CHAPTER XXXII IN WHICH WE ARE THE GUESTS OF AN EMPEROR
I HAD before this spent days among the Indians, on voyages of discovery,as conqueror, as negotiator for food, exchanging blue beads for corn andturkeys. Other Englishmen had been with me. Knowing those with whom wedealt for sly and fierce heathen, friends to-day, to-morrow deadly foes,we kept our muskets ready and our eyes and ears open, and, what with thedanger and the novelty and the bold wild life, managed to extract somemerriment as well as profit from these visits. It was different now.
Day after day I ate my heart out in that cursed village. The feastingand the hunting and the triumph, the wild songs and wilder dances, thefantastic mummeries, the sudden rages, the sudden laughter, the greatfires with their rings of painted warriors, the sleepless sentinels, thewide marshes that could not be crossed by night, the leaves that rustledso loudly beneath the lightest footfall, the monotonous days, theendless nights when I thought of her grief, of her peril, maybe,--it wasan evil dream, and for my own pleasure I could not wake too soon.
Should we ever wake? Should we not sink from that dream without pauseinto a deeper sleep whence there would be no waking? It was a questionthat I asked myself each morning, half looking to find another hollowbetween the hills before the night should fall. The night fell, andthere was no change in the dream.
I will allow that the dark Emperor to whom we were so much beholden gaveus courteous keeping. The best of the hunt was ours, the noblest fish,the most delicate roots. The skins beneath which we slept were fine andsoft; the women waited upon us, and the old men and warriors held withus much stately converse, sitting beneath the budding trees with theblue tobacco smoke curling above our heads. We were alive and soundof limb, well treated and with the promise of release; we might havewaited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content. We did notso. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were growinggreen, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold blackearth and naked forest, it rose like an exhalation. We knew not what itwas, but we breathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our bones.
Opechancanough we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to himthat his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within hislodge with the winding passage, and the hanging mats between him and theworld without. At other times, issuing from that retirement, he wouldstride away into the forest. Picked men went with him, and they weregone for hours; but when they returned they bore no trophies, brute orhuman. What they did we could not guess. We might have had much comfortin Nantauquas, but the morning after our arrival in this village theEmperor sent him upon an embassy to the Rappahannocks, and when forthe fourth time the forest stood black against the sunset he had notreturned. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited thedoubtful fulfillment of that promise made to us below the Uttamussactemples. But the vigilance of the Indians never slept; they watched uslike hawks, night and day. And the dry leaves underfoot would not holdtheir peace, and there were the marshes to cross and the river.
Thus four days dragged themselves by, and in the early morning of thefifth, when we came from our wigwam, it was to find Nantauquas sittingby the fire, magnificent in the paint and trappings of the ambassador,motionless as a piece of bronze, and apparently quite unmindful of theadmiring glances of the women who knelt about the fire preparing ourbreakfast. When he saw us he rose and came to meet us, and I embracedhim, I was so glad to see him. "The Rappahannocks feasted me long," hesaid. "I was afraid that Captain Percy would be gone to Jamestown beforeI was back upon the Pamunkey."
"Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantauquas?" I demanded. "I have mydoubts."
He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candor ofhis own. "You go with the next sunrise," he answered. "Opechancanoughhas given me his word."
"I am glad to hear it," I said. "Why have we been kept at all? Why didhe not free us five days agone?"
He shook his head. "I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughtswhich he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents forthe Governor, and with messages of his love to the white men. There willbe a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens willdance before you. Then in the morning you will go."
"Will you not come with us?" I asked. "You are ever welcome amongst us,Nantauquas, both for your sister's sake and for your own. Rolfe willrejoice to have you with him again; he ever grudgeth you to the forest."
