CHAPTER XXX IN WHICH WE START UPON A JOURNEY
WHEN the dawn broke, it found us traveling through a narrowvalley, beside a stream of some width. Upon its banks grew trees ofextraordinary height and girth; cypress and oak and walnut, they toweredinto the air, their topmost branches stark and black against the roseateheavens. Below that iron tracery glowed the firebrands of the maples,and here and there a willow leaned a pale green cloud above the stream.Mist closed the distances; we could hear, but not see, the deer wherethey stood to drink in the shallow places, or couched in the gray anddreamlike recesses of the forest.
Spectral, unreal, and hollow seems the world at dawn. Then, if ever, theheart sickens and the will flags, and life becomes a pageant that hathceased to entertain. As I moved through the mist and the silence, andfelt the tug of the thong that bound me to the wrist of the savage whostalked before me, I cared not how soon they made an end, seeing howstale and unprofitable were all things under the sun.
Diccon, walking behind me, stumbled over a root and fell upon his knees,dragging down with him the Indian to whom he was tied. In a suddenaccess of fury, aggravated by the jeers with which his fellows greetedhis mishap, the savage turned upon his prisoner and would have stucka knife into him, bound and helpless as he was, had not the werowanceinterfered. The momentary altercation over, and the knife restoredto its owner's belt, the Indians relapsed into their usual menacingsilence, and the sullen march was resumed. Presently the stream made asharp bend across our path, and we forded it as best we might. It randark and swift, and the water was of icy coldness. Beyond, the woodshad been burnt, the trees rising from the red ground like charred andblackened stakes, with the ghostlike mist between. We left this dismaltract behind, and entered a wood of mighty oaks, standing well apart,and with the earth below carpeted with moss and early wild flowers. Thesun rose, the mist vanished, and there set in the March day of keen windand brilliant sunshine.
Farther on, an Indian bent his bow against a bear shambling across alittle sunny glade. The arrow did its errand, and where the creaturefell, there we sat down and feasted beside a fire kindled by rubbing twosticks together. According to their wont the Indians ate ravenously, andwhen the meal was ended began to smoke, each warrior first throwinginto the air, as thank-offering to Kiwassa, a pinch of tobacco. They allstared at the fire around which we sat, and the silence was unbroken.One by one, as the pipes were smoked, they laid themselves down uponthe brown leaves and went to sleep, only our two guardians and a thirdIndian over against us remaining wide-eyed and watchful.
There was no hope of escape, and we entertained no thought of it. Dicconsat, biting his nails, staring into the fire, and I stretched myselfout, and burying my head in my arms tried to sleep, but could not.
With the midday we were afoot again, and we went steadily on through thebright afternoon. We met with no harsh treatment other than our bonds.Instead, when our captors spoke to us, it was with words of amity andsmiling lips. Who accounteth for Indian fashions? It is a way theyhave, to flatter and caress the wretch for whom have been provided thetorments of the damned. If, when at sunset we halted for supper andgathered around the fire, the werowance began to tell of a foray I hadled against the Paspaheghs years before, and if he and his warriors, forall the world like generous foes, loudly applauded some daring that hadaccompanied that raid, none the less did the red stake wait for us; nonethe less would they strive, as for heaven, to wring from us groans andcries.
The sun sank, and the darkness entered the forest. In the distance weheard the wolves, so the fire was kept up through the night. Diccon andI were tied to trees, and all the savages save one lay down and slept. Iworked awhile at my bonds; but an Indian had tied them, and after a timeI desisted from the useless labor. We two could have no speech together;the fire was between us, and we saw each other but dimly through theflame and wreathing smoke,--as each might see the other to-morrow. WhatDiccon's thoughts were I know not; mine were not of the morrow.
There had been no rain for a long time, and the multitude of leavesunderfoot were crisp and dry. The wind was loud in them and in theswaying trees. Off in the forest was a bog, and the will-o'-the-wispsdanced over it,--pale, cold flames, moving aimlessly here and there likeghosts of those lost in the woods. Toward the middle of the night someheavy animal crashed through a thicket to the left of us, and tore awayinto the darkness over the loud-rustling leaves; and later on wolves'eyes gleamed from out the ring of darkness beyond the firelight. Far onin the night the wind fell and the moon rose, changing the forest intosome dim, exquisite, far-off land, seen only in dreams. The Indiansawoke silently and all at once, as at an appointed hour. They spoke fora while among themselves; then we were loosed from the trees, and thewalk toward death began anew.
