Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  So noiselessly was it done that the fascinated throng could not at first understand what had happened to the executioner, who sprang into the air, screamed, and stood clawing and plucking at the arrow while his bow hung dripping with blood, yet nailed to his shrinking palm.

  Amochol, frozen to a scarlet statue, stared at the contortions of the executioner for a moment, then, livid, wheeled on the Prophetess, shaking from head to foot.

  “Is this your accursed magic?” he shouted. “Is this your witchcraft, Sorceress of Biskoonah? Is it thus you strike when threatened? Then you shall burn! Take her, Andastes!”

  But the Andastes, astounded and terrified, only cowered together in a swaying pack.

  Restraining Lois with all my strength, I said to the Mohican:

  “If Boyd comes not before they take her, concentrate your fire on Amochol, for we can not hope to make him prisoner — —”

  “Hark!” motioned the Sagamore, grasping my arm. I heard also, and so did the others. The woods on our left were full of noises, the trample of people running, the noise of crackling underbrush.

  We all thought the same thing, and stood waiting to see Boyd’s onset break from the forest. The Red Priest also heard it, for he had turned where he stood, his rigid arm still menacing the White Sorceress.

  Suddenly, into the firelit circle staggered a British soldier, hatless, dishevelled, his scarlet uniform in rags.

  For a moment he stood staring about him, swaying where he stood, then with a hopeless gesture he flung his musket from him and passed a shaking hand across his eyes.

  “O Amochol!” cried the Sorceress, pointing a slim and steady finger at the bloody soldier. “Have I dreamed lies or have I dreamed the truth? Hearken! The woods are full of people running! Do you hear? And have I lied to you, O Amochol?”

  “From whence do you come?” cried Amochol, striding toward the soldier.

  “From the Chemung. Except for the dead we all are coming — Butler and Brant and all. Bring out your corn, Seneca! The army starves.”

  Amochol stared at the soldier, at the executioner still writhing and struggling to loose his hand from the bloody arrow, at the Sorceress who had veiled her face.

  “Witch!” he cried, “get you to Yndaia. If you stir elsewhere you shall burn!”

  He had meant to say more, I think, but at that moment, from the southern woods men came reeling out into the fire-circle — ghastly, bloody, ragged creatures in shreds of uniforms, green, red, and brown — men and officers of Sir John’s regiment, men of Butler’s Rangers, British regulars. On their heels glided the Seneca warriors, warriors of the Cayugas, Onondagas, Caniengas, Esauroras, and here and there a traitorous Oneida, and even a few Hurons.

  Pell-mell this mob of fighting men came surging through the fire-circle, and straight into Catharines-town, while I and my Indians crouched there, appalled and astounded.

  I saw Sir John Johnson come up with the officers of his two battalions and a captain, a sergeant, a corporal, and fifteen British regulars.

  “Clear me out this ring of mummers!” he said in his cold, penetrating voice. “And thou, Amochol, if this damned town of thine be stocked, bring out the provisions and set these Eries a-roasting corn!”

  I saw McDonald storming and cursing at his irregulars, where the poor brutes had gathered into a wavering rank; I saw young Walter Butler haranguing his Rangers and Senecas; I saw Brant, calm, noble, stately, standing supported by two Caniengas while a third examined his wounded leg.

  The whole place was a tumult of swarming savages and white men; already the Seneca women, crowding among the men, were raising the death wail. The dancing girls huddled together in a frightened and half-naked group; the Andastes cowered apart; the servile Eries were staggering out of the corn fields laden with ripe ears; and the famished soldiers were shouting and cursing at them and tearing the corn from their arms to gnaw the raw and milky grains.

  How we were to withdraw and escape destruction I did not clearly see, for our path must cross the eastern belt of forest, and it was still swarming with fugitives arriving, limping, dragging themselves in from the disaster of the Chemung.

  Hopeless to dream of taking or slaying Amochol now; hopeless to think of warning Boyd or even of finding him. Somewhere in the North he had met with obstacles which delayed him. He must scout for himself, now, for the entire Tory army was between him and us.

