CHAPTER XXXIII
In which my Friend becomes my Foe
In the centre of the wigwam the customary fire burned clear and bright,showing the white mats, the dressed skins, the implements of war hangingupon the bark walls,--all the usual furniture of an Indiandwelling,--and showing also Nantauquas standing against the strippedtrunk of a pine that pierced the wigwam from floor to roof. The fire wasbetween us. He stood so rigid, at his full height, with folded arms andhead held high, and his features were so blank and still, so forced andfrozen, as it were, into composure, that, with the red light beatingupon him and the thin smoke curling above his head, he had the look of awarrior tied to the stake.
"Nantauquas!" I exclaimed, and striding past the fire would have touchedhim but that with a slight and authoritative motion of the hand he keptme back. Otherwise there was no change in his position or in the deadcalm of his face.
The Indian maid had dropped the mat at the entrance, and if she waited,waited without in the darkness. Diccon, now staring at the young chief,now eyeing the weapons upon the wall with all a lover's passion, keptnear the doorway. Through the thickness of the bark and woven twigs thewild cries and singing came to us somewhat faintly; beneath that distantnoise could be heard the wind in the trees and the soft fall of theburning pine.
"Well!" I asked at last. "What is the matter, my friend?"
For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voicematched his face.
"_My friend_," he said, "I am going to show myself a friend indeed tothe English, to the strangers who were not content with their ownhunting grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I donot know that Captain Percy will call me 'friend' again."
"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantauquas," I answered him. "I am notfond of riddles."
Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him inamazement, he was so changed in so short a time.
He spoke at last: "When the dance is over, and the fires are low, andthe sunrise is at hand, then will Opechancanough come to you to bid youfarewell. He will give you the pearls that he wears about his neck for apresent to the Governor, and a bracelet for yourself. Also he will giveyou three men for a guard through the forest. He has messages of love tosend the white men, and he would send them by you who were his enemy andhis captive. So all the white men shall believe in his love."
"Well," I said dryly as he paused. "I will take his messages. Whatnext?"
"Those are the words of Opechancanough. Now listen to the words ofNantauquas, the son of Wahunsonacock, a war chief of the Powhatans.There are two sharp knives there, hanging beneath the bow and the quiverand the shield. Take them and hide them."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Diccon had the two keenEnglish blades. I took the one he offered me, and hid it in my doublet.
"So we go armed, Nantauquas," I said. "Love and peace and goodwillconsort not with such toys."
"You may want them," he went on, with no change in his low, measuredtones. "If you see aught in the forest that you should not see, if theythink you know more than you are meant to know, then those three, whohave knives and tomahawks, are to kill you, whom they believe unarmed."
"See aught that we should not see, know more than we are meant to know?"I said. "To the point, friend."
"They will go slowly, too, through the forest to Jamestown, stopping toeat and to sleep. For them there is no need to run like the stag withthe hunter behind him."
"Then we should make for Jamestown as for life," I said, "not sleepingor eating or making pause?"
"Yea," he replied, "if you would not die, you and all your people."
In the silence of the hut the fire crackled, and the branches of thetrees outside, bent by the wind, made a grating sound against the barkroof.
"How die?" I asked at last. "Speak out!"
"Die by the arrow and the tomahawk," he answered,--"yea, and by the gunsyou have given the red men. To-morrow's sun, and the next, and thenext,--three suns,--and the tribes will fall upon the English. At thesame hour, when the men are in the fields and the women and children arein the houses, they will strike,--Kecoughtans, Paspaheghs,Chickahominies, Pamunkeys, Arrowhatocks, Chesapeakes, Nansemonds,Accomacs,--as one man will they strike; and from where the Powhatanfalls over the rocks to the salt water beyond Accomac, there will not beone white man left alive."
He ceased to speak, and for a minute the fire made the only sound in thehut. Then, "All die?" I asked dully. "There are three thousandEnglishmen in Virginia."
"They are scattered and unwarned. The fighting men of the villages ofthe Powhatan and the Pamunkey and the great bay are many, and they havesharpened their hatchets and filled their quivers with arrows."
"Scattered," I said, "strewn broadcast up and down the river,--here alonely house, there a cluster of two or three; they at Jamestown andHenricus off guard,--the men in the fields or at the wharves, the womenand the children busy within doors, all unwarned--O my God!"
Diccon strode over from the doorway to the fire.
"We'd best be going, I reckon, sir," he cried. "Or you wait untilmorning; then there'll be two chances. Now that I've a knife, I'mthinking I can give account of one of them damned sentries, at least.Once clear of them----"
I shook my head, and the Indian too made a gesture of dissent. "Youwould only be the first to die."
I leaned against the side of the hut, for my heart beat like afrightened woman's. "Three days," I exclaimed. "If we go with all ourspeed, we shall be in time. When did you learn this thing?"
