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

Their bodies were painted vermilion from brow to ankle; they carried in their hands red harvest apples, which they tossed one to another as they move lightly across the open space in a slow, springy, yet not ungraceful dance.

Behind them came a slim maid, wearing only a black fox-head, and the soft pelt dangling from her belt, and the tail behind. She was painted a ruddy yellow everywhere except a broad line of white in front, like a fox's belly; and, like a fox, too, her feet and hands were painted black.

Following her came eight girls plumed in spotless white and clothed only in white feathers—aping the Thunders, doubtless; but even to me, a white man and a Christian, it was a sinister and evil sight to see this mockery as they danced forward, arms entwined, and the snowy plumes floating out in the firelight, disclosing the white painted bodies which the firelight tinted with rose and amber lights.

Then came dancing other girls, dressed in most offensive mockery of the harmless and ancient rite—first the Fire Keeper, crowned with oak leaves instead of wild cherry, and wearing a sewed garment made of oak twigs and tufted leaves, from which the acorns hung. Followed two girls in cloaks of shimmering pine-needles, and wearing wooden masks, dragging after them the carcasses of two white dogs, to "Clothe the Moon Witch!" they cried to the burly Erie acolyte who followed them, his heavy knife shining in his hand.

Then the Erie disemboweled the strangled dogs, cast their entrails into the fire, and kicked aside the carcasses, shouting:

"Atensi stands naked upon the Moon! What shall she wear to cover her?"

"The soft hide of a Hidden Child!" answered a Sachem from behind the altar. "We have so dreamed it."

"It shall be done!" cried the Erie; and, lifting himself on tip toe, he threw back his brutal head and gave the Panther Cry so that his voice rang hideously through the night.

Instantly into the circle came scurrying the Andastes, some wearing the heads of bulls, some of wolves, foxes, bears, their bodies painted horribly in raw reds and yellows, and running about like a pack of loosened hounds. All their movements were wild and aimless, and like animals, and they seemed to smell their way as they ran about hither and thither, sniffing, listening, but seldom looking long or directly at any one thing.

I was sorely afraid that some among them might come roving and muzzling into the bushes where we lay; but they did not, gradually gathering into an uneasy pack and settling on their haunches near the dancing girls, who played with them, and tormented them with branches of hazel, samphire and green osier.

Suddenly a young girl, jewelled with multi-coloured diamonds of paint, and jingling all over with little bells, came dancing into the ring, beating a tiny, painted drum as she advanced. She wore only a narrow sporran of blue-birds' feathers to her knees, glistening blue moccasins of the same plumage, and a feathered head dress of the scarlet fire-bird. Behind her filed the Cat-People, Amochol's hideous acolytes, each wearing the Nez Perce ridge of porcupine-like hair, the lynx-skin cloak and necklace of claws; and all howling to the measure of the little painted drum. I could feel Mayaro beside me, quivering with eagerness and fury; but the time was not yet, and he knew it, as did his enraged comrades.

For behind the Eries, moving slowly, came a slender shape, shrouded in white. Her head was bent in the shadow of her cowl; her white wool vestments trailed behind her. Both hands were clasped together under her loose robe. On her cowl was a wreath of nightshade, with its dull purple fruit and blossoms clustering around her shadowed brow.

"Who is that?" whispered Lois, beginning to tremble, "God knows," I said. "Wait!"

The shrouded shape moved straight to the great stone altar and stood there a moment facing it; then, veiling her face with her robe, she turned, mounted the left hand mound, and seated herself, head bowed.

Toward her, advancing all alone, was now approaching a figure, painted, clothed, and plumed in scarlet. Everything was scarlet about him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and blanket, girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver on his back—nay, the very arrows in it were set with scarlet feathers, and the looped bowstring was whipped with crimson sinew.

The Andastes came moaning, cringing, fawning, and leaping about his knees; he noticed them not at all; the Cat-People, seated in a semicircle, looked up humbly as he passed; he ignored them.

Slowly he moved to the altar and laid first his hand upon it, then unslung his bow and quiver and laid them there. A great silence fell upon the throng. And we knew we were looking at last upon the Scarlet Priest.

Yes, this was Amochol, the Red Sachem, the vile, blaspheming, murderous, and degraded chief who had made of a pure religion a horror, and of a whole people a nation of unspeakable assassins.

As the firelight flashed full in his face, I saw that his features were not painted; that they were delicate and regular, and that the skin was pale, betraying his French ancestry.

And good God! What a brood of demons had that madman, Frontenac, begot to turn loose upon this Western World! For there appeared to be a Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever heard of—and it seemed as though there was no end to their number. One, praise God, had been slain before Wyoming—which some said enraged the Witch, his mother, to the fearsome deeds she did there—and one was this man's sister, Lyn Montour—a sleek, lithe girl of the forest, beautiful and depraved. But the Toad Woman, mother of Amochol, was absent, and of all the Montours only this strange priest had remained at Catharines-town. And him we were now about to take or slay.

"Amochol!" whispered the Sagamore in my ear.

"I know," I said. "It is strange. He is not like a monster, after all."

"He is beautiful," whispered Lois.

I stared at the pale, calm face over which the firelight played. The features seemed almost perfect, scarcely cruel, yet there was in the eyes a haunting beauty that was almost terrible when they became fixed.

To his scarlet moccasins crept the Andastes, one by one, and squatted there in silence.