On this march the werowance himself stalked beside me, the moonlightwhitening his dark limbs and relentless face. He spoke no word, nor didI deign to question or reason or entreat. Alike in the darkness of thedeep woods, and in the silver of the glades, and in the long twilightstretches of sassafras and sighing grass, there was for me but onevision. Slender and still and white, she moved before me, with her widedark eyes upon my face. Jocelyn! Jocelyn!
At sunrise the mist lifted from a low hill before us, and showed anIndian boy, painted white, poised upon the summit, like a spirit aboutto take its flight. He prayed to the One over All, and his voice camedown to us pure and earnest. At sight of us he bounded down the hillsidelike a ball, and would have rushed away into the forest had not aPaspahegh starting out of line seized him and set him in our midst,where he stood, cool and undismayed, a warrior in miniature. He wasof the Pamunkeys, and his tribe and the Paspaheghs were at peace;therefore, when he saw the totem burnt upon the breast of the werowance,he became loquacious enough, and offered to go before us to his village,upon the banks of a stream, some bowshots away. He went, and thePaspaheghs rested under the trees until the old men of the villagecame forth to lead them through the brown fields and past the ring ofleafless mulberries to the strangers' lodge. Here on the green turf matswere laid for the visitors, and water was brought for their hands. Lateron, the women spread a great breakfast of fish and turkey and venison,maize bread, tuckahoe and pohickory. When it was eaten, the Paspaheghsranged themselves in a semicircle upon the grass, the Pamunkeys facedthem, and each warrior and old man drew out his pipe and tobacco pouch.They smoked gravely, in a silence broken only by an occasional slow andstately question or compliment. The blue incense from the pipes mingledwith the sunshine falling freely through the bare branches; the streamwhich ran by the lodge rippled and shone, and the wind rose and fell inthe pines upon its farther bank.
Diccon and I had been freed for the time from our bonds, and placed inthe centre of this ring, and when the Indians raised their eyes from theground it was to gaze steadfastly at us. I knew their ways, and howthey valued pride, indifference, and a bravado disregard of the worst anenemy could do. They should not find the white man less proud than thesavage.
They gave us readily enough the pipes I asked for. Diccon lit one andI the other, and sitting side by side we smoked in a contentment asabsolute as the Indians' own. With his eyes upon the werowance, Diccontold an old story of a piece of Paspahegh villainy and of the paymentwhich the English exacted, and I laughed as at the most amusing thing inthe world. The story ended, we smoked with serenity for a while; then Idrew my dice from my pocket, and, beginning to throw, we were at once asmuch absorbed in the game as if there were no other stake in the worldbeside the remnant of gold that I piled between us. The strange peoplein whose power we found ourselves looked on with grim approval, as atbrave men who could laugh in Death's face.
The sun was high in the heavens when we bade the Pamunkeys farewell. Thecleared ground, the mulberry trees, and the grass beneath, the few rudelodges with the curling smoke above them, the warriors and women andbrown naked children,--all vanished, and the forest closed around us.A high wind was blowing, and the branches far above beat at one anotherfuriously, while the p
endent, leafless vines swayed against us, and thedead leaves went past in the whirlwind. A monstrous flight of pigeonscrossed the heavens, flying from west to east, and darkening the landbeneath like a transient cloud. We came to a plain covered with verytall trees that had one and all been ringed by the Indians. Long dead,and partially stripped of the bark, with their branches, great andsmall, squandered upon the ground, they stood, gaunt and silver gray,ready for their fall. As we passed, the wind brought two crashing tothe earth. In the centre of the plain something--deer or wolf or bear orman--lay dead, for to that point the buzzards were sweeping from everyquarter of the blue. Beyond was a pine wood, silent and dim, with a highgreen roof and a smooth and scented floor. We walked through it for anhour, and it led us to the Pamunkey. A tiny village, counting no morethan a dozen warriors, stood among the pines that ran to the water'sedge, and tied to the trees that shadowed the slow-moving flood wereits canoes. When the people came forth to meet us, the Paspaheghs boughtfrom them, for a string of roanoke, two of these boats; and we made notarrying, but, embarking at once, rowed up river toward Uttamussac andits three temples.