He shook his head again. "Nantauquas, the son of Powhatan, hath had muchtalk with himself lately," he said simply. "The white men's ways haveseemed very good to him, and the God of the white men he knows to begreater than Okee, and to be good and tender; not like Okee, who sucksthe blood of the children. He remembers Matoax, too, and how she lovedand cared for the white men and would weep when danger threatened them.And Rolfe is his brother and his teacher. But Opechancanough is hisking, and the red men are his people, and the forest is his home. If,because he loved Rolfe, and because the ways of the white men seemed tohim better than his own ways, he forgot these things, he did wrong,and the One over All frowns upon him. Now he has come back to his homeagain, to the forest and the hunting and the warpath, to his king andhis people. He will be again the panther crouching upon the bough"--
"Above the white men?"
He gazed at me in silence, a shadow upon his face. "Above the Monacans,"he answered slowly. "Why did Captain Percy say 'above the white men'?Opechancanough and the English have buried the hatchet forever, and thesmoke of the peace pipe will never fade from the air. Nantauquas meant'above the Monacans or the Long House dogs.'"
I put my hand upon his shoulder. "I know you did, brother of Rolfe bynature if not by blood! Forget what I said; it was without thoughtor meaning. If we go indeed to-morrow, I shall be loath to leave youbehind; and yet, were I in your place, I should do as you are doing."
The shadow left his face and he drew himself up. "Is it what you callfaith and loyalty and like a knight?" he demanded, with a touch ofeagerness breaking through the slowness and gravity with which an Indianspeaks.
"Yea," I made reply. "I think you good knight and true, Nantauquas, andmy friend, moreover, who saved my life."
His smile was like his sister's, quick and very bright, and leavingbehind it a most entire gravity. Together we sat down by the fire andate of the sylvan breakfast, with shy brown maidens to serve us and withthe sunshine streaming down upon us through the trees that were growingfaintly green. It was a thing to smile at to see how the Indian girlsmanoeuvred to give the choicest meat, the most delicate maize cakes,to the young war chief, and to see how quietly he turned aside theirbenevolence. The meal over, he went to divest himself of his red andwhite paint, of the stuffed hawk and strings of copper that formed hisheaddress, of his gorgeous belt and quiver and his mantle of raccoonskins, while Diccon and I sat still before our wigwam, smoking, andreckoning the distance to Jamestown and the shortest time in which wecould cover it.
When we had sat there for an hour the old men and the warriors came tovisit us, and the smoking must commence all over again. The women laidmats in a great half circle, and each savage took his seat with perfectbreeding; that is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone.The peace paint was upon them all,--red, or red and white; they sat andlooked at the ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon theair was dense with the fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweepof painted figures had the seeming of some fantastic dream. An oldman arose and made a long and touching speech with much reference tocalumets and buried hatchets. When he had finished a chief talked ofOpechancanough's love for the English, "high as the stars, deep asPopogusso, wide as from the sunrise to the sunset," adding that thedeath of Nemattanow last year and the troubles over the hunting groundshad kindled in the breasts of the Indians no desire for revenge. Withwhich highly probable statement he made an end, and all sat in silencelooking at me and waiting for my contribution of honeyed words. ThesePamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but
littleEnglish to their credit, and the learning of the Paspaheghs was not muchgreater. I sat and repeated to them the better part of the seventh cantoof the second book of Master Spenser's "Faery Queen." Then I told themthe story of the Moor of Venice, and ended by relating Smith's tale ofthe three Turks' heads. It all answered the purpose to admiration. Whenat length they went away to change their paint for the coming feastDiccon and I laughed at that foolery as though there were none beside uswho could juggle with words. We were as light-hearted as children--Godforgive us!
The day wore on, with relay after relay of food which we must taste atleast, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches that must be listenedto and answered. When evening came and our entertainers drew off toprepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long day's march.
The wind had been high during the day, but with the sunset it sank toa desolate murmur. The sky wore the strange crimson of the past yearat Weyanoke. Against that sea of color the pines were drawn in ink, andbeneath it the winding, threadlike creeks that pierced the marshes hadthe look of spilt blood moving slowly and heavily to join the river thatwas black where the pines shadowed it, red where the light touchedit. From the marsh arose the cry of some great bird that made its homethere; it had a lonely and a boding sound, like a trumpet blown abovethe dead. The color died into an ashen gray and the air grew cold,with a heaviness beside that dragged at the very soul. Diccon shiveredviolently, turned restlessly upon the log that served him as settle, andbegan to mutter to himself.