Then a single warrior entered the ring. He was clad in the ancient arrow-proof armour of the Iroquois, woven of sinew and wood. His face was painted jet black, and he wore black plumes. He mounted the eastern mound, strung his bow, set an arrow to the string, and seated himself.

The red acolytes came forward, and the slim Prophetess bent her head till the long, dark hair uncoiled and fell down, clouding her to the waist in shadow.

"Hereckenes!" cried Amochol in a clear voice; and at the sound of their ancient name the Cat-People began a miauling chant.

"Antauhonorans!" cried Amochol.

Every Seneca took up the chant, and the drums timed it softly and steadily.

"Prophetess!" said Amochol in a ringing voice. "I have dreamed that the Moon Witch and her grandson Iuskeha shall be clothed. With what, then, shall they be clothed, O Woman of the Night Sky? Explain to my people this dream that I have dreamed."

The slim, white-cowled figure answered slowly, with bowed head, brooding motionless in the shadow of her hair:

"Two dogs lie yonder for Atensi and her grandson. Let them be painted with the sun and moon. So shall the dream of Amochol come true!"

"Sorceress!" he retorted fiercely. "Shall I not offer to Atensi and Iuskeha two Hidden Children, that white robes may be made of their unblemished skins to clothe the Sun and Moon?"

"Into the eternal wampum it is woven that the soft, white skins shall clothe their bodies till the husks fall from the silken corn."

"And then, Witch of the East? Shall I not offer them when the husks are stripped?"

"I see no further than you dream, O Amochol!"

He stretched out his arm toward her, menacingly:

"Yet they shall both be strangled here upon this stone!" he said. "Look, Witch! Can you not see them lying there together? I have dreamed it."

She silently pointed at the two dead dogs.

"Look again!" he cried in a loud voice. "What do you see?"

She made no reply.

"Answer!" he said sharply.

"I have looked. And I see only the eternal wampum lying at my feet—lacking a single belt."

With a furious gesture the Red Priest turned and stared at the dancing girls who raised their bare arms, crying:

"We have dreamed, O Amochol! Let your Sorceress explain our dreams to us!"

And one after another, as their turns came, they leaped up from the ground and sprang forward. The first, a tawny, slender, mocking thing, flung wide her arms.

"Look, Sorceress! I dreamed of a felled sapling and a wolverine! What means my dream?"

And the slim, white figure, head bowed in her dark hair, answered quietly:

"O dancer of the Na-usin, who wears okwencha at the Onon-hou-aroria, yet is no Seneca, the felled sapling is thou thyself. Heed lest the wolverine shall scent a human touch upon thy breast!" And she pointed at the Andastes.

A dead silence followed, then the girl, horror struck, shrank back, her hands covering her face.

Another sprang forward and cried:

"Sorceress! I dreamed of falling water and a red cloud at sunset hanging like a plume!"

"Water falls, daughter of Mountain Snakes. Every drop you saw was a dead man falling. And the red cloud was red by reason of blood; and the plume was the crest of a war chief."

"What chief!" said Amochol, turning his deadly eyes on her.

"A Gate-Keeper of the West."

The shuddering silence was broken by the eager voice of another girl, bounding from her place—a flash of azure and jewelled paint.

"And I, O Sorceress! I dreamed of night, and a love song under the million stars. And of a great stag standing in the water."

"Had the stag no antlers, little daughter?"

"None, for it was spring time."

"You dreamed of night. It shall be night for a long while—for ages and ages, ere the stag's wide antlers crown his head again. For the antlers were lying upon a new made grave. And the million stars were the lights of camp-fires. And the love-song was the Karenna. And the water you beheld was the river culled Chemung."

The girl seemed stunned, standing there plucking at her fingers, scarlet lips parted, and her startled eyes fixed upon the white-draped sibyl.

"Executioner! Bend your bow!" cried Amochol, with a terrible stare at the Sorceress.

The man in woven armour raised his bow, bent it, drawing the arrow to the tip. At the same instant the Prophetess rose to her feet, flung back her cowl, and looked Amochol steadily in the eyes from the shadow of her hair.

So, for a full minute in utter silence, they stared at each other; then Amochol said between his teeth:

"Have a care that you read truly what my people dream!"

"Shall I lie?" she asked in even tones. And, quivering with impotent rage and superstition, the Red Priest found no word to answer.

"O Amochol," she said, "let the armoured executioner loose his shaft. It is poisoned. Never since the Cat-People were overthrown has a poisoned arrow been used within the Long House. Never since the Atotarho covered his face from Hiawatha—never since the snakes were combed from his hair—has a Priest of the Long House dared to doubt the Prophetess of the Seneca nation. Doubt—and die!"

Amochol's face was like pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron war-head glinting in the firelight.

Then the Prophetess turned and stood looking out over the throng through the thick, aromatic smoke from the birch-fire, and presently her clear voice rang through the deathly silence:

"O People of the Evening Sky! Far on the Chemung lie many dead men. I see them lying there in green coats and in red, in feathers and in paint! Through forests, through mountains, through darkness, have my eyes beheld this thing. There is a new thunder in the hills, and red fire flowers high in the pines, and a hail falls, driving earthward in iron drops that slay all living things.

"New clouds hang low along the river; and they are not of the water mist that comes at twilight and ascends with the sun. Nor is this new thunder in the hills the voice of the Eight White Plumed Ones; nor is the boiling of the waters the stirring of the Serpent Bride.

"Red run the riffles, yet the sun is high; and those who would cross at the ford have laid them down to dam the waters with their bodies.

"And I see fires along the flats; I see