  “There is but one way now,” whispered the Mohican.

  “By Yndaia,” I said.

  My Indians were of the same opinion.

  “I should have gone there anyway,” said Lois, still all a-quiver, and shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around her; every muscle of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as a smooth and finely turned pointer trembles with eagerness and powerful self-control.

  “Amochol has driven her thither,” she whispered. “Shall we not be on our way?”

  “Can you lead, Mayaro?” I whispered.

  The Mohican turned and crawled southward on his hands and knees, moving slowly.

  “For God’s sake let them hear no sound in this belt of bush,” I whispered to Lois.

  “I am calm, Euan. I am not afraid.”

  “Then fallow the Sagamore.”

  One by one we turned and crept away southward; and I was ever fearful that some gleam from the fire, catching our rifle-barrels or axe-heads, might betray us. But we gained the denser growth undiscovered, then rose to our feet in the open forest and hurried forward in file, crowding close to keep in touch.

  Once Lois turned and called back in a low, breathless voice;

  “I thank Tahoontowhee from my heart for his true eye and his avenging arrow.”

  The young warrior laughed; but I knew he was the proudest youth in all the West that night.

  The great cat-owls were shrieking and yelping through the forest as we sped southward. My Indians, silent and morose, their vengeance unslaked and now indefinitely deferred, moved at a dog trot through the forest, led by the Sagamore, whose eyes saw as clearly in the dark as my own by day.

  And after a little while we noticed the stars above us, and felt ferns and grass under our feet, and came out into that same glade from whence runs the trail to Yndaia through the western hill cleft.

  “People ahead!” whispered the Sagamore. “Their Sorceress and six Eries!”

  “Are you certain?” I breathed, loosening my hatchet.

  “Certain, Loskiel. Yonder they are halted within the ferns. They are at the stream, drinking.”

  I caught Lois by the wrist.

  “Come with me — hurry!” I said, as the Indians darted away and began to creep out and around the vague and moving group of shadows. And as we sped forward I whispered brokenly my instructions, conjuring her to obey.

  We were right among them before they dreamed of our coming; not a war-cry was uttered; there was no sound save the crashing blows of hatchets, the heavy, panting breathing of those locked in a death struggle, the deep groan and coughing as a knife slipped home.

  I flung a clawing Erie from me ere his blood drenched me, and he fell floundering, knifed through and through, and tearing a hole in my rifle-cape with his teeth as he fell. Two others lay under foot; my Oneidas were slaying another in the ferns, and the Sagamore’s hatchet, swinging like lightning, dashed another into eternity.

  The last one ran, but stumbled, with three arrows in his burly neck and spine; and the Night Hawk’s hatchet flew, severing the thread of life far him and hurling him on his face. Instantly the young Oneida leaped upon the dead man’s shoulders, pulled back his heavy head, and tore the scalp off with a stifled cry of triumph.

  “The Black-Snake!” said the Sagamore at my side, breathing heavily from his bloody combat, and dashing the red drops from the scalp he swung. “Look yonder, Loskiel! Our little Rosy Pigeon has returned at last!”

  I had seen it already, but I turned to look. And I saw the White Sorceress and my sweetheart close locked in each other’s arms — so
close and motionless that they seemed but a single snowy shape there under the lustre of the stars.

  CHAPTER XX

  YNDAIA

  At the mouth of the pass which led to the Vale Yndaia I lay with my Indians that night, two mounting guard, then one, then two more, and the sentinels changed every three hours throughout the night. But all were excited and all slept lightly.

  Within the Vale Yndaia, perhaps a hundred yards from the mouth of the pass, stood the lonely little house of bark in which Madame de Contrecoeur had lived alone for twenty years.

  And here, that night, Lois lay with her mother; and no living thing nearer the dim house than we who mounted guard — except for the little birds asleep that Madame de Contrecoeur had tamed, and the small forest creatures which had learned to come fearlessly at this lonely woman’s low-voiced call. And these things I learned not then, but afterwards.

  Never had I seen such utter loneliness — for it had been less a solitude, it seemed to me, had the little house not stood there under the pale lustre of the stars.