"Art cold?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Something walked over my grave," he said. "I wouldgive all the pohickory that was ever brewed by heathen for a toss ofaqua vitae!"
In the centre of the village rose a great heap of logs and dry branches,built during the day by the women and children. When the twilight felland the owls began to hoot this pile was fired, and lit the place fromend to end. The scattered wigwams, the scaffolding where the fishwere dried, the tall pines and wide-branching mulberries, the troddengrass,--all flashed into sight as the flame roared up to the top-mostwithered bough. The village glowed like a lamp set in the dead blacknessof marsh and forest. Opechancanough came from the forest with a score ofwarriors behind him, and stopped beside me. I rose to greet him, as wasdecent; for he was an Emperor, albeit a savage and a pagan. "Tell theEnglish that Opechancanough grows old," he said. "The years that oncewere as light upon him as the dew upon the maize are now hailstonesto beat him back to the earth whence he came. His arm is not swift tostrike and strong as it once was. He is old; the warpath and the scalpdance please him no longer. He would die at peace with all men. Tellthe English this; tell them also that Opechancanough knows that they aregood and just, that they do not treat men whose color is not their ownlike babes, fooling them with toys, thrusting them out of their pathwhen they grow troublesome. The land is wide and the hunting groundsare many. Let the red men who were here as many moons ago as there areleaves in summer and the white men who came yesterday dwell side by sidein peace, sharing the maize fields and the weirs and the hunting groundstogether." He waited not for my answer, but passed on, and there was nosign of age in his stately figure and his slow, firm step. I watched himwith a frown until the darkness of his lodge had swallowed up him andhis warriors, and mistrusted him for a cold and subtle devil.
Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire we were beset by a band ofmaidens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their headsand pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancinguntil the green needles met above our heads, now retreating until therewas a space of turf between us. Their slender limbs gleamed in thefirelight; they moved with grace, keeping time to a plaintive song, nowraised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single voice. Pocahontashad danced thus before the English many a time. I thought of the littlemaid, of her great wondering eyes and her piteous, untimely death, ofhow loving she was to Rolfe and how happy they had been in their briefwedded life. It had bloomed like a rose, as fair and as early fallen,with only a memory of past sweetness. Death was a coward, passing bymen whose trade it was to out-brave him, and striking at the young andlovely and innocent....
We were tired with all the mummery of the day; moreover, every fibre ofour souls had been strained to meet the hours that had passed since weleft the gaol at Jamestown. The elation we had felt earlier in the daywas all gone. Now, the plaintive song, the swaying figures, the redlight beating against the trees, the blackness of the enshroudingforest, the low, melancholy wind,--all things seemed strange, and yetdeadly old, as though we had seen and heard them since the beginning ofthe world. All at once a fear fell upon me, causeless and unreasonable,but weighing upon my heart like a stone. She was in a palisaded town,under the Governor's protection, with my friends about her and my enemylying sick, unable to harm her. It was I, not she, that was in danger.I laughed at myself, but my heart was heavy, and I was in a fever to begone.
The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed,becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes,faster and faster moved the dark limbs; then, quite suddenly, song andmotion ceased together. They who had danced with the abandonment of wildpriestesses to some wild god were again but shy brown Indian maids whowent and set them meekly down upon the grass beneath the trees. From thedarkness now came a burst of savage cries only less appalling than thewar whoop itself. In a moment the men of the village had rushed from theshadow of the trees into the broad, firelit space before us. Now theycircled around us, now around the fire; now each man danced and stampedand muttered to himself. For the most part they were painted red, butsome were white from head to heel,--statues come to life,--while othershad first oiled their bodies, then plastered them over with smallbright-colored feathers. The tall headdresses made giants of them all;as they leaped and danced in the glare of the fire they had a fiendishlook. They sang, too, but the air was rude, and broken by dreadfulcries. Out of a hut behind us burst two or three priests, the conjurer,and a score or more of old men. They had Indian drums upon whichthey beat furiously, and long pipes made of reeds which gave forth nouncertain sound. Fixed upon a pole and borne high above them was theimage of their Okee, a hideous thing of stuffed skins and rattlingchains of copper. When they had joined themselves to the throng in thefirelight the clamor became deafening. Some one piled on more logs,and the place grew light as day. Opechancanough was not there, norNantauquas.
Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian masque, aswe had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It wouldlast, we knew, for the better part of the night. It was in our honor,and for a while we must stay and testify our pleasure; but after a time,when they had sung and danced themselves into oblivion of our presence,we might retire, and leave the very old men, the women, and the childrensole spectators. We waited for that relief with impatience, though weshowed it not to those who pressed about us.
Time passed, and the noise deepened and the dancing became more frantic.The dancers struck at one another as they leaped and whirled, the sweatrolled from their bodies, and from their lips came hoarse, animal-likecries. The fire, ever freshly fed, roared and crackled, mocking thesilent stars. The pines were bronze-red, the woods beyond a dead black.All noises of marsh and forest were lost in the scream of the pipes, thewild yelling, and the beating of the drums.
From the ranks of the women beneath the reddened pines rose shrilllaughter and applause as they sat or knelt, bent forward, watching thedancers. One girl alone watched not them, but us. She stood somewhatback of her companions, one slim brown hand touching the trunk of atree, one brown foot advanced, her attitude that of one who waits butfor a signal to be gone. Now and then she glanced impatiently at thewheeling figures, or at the old men and the few warriors who took nopart in the masque, but her eyes always came back to us. She had beenamong the maidens who danced before us earlier in the night; when theyrested beneath the trees she had gone away, and the night was much olderwhen I marked her again, coming ou
t of the firelit distance back to thefire and her dusky mates. It was soon after this that I became awarethat she must have some reason for her anxious scrutiny, some message todeliver or warning to give. Once when I made a slight motion as if to goto her, she shook her head and laid her finger upon her lips.
A dancer fell from sheer exhaustion, another and another, and warriorsfrom the dozen or more seated at our right began to take the places ofthe fallen. The priests shook their rattles, and made themselves dizzywith bending and whirling about their Okee; the old men, too, thoughthey sat like statues, thought only of the dance, and of how theythemselves had excelled, long ago when they were young.
I rose, and making my way to the werowance of the village where hesat with his eyes fixed upon a young Indian, his son, who bade fair tooutlast all others in that wild contest, told him that I was wearied andwould go to my hut, I and my servant, to rest for the few hours that yetremained of the night. He listened dreamily, his eyes upon the dancingIndian, but made offer to escort me thither. I pointed out to him thatmy quarters were not fifty yards away, in the broad firelight, in sightof them all, and that it were a pity to take him or any others from thecontemplation of that whirling Indian, so strong and so brave that hewould surely one day lead the war parties.
After a moment he acquiesced, and Diccon and I, quietly and yet withsome ostentation, so as to avoid all appearance of stealing away, leftthe press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf between themand our lodge. When we had gone fifty paces I glanced over my shoulderand saw that the Indian maid no longer stood where we had last seenher, beneath the pines. A little farther on we caught a glimpse of herwinding in and out among a row of trees to our left. The trees ran pastour lodge. When we had reached its entrance we paused and looked back tothe throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to us, every eye intentupon the leaping figures around the great fire. Swiftly and quietly wewalked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees, and foundourselves in a thin strip of shadow between the light of the great firewe had left and that of a lesser one burning redly before the Emperor'slodge. Beneath the trees, waiting for us, was the Indian maid, with herlight form, and large, shy eyes, and finger upon her lips. She would notspeak or tarry, but flitted before us as dusk and noiseless as a moth,and we followed her into the darkness beyond the firelight, well-nighto the line of sentinels. A wigwam, larger than common and shadowed bytrees, rose in our path; the girl, gliding in front of us, held asidethe mats that curtained the entrance. We hesitated a moment, thenstooped and entered the place.
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