Diccon and I were placed in the same canoe. We were not bound: whatneed of bonds, when we had no friend nearer than the Powhatan, andwhen Uttamussac was so near? After a time the paddles were put into ourhands, and we were required to row while our captors rested. There wasno use in sulkiness; we laughed as at some huge jest, and bent to thetask with a will that sent our canoe well in advance of its mate. Dicconburst into an old song that we had sung in the Low Countries, by campfires, on the march, before the battle. The forest echoed to the loudand warlike tune, and a multitude of birds rose startled from the treesupon the bank. The Indians frowned, and one in the boat behind calledout to strike the singer upon the mouth; but the werowance shook hishead. There were none upon that river who might not know that thePaspaheghs journeyed to Uttamussac with prisoners in their midst. Dicconsang on, his head thrown back, the old bold laugh in his eyes. When hecame to the chorus I joined my voice to his, and the woodland rangto the song. A psalm had better befitted our lips than those rude andvaunting words, seeing that we should never sing again upon this earth;but at least we sang bravely and gayly, with minds that were reasonablyquiet.
The sun dropped low in the heavens, and the trees cast shadows acrossthe water. The Paspaheghs now began to recount the entertainment theymeant to offer us in the morning. All those tortures that they werewont to practice with hellish ingenuity they told over, slowly andtauntingly, watching to see a lip whiten or an eyelid quiver. Theyboasted that they would make women of us at the stake. At all events,they made not women of us beforehand. We laughed as we rowed, and Dicconwhistled to the leaping fish, and the fish-hawk, and the otter lyingalong a fallen tree beneath the bank.
The sunset came, and the river lay beneath the colored clouds likemolten gold, with the gaunt forest black upon either hand. From thelifted paddles the water showered in golden drops. The wind died away,and with it all noises, and a dank stillness settled upon the flood andupon the endless forest. We were nearing Uttamussac, and the Indiansrowed quietly, with bent heads and fearful glances; for Okee broodedover this place, and he might be angry. It grew colder and stiller, butthe light dwelt in the heavens, and was reflected in the bosom of theriver. The trees upon the southern bank were all pines; as if they hadbeen carved from black stone they stood rigid against the saffron sky.Presently, back from the shore, there rose before us a few small hills,treeless, but covered with some low, dark growth. The one that stoodthe highest bore upon its crest three black houses shaped like coffins.Behind them was the deep yellow of the sunset.
An Indian rowing in the second canoe commenced a chant or prayer toOkee. The notes were low and broken, unutterably wild and melancholy.One by one his fellows took up the strain; it swelled higher, louder,and sterner, became a deafening cry, then ceased abruptly, making thestillness that followed like death itself. Both canoes swung round fromthe middle stream and made for the bank. When the boats had slipped fromthe stripe of gold into the inky shadow of the pines, the Paspaheghsbegan to divest themselves of this or that which they conceived Okeemight desire to possess. One flung into the stream a handful of copperlinks, another the chaplet of feathers from his head, a third a braceletof blue beads. The werowance drew out the arrows from a gaudily paintedand beaded quiver, stuck them into his belt, and dropped the quiver intothe water.
We landed, dragging the canoes into a covert of overhanging bushes andfastening them there; then struck through the pines toward the risingground, and presently came to a large village, with many long huts,and a great central lodge where dwelt the emperors when they came toUttamussac. It was vacant now, Opechancanough being no man knew where.
When the usual stately welcome had been extended to the Paspaheghs, andwhen they had returned as stately thanks, the werowance began a haranguefor which I furnished the matter. When he ceased to speak a greatacclamation and tumult arose, and I thought they would scarce wait forthe morrow. But it was late, and their werowance and conjurer restrainedthem. In the end the men drew off, and the yelling of the childrenand the passionate cries of the women, importunate for vengeance,were stilled. A guard was placed around the vacant lodge, and we twoEnglishmen were taken within and bound down to great logs, such as theIndians use to roll against their doors when they go from home.
There was revelry in the village; for hours after the night came,everywhere were bright firelight and the rise and fall of laughter andsong. The voices of the women were musical, tender, and plaintive, andyet they waited for the morrow as for a gala day. I thought of a womanwho used to sing, softly and sweetly, in the twilight at Weyanoke, inthe firelight at the minister's house. At last the noises ceased, thelight died away, and the village slept beneath a heaven that seemedsomewhat deaf and blind.
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