  On every side lofty hills enclosed the valley, heavily timbered to their crests; and through the intervale the rill ran, dashing out of the pass and away into that level, wooded strip to the fern-glade which lay midway between the height of land and Catharines-town; and there joined the large stream which flowed north. I could see in the darkness little of the secret and hidden valley called Yndaia, only the heights silhouetted against the stars, a vague foreground sheeted with mist, and the dark little house standing there all alone under the stars.

  All night long the great tiger-owls yelped and hallooed across the valley; all night the spectral whip-poor-will whispered its husky, frightened warning. And long after midnight a tiny bird awoke and sang monotonously for an hour or more.

  Awaiting an attack from Catharines-town at any moment, we dared not make a fire or even light a torch. Rotten trunks which had fallen across the stream we dragged out and piled up across the mouth of the pass to make a defence; but we could do no more than that; and, our efforts ended, my Indians sat in a circle cross-legged, quietly hooping and stretching their freshly taken scalps by the dim light of the stars, and humming their various airs of triumph in low, contented, and purring voices. All laboured under subdued excitement, the brief and almost silent slaughter in the ferns having thoroughly aroused them. But the tension showed only in moments of abrupt gaiety, as when Mayaro challenged them to pronounce his name, and they could not, there being no letter “M” in the Iroquois language — neither “P” nor “B” either, for that matter — so they failed at “Butler” too, and Philip Schuyler, which aroused all to nervous merriment.

  The Yellow Moth finished braiding his trophy first, went to the stream, and washed the blood from his weapons and his hands, polished up knife and hatchet, freshened his priming and covered it, and then, being a Christian, said his prayers on his knees, rolled over on his blanket, and instantly fell asleep.

  One by one the others followed his example, excepting the Sagamore, who yawning with repressed excitement, picked up his rifle, mounted the abattis, and squatted there, his chin on a log, motionless and intent as a hunting cat in long grass. I joined him; and there we sat unstirring, listening, peering ahead into the mist-shot darkness, until our three hours’ vigil ended.

  Then we noiselessly summoned the Grey-Feather, and he crept up to the log defence, rifle in hand, to sit there alone until his three hours’ duty was finished, when the Yellow Moth and Tahoontowhee should take his place.

  It was already after sunrise when I was awakened by the tinkle of a cow-bell. A broad, pinkish shaft of sunshine slanted through the pass into the hidden valley; and for the first time in my life I now beheld the Vale Yndaia in all the dewy loveliness of dawn. A milch cow fed along the brook, flank-deep in fern. Chickens wandered in its wake, snapping at gnats and tiny, unseen creatures under the leaves.

  Dainty shreds of fog rose along the stream, films of mist floated among sun-tipped ferns and bramble sprays. The little valley, cup-shaped and green, rang with the loud singing of birds. The pleasant noises of the brook filled my ears. All the western hills were now rosy where the rising sun struck their crests; north and south a purplish plum-bloom still tinted velvet slopes, which stretched away against a saffron sky untroubled by a cloud.

  But the pretty valley and its green grass and ferns and hills held my attention only at moments, for my eyes ever reverted to the low bark house, with its single chimney of clay, now stained orange by the sun.

  All the impatience and tenderness and not ignoble curiosity so long restrained assailed me now, as I gazed upon that solitary dwelling, where the unhappy mother of Lois de Contrecoeur had endured captivity for more than twenty years.

  Vines of the flowering scarlet bean ran up the bark sides of the house, and over the low doorway; and everywhere around grew wild flowers and thickets of laurel and rhododendron, as in a cultivated park. And I saw that she had bordered a walk of brook-pebbles with azaleas and marsh-honeysuckles, making a little path to the brook over which was a log bridge with hand rails.

  But laurel, azalea, and rhododendron bloomed no longer; the flowers that now blossomed in a riot of azure, purple, and gold on every side were the lovely wild asters and golden-rod; and no pretty garden set with formal beds and garnished artfully seemed to compare with this wild garden in the Vale Yndaia.

