The Maid-At-Arms

"It is not the Mohawks I blame," he said, "it is those to whom opportunity has given wider education and knowledge–the Tories, who are attempting to use the Six Nations for their own selfish and terrible ends!… If in your veins run a few drops of Mohawk blood, my child, English blood runs there, too. Be true to your bright Mohawk blood; be true to the generous English blood. It were cowardly to deny either–shameful to betray the one for the other."

She gazed at him, fascinated; his voice swayed her, his handsome, grave face held her. Whether it was reason or emotion, mind or heart, I know not, but her whole sensitive being seemed to respond to his voice; and as he played upon this lovely human instrument, varying his deep theme, she responded in every nerve, every breath. Reason, hope, sorrow, tenderness, passion–all these I read in her deep, velvet eyes, and in the mute language of her lips, and in the timing pulse-beat under the lace on her breast.

I rose and walked to the door. She did not heed my going, nor did Sir George.

Under the oak-tree I found Murphy and Mount, smoking their pipes and watching Beacraft, who lay with his rough head pillowed on his arms, feigning slumber.

"Why did you mark so many houses with the red hatchet?" I asked, pleasantly.

He did not move a muscle, but over his face a deep color spread to the neck and hair.

"Murphy," I said, "take that prisoner to General Schuyler!"

Beacraft sprang up, glaring at me out of bloodshot eyes.

"Shoot him if he breaks away," I added.

From his convulsed and distorted lips a torrent of profanity burst as Murphy laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and faced him eastward. I drew the blue paper from my wallet, whispered to Murphy, and handed it to him. He shoved it inside the breast of his hunting-shirt, cocked his rifle, and tapped Beacraft on the arm.

So they marched away across the sunlit pasture, where blackbirds walked among the cattle, and the dew sparkled in tinted drops of fire.

In all my horror of the man I pitied him, for I knew he was going to his death, there through the fresh, sweet morning, under the blue heavens. Once I saw him look up, as though to take a last long look at a free sky, and my heart ached heavily. Yet he had plotted death in its most dreadful shapes for others who loved life as well as he–death to neighbors, death to strangers–whole families, whom he had perhaps never even seen–to mothers, to fathers, old, young, babes in the cradle, babes at the breast; and he had set down the total of one hundred and twenty-nine scalps at twenty dollars each, over his own signature.

Schuyler had said to me that it was not the black-eyed Indians the people of Tryon County dreaded, but the blue-eyed savages. And I had scarcely understood at that time how the ferocity of demons could lie dormant in white breasts.

Standing there with Mount under the oak, I saw Sir George and Magdalen Brant leave the house and stroll down the path towards the stream. Sir George was still speaking in his quiet, earnest manner; her eyes were fixed on him so that she scarce heeded her steps, and twice long sprays of sweetbrier caught her gown, and Sir George freed her. But her eyes never wandered from him; and I myself thought he never looked so handsome and courtly as he did now, in his officer's uniform and black cockade.

Where their pathway entered the alders, below the lane, they vanished from our sight; and, leaving Mount to watch I went back to the house, to search it thoroughly from cellar to the dark garret beneath the eaves.

At two o'clock in the afternoon Sir George and Magdalen Brant had not returned. I called Mount into the house, and we cooked some eggs and johnny-cake to stay our stomachs. An hour later I sent Mount out to make a circle of a mile, strike the Iroquois trail and hang to it till dark, following any traveller, white or red, who might be likely to lead him towards the secret trysting-place of the False-Faces.

Left alone at the house, I continued to rummage, finding nothing of importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and a peony lay dead and smelling rank, with the ants crawling all over it. In the mellow light the stillness was absolute, save when a distant white-throat's silvery call, long drawn out, floated from the forest's darkening edge.

The melancholy of the deserted home oppressed me, as though I had wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft's worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead man, hung on a peg behind the door. I searched the pockets with repugnance and found a few papers, which smelled like the covers of ancient books, memoranda of miserable little transactions–threepence paid for soling shoes, twopence here, a penny there; nothing more. I threw the papers on the grass, dipped up a bucket of well-water, and rinsed my fingers. And always the tenantless house watched me furtively from its humble windows.