"While you watched the dance," he answered, "Opechancanough and I satwithin his lodge in the darkness. His heart was moved, and he talked tome of his own youth in a strange country, south of the sunset, where heand his people dwelt in stone houses and worshipped a great and fiercegod, giving him blood to drink and flesh to eat. To that country, too,white men had come in ships. Then he spoke to me of Powhatan, myfather,--of how wise he was and how great a chief before the Englishcame, and how the English made him kneel in sign that he held his landsfrom their King, and how he hated them; and then he told me that thetribes had called me 'woman,' 'lover no longer of the warpath and thescalp dance,' but that he, who had no son, loved me as his son, knowingmy heart to be Indian still; and then I heard what I have told you."
"How long had this been planned?"
"For many moons. I have been a child, fooled and turned aside from thetrail; not wise enough to see it beneath the flowers, through the smokeof the peace pipes."
"Why does Opechancanough send us back to the settlements?" I demanded."Their faith in him needs no strengthening."
"It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues,living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back toJamestown or to his hundred with presents and with words that aresweeter than honey. He has told the three who go with you the hour inwhich you are to reach Jamestown; he would have you as singing birds,telling lying tales to the Governor, with scarce the smoking of a pipebetween those words of peace and the war whoop. But if those who go withyou see reason to misdoubt you, they will kill you in the forest."
His voice fell, and he stood in silence, straight as an arrow, againstthe post, the firelight playing over his dark limbs and sternly quietface. Outside, the night wind, rising, began to howl through the nakedbranches, and a louder burst of yells came to us from the roisterers inthe distance. The mat before the doorway shook, and a slim brown hand,slipped between the wood and the woven grass, beckoned to us.
"Why did you come?" demanded the Indian. "Long ago, when there were nonebut dark men from the Chesapeake to the hunting grounds beneath thesunset, we were happy. Why did you leave your own land, in the strangeblack ships with sails like the piled-up clouds of summer? Was it not agood land? Were not your forests broad and green, your fields fruitful,your rivers deep and filled with fish? And the towns I have heardof--were they not fair? You are brave men: had you no enemies there, andno warpaths?
It was your home: a man should love the good earth overwhich he hunts, upon which stands his village. This is the red man'sland. He wishes his hunting grounds, his maize fields, and his riversfor himself, his women and children. He has no ships in which to go toanother country. When you first came, we thought you were gods; but youhave not done like the great white God who, you say, loves you so. Youare wiser and stronger than we, but your strength and wisdom help usnot: they press us down from men to children; they are weights upon thehead and shoulders of a babe to keep him under stature. Ill gifts haveyou brought us, evil have you wrought us----"
"Not to you, Nantauquas!" I cried, stung into speech.
He turned his eyes upon me. "Nantauquas is the war chief of his tribe.Opechancanough is his king, and he lies upon his bed in his lodge andsays within himself: 'My war chief, the Panther, the son ofWahunsonacock, who was chief of all the Powhatans, sits now within hiswigwam, sharpening flints for his arrows, making his tomahawk bright andkeen, thinking of a day three suns hence, when the tribes will shake offfor ever the hand upon their shoulder,--the hand so heavy and white thatstrives always to bend them to the earth and keep them there.' Tell me,you Englishman who have led in war, another name for Nantauquas, and askno more what evil you have done him."
"I will not call you 'traitor,' Nantauquas," I said, after a pause."There is a difference. You are not the first child of Powhatan who hasloved and shielded the white men."
"She was a woman, a child," he answered. "Out of pity she saved yourlives, not knowing that it was to the hurt of her people. Then you werefew and weak, and could not take your revenge. Now, if you die not, youwill drink deep of vengeance,--so deep that your lips may never leavethe cup. More ships will come, and more; you will grow ever stronger.There may come a moon when the deep forests and the shining rivers knowus, to whom Kiwassa gave them, no more." He paused, with unmoved face,and eyes that seemed to pierce the wall and look out into unfathomabledistances. "Go!" he said at last. "If you die not in the woods, if yousee again the man whom I called my brother and teacher, tell him ...tell him _nothing_! Go!"
"Come with us," urged Diccon gruffly. "We English will make a place foryou among us----" and got no further, for I turned upon him with a sterncommand for silence.
"I ask of you no such thing, Nantauquas," I said. "Come against us, ifyou will. Nobly warned, fair upon our guard, we will meet you asknightly foe should be met."
He stood for a minute, the quick change that had come into his face atDiccon's blundering words gone, and his features sternly impassiveagain; then, very slowly, he raised his arm from his side and held outhis hand. His eyes met mine in sombre inquiry, half eager, half proudlydoubtful.
I went to him at once, and took his hand in mine. No word was spoken.Presently he withdrew his hand from my clasp, and, putting his finger tohis lips, whistled low to the Indian girl. She drew aside the hangingmats, and we passed out, Diccon and I, leaving him standing as we hadfound him, upright against the post, in the red firelight.
Should we ever go through the woods, pass through that gathering storm,reach Jamestown, warn them there of the death that was rushing uponthem? Should we ever leave that hated village? Would the morning evercome? When we reached our hut, unseen, and sat down just within thedoorway to watch for the dawn, it seemed as though the stars would neverpale. Again and again the leaping Indians between us and the fire fedthe tall flame; if one figure fell in the wild dancing, another took itsplace; the yelling never ceased, nor the beating of the drums.
