man living, among his fallen white-coats.

"And I saw him dead, Loskiel—the smile still on his dead lips, and his eyes still open and clear and seeming to laugh up at the white clouds sailing, which he could not see.

"That was the man she showed me painted on polished bone."

"And—her mother?" I asked.

"I can only guess, Loskiel, for I never saw her. But I believe she must have been with the army. Somehow, Sir William's Senecas got hold of her and took her to Catharines-town. And if the little Lois was born there or at Yndaia, or perhaps among the Lakes before the mother was made prisoner, I do not know. Only this I gather, that when the Cats of Amochol heard there was a child, they demanded it for a sacrifice. And there must have been some Seneca there—doubtless some adopted Seneca of a birth more civilized—who told the mother, and who was persuaded by her to make of it a Hidden One.

"How long it lay concealed, and in whose care, how can I know? But it is certain that Amochol learned that it had been hidden, and sent his Cat-People out to prowl and watch. Then, doubtless did the mother send it from her by the faithful one whose bark letter was found by the new foster-parents when they found the little Lois.

"And this is how it has happened, brother. And that the Cat-People now know she is alive, and who she is, does not amaze me. For they are sorcerers, and if one of them did not steal after the messenger when he left Yndaia with the poor mother's yearly gift of moccasins, then it was discovered by witchcraft."

"For Amochol never forgets. And whom the Red Priest chooses for his altar sooner or later will surely die there, unless the Sorcerer dies first and his Cat-People are slain and skinned, and the vile altar is destroyed among the ashes of its accursed fire!"

"Then, with the help of an outraged God, these righteous things shall come to pass!" I said between clenched teeth.

The Sagamore sat with his crested head bowed. And if he were in ghostly communication with the Mighty Dead I do not know, for I heard him breathe the name of Tamanund, and then remain silent as though listening for an answer.

I had been asleep but a few moments, it seemed to me, when the Grey-Feather awoke me for my turn at guard duty; and the Mohican and I rose from our blankets, reprimed our rifles, crept out from under the laurel and across the shadowy rock-strewn knoll to our posts.

The rocky slope below us was almost clear to the river, save for a bush or two.

Nothing stirred, no animals, not a leaf. And after a while the profound stillness began to affect me, partly because the day had been one to try my nerves, partly because the silence was uncanny, even to me. And I knew how dread of the supernatural had already tampered with the steadiness of my red comrades—men who were otherwise utterly fearless; and I dreaded the effect on the Mohican, whose mind now was surcharged with hideous and goblin superstitions.

In the night silence of a forest, always there are faint sounds to be heard which, if emphasizing the stillness, somehow soften it too. Leaves fall, unseen, whispering downward from high trees, and settling among their dead fellows with a faintly comfortable rustle. Small animals move in the dark, passing and repassing warily; one hears the high feathered ruffling and the plaint of sleepy birds; breezes play with the young leaves; water murmurs.

But here there was no single sound to mitigate the stillness; and, had I dared in my mossy nest behind the rocks, I would have contrived same slight stirring sound, merely to make the silence more endurable.

I could see the river, but could not hear it. From where I lay, close to the ground, the trees stood out in shadowy clusters against the vague and hazy mist that spread low over the water.

And, as I lay watching it, without the slightest warning, a head was lifted from behind a bush. It was the head of a wolf in silhouette against the water.

Curiously I watched it; and as I looked, from another bush another head was lifted—the round, flattened head and tasselled ears of the great grey lynx. And before I could realize the strangeness of their proximity to each other, these two heads were joined by a third—the snarling features of a wolverine.

Then a startling and incredible thing happened; the head of the big timber-wolf rose still higher, little by little, slowly, stealthily, above the bush. And I saw to my horror that it had the body of a man. And, already overstrained as I was, it was a mercy that I did not faint where I lay behind my rock, so ghastly did this monstrous vision seem to me.

CHAPTER XIV NAI TIOGA!

How my proper senses resisted the swoon that threatened them I do not know; but when the lynx, too, lifted a menacing and flattened head on human shoulders; and when the wolverine also stood out in human-like shadow against the foggy water, I knew that these ghostly things that stirred my hair were no hobgoblins at all, but living men. And the clogged current of my blood flowed free again, and the sweat on my skin cooled.

The furry ears of the wolf-man, pricked up against the vaguely lustrous background of the river, fascinated me. For all the world those pointed ears seemed to be listening. But I knew they were dead and dried; that a man's eyes were gazing through the sightless sockets of the beast.

From somewhere in the darkness the Mohican came gliding on his belly over the velvet carpet of the moss.

"Andastes," he whispered