The sun's brassy edge glittered above the blue chain of hills as I walked across the pasture towards the path that led winding among the alders to the brook below. I followed it in the deepening evening light and sat down on a log, watching the water swirling through the flat stepping-stones where trout were swarming, leaping for the tiny winged creatures that drifted across the dusky water. And as I sat there I became aware of sounds like voices; and at first, seeing no one, I thought the noises came from the low bubbling monotone of the stream. Then I heard a voice murmuring: "I will do what you ask me–I will do everything you desire."

Fearful of eavesdropping, I rose, peering ahead to make myself known, but saw nothing in the deepening dusk. On the point of calling, the words died on my lips as the same voice sounded again, close to me:

"I pray you let me have my way. I will obey you. How can you doubt it? But I must obey in my own way."

And Sir George's deep, pleasant voice answered: "There is danger to you in this. I could not endure that, Magdalen."

They were on a path parallel to the trail in which I stood, separated from me by a deep fringe of willow. I could not see them, though now they were slowly passing abreast of me.

"What do you care for a maid you so easily persuade?" she asked, with a little laugh that rang pitifully false in the dusk.

"It is her own merciful heart that persuades her," he said, under his breath.

"I think my heart is merciful," she said–"more merciful than even I knew. The restless blood in me set me afire when I saw the wrong done to these patient people of the Long House.... And when they appealed to me I came here to justify them, and bid them stand for their own hearths.... And now you come, teaching me the truth concerning right and wrong, and how God views justice and injustice; and how this tempest, once loosened, can never be chained until innocent and guilty are alike ingulfed.... I am very young to know all these things without counsel.... I needed aid–and wisdom to teach me–your wisdom. Now, in my turn, I shall teach; but you must let me teach in my way. There is only one way that the Long House can be taught.... You do not believe it, but in this I am wiser than you–I know."

"Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?"

"No, Sir George."

"When will you tell me?"

"Never. But you will know what I have done. You will see that I hold three nations back. What else can you ask? I shall obey you. What more is there?"

Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness save the low ripple of the stream. An hour later I picked my way back to the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside him, pointing towards the east.

"I've found the False-Faces' trysting-place," said Mount, eagerly, as I came up. "I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land–a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir. And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something sickening, and I dogged 'em till they turned off into the bush to shoot a doe full of arrows–though all had guns!–and left 'em eating. Then comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles, and I tied to them. And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff–you know, Sir George, where Klock's old line cuts into the Mohawk country?"

"I know," said Sir George.

Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear.

"The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones. I could see my painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap. Then they disappeared in the ravine–and I guess that settles it, Captain Ormond."

Sir George looked at me, nodding.

"That settles it, Ormond," he said.

I bade Mount cook us something to eat. Sir George looked after him as he entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely clasped behind him.

"About Magdalen Brant," he said, abruptly. "She will not speak to the three nations for Butler's party. The child had no idea of this wretched conspiracy to turn the savages loose in the valley. She thought our people meant to drive the Iroquois from their own lands–a black disgrace to us if we ever do!… They implored her to speak to them in council. Did you know they believe her to be inspired? Well, they do. When she was a child they got that notion, and Guy Johnson and Walter Butler have been lying to her and telling her what to say to the Oneidas and Onondagas."

He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She has gone to bed. She would eat nothing. We must take her back with us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts."

"Yes," I said, slowly. "But before we leave I must see the False-Faces."

"Did Schuyler make that a point?"

"Yes, Sir George."

"They say the False-Faces' rites are terrific," he muttered. "Thank God, that child will not be lured into those hideous orgies by Walter Butler!"

We walked towards the house where Mount had prepared our food. I sat down on the door-step to eat my porridge and think of what lay before me and how best to accomplish it. And at first I was minded to send Sir George back with Magdalen Brant and take only Mount with me. But whether it was a craven dread of despatching to Dorothy the man she was pledged to wed, or whether a desire for his knowledge and experience prompted me to invite his attendance at the False-Faces' rites, I do not know clearly, even now. He came out of the house presently, and I asked him if he would go with me.

"One of us should stay here with Magdalen Brant," he said, gravely.

"Is she not safe here?" I asked.

"You cannot leave a child like that absolutely alone," he answered.

"Then take her to Varicks'," I said, sullenly. "If she remains here some of Butler's men will be after her to attend the council."

"You wish me to go up-stairs and rouse her for a journey–now?"

"Yes; it is best to get her into a safe place," I muttered. "She may change her ideas, too, betwixt now and dawn."