It was an alarum that was sounding, and there were only two to hear;miles away beneath the mute stars English men and women lay asleep, withthe hour thundering at their gates, and there was none to cry, "Awake!"When would the dawn come, when should we be gone? I could have cried outin that agony of waiting, with the leagues on leagues to be travelled,and the time so short! If we never reached those sleepers---- I saw thedark warriors gathering, tribe on tribe, war party on war party, thickcrowding shadows of death, slipping though the silent forest ... andthe clearings we had made and the houses we had built ... the goodlyEnglishmen, Kent and Thorpe and Yeardley, Maddison, Wynne, Hamor, themen who had striven to win and hold this land so fatal and so fair, Westand Rolfe and Jeremy Sparrow ... the children about the doorsteps, thewomen ... one woman....
It came to an end, as all things earthly will. The flames of the greatbonfire sank lower and lower, and as they sank the gray light falteredinto being, grew, and strengthened. At last the dancers were still, thewomen scattered, the priests with their hideous Okee gone. The wailingof the pipes died away, the drums ceased to beat, and the village lay inthe keen wind and the pale light, inert and quiet with the stillness ofexhaustion.
The pause and hush did not last. When the ruffled pools amid the marsheswere rosy beneath the sunrise, the women brought us food, and thewarriors and old men gathered about us. They sat upon mats or billets ofwood, and I offered them bread and meat, and told them they must come toJamestown to taste of the white man's cookery.
Scarcely was the meal over when Opechancanough issued from his lodge,with his picked men behind him, and, coming slowly up to us, took hisseat upon the white mat that was spread for him. For a few minutes hesat in a silence that neither we nor his people cared to break. Only thewind sang in the brown branches, and from some forest brake came astag's hoarse cry. As he sat in the sunshine he glistened all over,like an Ethiop besprent with silver; for his dark limbs and mighty chesthad been oiled, and then powdered with antimony. Through his scalp lockwas stuck an eagle's feather; across his face, from temple to chin, wasa bar of red paint; the eyes above were very bright and watchful, but weupon whom that scrutiny was bent were as little wont as he to let ourfaces tell our minds.
One of his young men brought a great pipe, carved and painted, stem andbowl; an old man filled it with tobacco, and a warrior lit it and boreit to the Emperor. He put it to his lips and smoked in silence, whilethe sun climbed higher and higher, and the golden minutes that were moreprecious than heart's blood went by, at once too slow, too swift.
At last, his part in the solemn mockery played, he held out the pipe tome. "The sky will fall, and the rivers run dry, and the birds cease tosing," he said, "before the smoke of the calumet fades from the land."
I took the symbol of peace, and smoked it as silently and soberly--ay,and as slowly--as he had done before me, then laid it leisurely asideand held out my hand. "My eyes have been holden," I told him, "but now Isee plainly the deep graves of the hatchets and the drifting of thepeace smoke through the forest. Let Opechancanough come to Jamestown tosmoke of the Englishman's _uppowoc_, and to receive rich presents,--ared robe like his brother Powhatan's, and a cup from which he shalldrink, he and all his people."
He laid his dark fingers in mine for an instant, withdrew them, and,rising to his feet, motioned to three Indians who stood out from thethrong of warriors. "These are Captain Percy's guides and friends," heannounced. "The sun is high; it is time that he was gone. Here arepresents for him and for my brother the Governor." As he spoke, he tookfrom his neck the rope of pearls and from his arm a copper bracelet, andlaid both upon my palm.
I thrust the pearls within my doublet, and slipped the bracelet upon mywrist. "Thanks, Opechancanough," I said briefly. "When we meet again, Ishall not greet you with empty thanks."
By this all the folk of the village had gathered around us; and now thedrums beat again, and the maidens raised a wild and plaintive song offarewell. At a sign from the werowance men and women formed a rudeprocession, and followed us, who were to go upon a journey, to the edgeof the village where the marsh began. Only the dark Emperor and the oldmen stayed behind, sitting and standing in the sunshine, with the peacepipe lying on the grass at their feet, and the wind moving the branchesoverhead. I looked back and saw them thus, and wondered idly how manyminutes they would wait before putting on the black paint. Of Nantauquaswe had seen nothing. Either he had gone to the forest, or upon somepretence he kept within his lodge.
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p; We bade farewell to the noisy throng who had brought us upon our way,and went down to the river, where we found a canoe and rowers, crossedthe stream, and, bidding the rowers good-bye, entered the forest. It wasWednesday morning, and the sun was two hours high. Three suns,Nantauquas had said: on Friday, then, the blow would fall. Three days!Once at Jamestown, it would take three days to warn each lonelyscattered settlement, to put the colony into any posture of defence.What of the leagues of danger-haunted forest to be traversed before evena single soul of the three thousand could be warned?
As for the three Indians,--who had their orders to go slowly, who at anysuspicious haste or question or anxiety on our part were to kill us whomthey deemed unarmed,--when they left their village that morning, theyleft it for ever. There were times when Diccon and I had no need ofspeech, but knew each other's mind without; so now, though no word hadbeen spoken, we were agreed to set upon and slay our guides the firstoccasion that offered.
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