  As the sun warmed the ground, the sappy perfume of tree and fern and grass mounted, scenting the pure, cool air with warm and balm-like odours. Gauzy winged creatures awoke, flitted, or hung glittering to some frail stem. The birds’ brief autumn music died away; only the dry chirring of a distant squirrel broke the silence, and the faint tinkle of the cow-bell.

  My Indians, now all awake, were either industriously painting their features or washing their wounds and scratches and filling them with balsam and bruised witch-hazel, or were eating the last of our parched corn and stringy shreds of leathery venison. All seemed as complacent as a party of cats licking their rumpled fur; and examining their bites, scratches, bruises, and knife wounds, I found no serious injury among them, and nothing to stiffen for very long the limbs of men in such a hardy condition.

  The youthful Night Hawk was particularly proud of an ugly knife-slash, with which the Black Snake had decorated his chest — nay, I suspected him of introducing sumac juice to make it larger and more showy — but said nothing, as these people knew well enough how to care for their bodies.

  Doubtless they were full as curious as was I concerning Madame de Contrecoeur — perhaps more so, because not one of them but believed her the Sorceress which unhappy circumstances had obliged her to pretend to be. Pagan or Christian, no Indian is ever rid of superstition.

  Yet, devoured by curiosity, not one of them betrayed it, forbearing, at least in my presence, even to mention the White Prophetess of the Senecas, though they voiced their disappointment freely enough concerning the escape of Amochol.

  So we ate our corn and dried meat, and drank at the pretty rill, and cleansed us of mud and blood, each after his own fashion — discussing the scalping of the Eries the while, the righteous death of the Black-Snake, the rout of Butler’s army, and how its unexpected arrival had saved Amochol. For none among us doubted that, another half hour at most, and we had heard the cracking signal of Boyd’s rifles across the hideous and fiery space.

  We were not a whit alarmed concerning Boyd and his party. Reconnoitring Catharines-town from the north, they must have very quickly discovered the swarm of partly crippled hornets, so unexpectedly infesting the nest; and we felt sure that they had returned in safety to watch and keep in touch with the beaten army.

  Yet, beaten at Chemung, exhausted after a rapid and disorderly retreat, this same defeated Tory army was still formidable and dangerous. We had seen enough of them to understand that. Fewer men than these at Catharines-town had ambuscaded Braddock; fewer still had destroyed another British expedition; while in the north Abercrombie had been whipped by an
enemy less than a quarter as strong as his own force.

  No, we veteran riflemen knew that this motley army of Butler and McDonald, if it had indeed lost a few rattles, had however parted with none of its poison fangs. Also, Amochol still lived. And it had been still another Montour of the wily and accursed Frontenac breed— “Anasthose the Huron” — who had encompassed the destruction of Braddock.

  That the night had passed without a sign of an enemy, and the dawn had heralded no yelling onset, we could account for either because no scouts from Catharines-town had as yet discovered the scalped bodies of the Eries in the glade, or because our own pursuing army was so close that no time could be taken by the Senecas to attack a narrow pass held by five resolute men.

  Now that the sun had risen I worried not at all over our future prospects, believing that we would hear from our advancing army by afternoon; and the Sagamore was of my opinion.

  And even while we were discussing these chances, leaning against our log abattis in the sunshine, far away across the sunlit flat-woods we saw a man come out among the ferns from the southward, and lie down. And then another man came creeping from the south, and another, and yet another, the sunlight running red along their rifle barrels.

  After them went both Oneidas, gliding swiftly out and speeding forward just within the encircling cover, taking every precaution, although we were almost certain that the distant scouts were ours.

  And they proved to be my own men — a handful of Morgan’s — pushing far in advance to reconnoitre Catharines-town from the south, although our main army was marching by the western ridges, where Boyd had marked a path for them.

  A corporal in my corps, named Baily, came back with the Oneidas, climbed with them over the logs, sprang down inside, and saluted me coolly enough.

  His scout of four, he admitted, had made a bad job of the swamp trail — and his muddy and disordered dress corroborated this. But the news he brought was interesting.