He re-entered the house. I heard his spurs jingling on the stairway, then his voice, and a rapping at the door above.

Jack Mount appeared, rifle in hand, wiping his mouth with his fingers; and together we paced the yard, waiting for Sir George and Magdalen Brant to set out before we struck the Iroquois trail.

Suddenly Sir George's heavy tread sounded on the stairs; he came to the door, looking about him, east and west. His features were pallid and set and seamed with stern lines; he laid an unsteady hand on my arm and drew me a pace aside.

"Magdalen Brant is gone," he said.

"Gone!" I repeated. "Where?"

"I don't know!" he said, hoarsely.

I stared at him in astonishment. Gone? Where? Into the tremendous blackness of this wilderness that menaced us on all sides like a sea? And they had thought to tame her like a land-blown gull among the poultry!

"Those drops of Mohawk blood are not in her veins for nothing," I said, bitterly. "Here is our first lesson."

He hung his head. She had lied to him with innocent, smooth face, as all such fifth-castes lie. No jewelled snake could shed her skin as deftly as this young maid had slipped from her shoulders the frail garment of civilization.

The man beside me stood as though stunned. I was obliged to speak to him thrice ere he roused to follow Jack Mount, who, at a sign from me, had started across the dark hill-side to guide us to the trysting-place of the False-Faces' clan.

"Mount," I whispered, as he lingered waiting for us at the stepping-stones in the dark, "some one has passed this trail since I stood here an hour ago." And, bending down, I pointed to a high, flat stepping-stone, which glimmered wet in the pale light of the stars.

Sir George drew his tinder-box, struck steel to flint, and lighted a short wax dip.

"Here!" whispered Mount.

On the edge of the sand the dip-light illuminated the small imprint of a woman's shoe, pointing southeast.

Magdalen Brant had heard the voices in the Long House.

"The mischief is done," said Sir George, steadily. "I take the blame and disgrace of this."

"No; I take it," said I, sternly. "Step back, Sir George. Blow out that dip! Mount, can you find your way to that sulphur spring where the flat stones are piled in little heaps?"

The big fellow laughed. As he strode forward into the depthless sea of darkness a whippoorwill called.

"That's Elerson, sir," he said, and repeated the call twice.

The rifleman appeared from the darkness, touching his cap to me. "The horses are safe, sir," he said. "The General desires you to send your report through Sir George Covert and push forward with Mount to Stanwix."

He drew a sealed paper from his pouch and handed it to me, saying that I was to read it.

Sir George lighted his dip once more. I broke the seal and read my orders under the feeble, flickering light:

"TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS,

VARICK MANOR,

June I, 1777.

To Captain Ormond, on scout:

Sir,–The General commanding this department desires you to employ all art and persuasion to induce the Oneidas, Tuscaroras, and Onondagas to remain quiet. Failing this, you are again reminded that the capture of Magdalen Brant is of the utmost importance. If possible, make Walter Butler also prisoner, and send him to Albany under charge of Timothy Murphy; but, above all, secure the person of Magdalen Brant and send her to Varick Manor under escort of Sir George Covert. If, for any reason, you find these orders impossible of execution, send your report of the False-Faces' council through Sir George Covert, and push forward with the riflemen Mount, Murphy, and Elerson until you are in touch with Gansevoort's outposts at Stanwix. Warn Colonel Gansevoort that Colonel Barry St. Leger has moved from Oswego, and order out a strong scout towards Fort Niagara. Although Congress authorizes the employment of friendly Oneidas as scouts, General Schuyler trusts that you will not avail yourself of this liberty. Noblesse oblige! The General directs you to return only when you have carried out these orders to the best of your ability. You will burn this paper before you set out for Stanwix. I am, sir,

"Your most humble and obedient servant,

"JOHN HARROW,

Major and A.D.C. to the Major-General Commanding.

(Signed) PHILIP SCHUYLER,

Major-General Commanding the Department of the North."

Hot with mortification at the wretched muddle I had already made of my mission, I thrust the paper into my pouch and turned to Elerson.

"You know Magdalen Brant?" I asked, impatiently.

"Yes, sir."

"There is a chance," I said, "that she may return to that house on the hill behind us. If she comes back you will see that she does not leave the house until we return."

Sir George extinguished the dip once more. Mount turned and set off at a swinging pace along the invisible path; after him strode Sir George; I followed, brooding bitterly on my stupidity, and hopeless now of securing the prisoner in whose fragile hands the fate of the Northland lay.

XV

THE FALSE-FACES

For a long time we had scented green birch smoke, and now, on hands and knees, we were crawling along the edge of a cliff, the roar of the river in our ears, when Mount suddenly flattened out and I heard him breathing heavily as I lay down close beside him.

"Look!" he whispered, "the ravine is full of fire!"

A dull-red glare grew from the depths of the ravine; crimson shadows shook across the wall of earth and rock. Above the roaring of the stream I heard an immense confused murmur and the smothered thumping rhythm of distant drumming.

"Go on," I whispered.

Mount crawled forward, Sir George and I after him. The light below burned redder and redder on the cliff; sounds of voices grew more distinct; the dark stream sprang into view, crimson under the increasing furnace glow. Then, as we rounded a heavy jutting crag, a great light flared up almost in our faces, not out of the kindling ravine, but breaking forth among the huge pines on the cliffs.

"Their council-fire!" panted Mount. "See them sitting there!"

"Flatten out," I whispered. "Follow me!" And I crawled straight towards the fire, where, ink-black against the ruddy conflagration, an enormous pine lay uprooted, smashed by lightning or tempest, I know not which.

Into the dense shadows of the debris I crawled, Mount and Sir George following, and lay there in the dark, staring at the forbidden circle where the secret mysteries of the False-Faces had already begun.

Three great fires roared, set at regular intervals in a cleared space, walled in by the huge black pines. At the foot of a tree sat a white man, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. The man was Walter Butler.

On his right sat Brant, wrapped in a crimson blanket, his face painted black and scarlet. On his left knelt a ghastly figure wearing a scowling wooden mask painted yellow and black.

Six separate groups of Indians surrounded the fires. They were sachems of the Six Nations, each sachem bearing in his hands the symbol of his nation and of his clan. All were wrapped in black-and-white blankets, and their faces were painted white above the upper lip as though they wore skin-tight masks.

Three young girls, naked save for the beaded clout, and painted scarlet from brow to ankle, beat the witch-drums tump-a-tump! tump-a-tump! while a fourth stood, erect as a vermilion statue, holding a chain belt woven in black-and-white wampum.

Behind these central figures the firelight fell on a solid semicircle of savages, crowns shaved, feathers aslant on the braided lock, and all oiled and painted for war.

A chief, wrapped in a blue blanket, stepped out into the circle swinging the carcass of a white dog by the hind-legs. He tied it to a black-birch sapling and left it dangling and turning round and round.

"This for the Keepers of the Fires," he said, in Tuscarora, and flung the dog's entrails into the middle fire.

Three young men sprang into the ring; each threw a log onto one of the fires.

"The name of the Holder of the Heavens may now be spoken and heard without offence," said an old sachem, rising. "Hark! brothers. Harken, O you wise men and sachems! The False-Faces are laughing in the ravine where the water is being painted with firelight. I acquaint you that the False-Faces are coming up out of the ravine!"

The witch-drums boomed and rattled in the silence that followed his words. Far off I heard the sound of many voices laughing and talking all together; nearer, nearer, until, torch in hand, a hideously masked figure bounded into the circle, shaking out his bristling cloak of green reeds. Another followed, another, then three, then six, then a dozen, whirling their blazing torches; all horribly masked and smothered in coarse bunches of long, black hair, or cloaked with rustling river reeds.

"Ha! Ah-weh-hot-kwah!Ha! Ah-weh-hah!Ha! The crimson flower!Ha! The flower!"

they chanted, thronging around the central fire; then falling back in a half-circle, torches lifted, while the masked figures banked solidly behind, chanted monotonously:

"Red fire burns on the maple!Red fire burns in the pines.The red flower to the maple!The red death to the pines!"

At this two young girls, wearing white feathers and white weasel pelts dangling from shoulders to knees, entered the ring from opposite ends. Their arms were full of those spectral blossoms called "Ghost-corn," and they strewed the flowers around the ring in silence. Then three maidens, glistening in cloaks of green pine-needles, slipped into the fire circle, throwing showers of violets and yellow moccasin flowers over the earth, calling out, amid laughter, "Moccasins for whippoorwills! Violets for the two heads entangled!" And, their arms empty of blossoms, they danced away, laughing while the False-Faces clattered their wooden masks and swung their torches till the flames whistled.

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!"