The Hidden Children

"They are singing the Song of the Hidden Children," I whispered to Lois. "Is it not strangely pretty?"

"It is wild music, but sweet," she murmured, "—the music of the Little People—che-kah-a-hen-wah."

"Can you catch the words?"

"Aye, but do not understand them every one."

"Some day I will make them into an English song for you. Listen! 'The Voices' are beginning! Listen attentively to the Chant of 17Ta-neh-u-weh-too!"

The Night Hawk was singing now, as he walked through the sunlit glade, hip-deep in scented ferns and jewel-weed. Two brilliant humming-birds whirled around him as he strode.

A VOICE"Who shall find my Hidden MaidWhere the tasselled corn is growing?Let them seek her in Kandaia,Let them seek her in Oswaya,Where the giant pines are growing,Let them seek and be afraid!Where the Adriutha flowingSplashes through the forest glade,Where the Kennyetto flowingThunders through the hemlock shade,Let them seek and be afraid,From Oswaya To Yndaia,All the way to Carenay!"ANOTHER VOICE"Who shall find my Hidden SonWhere the tasselled corn is growing?Let them seek my Hidden OneFrom the Silver HoriconNorth along the Saguenay,Where the Huron cocks are crowing,Where the Huron maids are mowingHay along the Saguenay;Where the Mohawk maids are hoeingCorn along the Carenay,Let them seek my Hidden Son,West across the inland seas,South to where the cypress treesQuench the flaming scarlet floraOf the painted Esaurora,Drenched in rivers to their knees!18Honowehto! Like Thendara!Let them hunt to DanascaraBack along the Saguenay,On the trail to Carenay,Through the Silver HoriconTill the night and day are one!Where the Adriutha flowingSings below Oswaya glowing.Where the sunset of KandaiaPaints the meadows of Yndaia,Let them seek my Hidden Son'Till the sun and moon are one!" 19TE-KI-E-HO-KEN20"Nai Shehawa! She lies sleeping,Where the green leaves closely fold her!He shall wake first and behold herWho is given to his keeping;He shall strip her of her leavesWhere she sleeps amid the sheaves,Snowy white, without a stain,Nothing marred of wind or rain.So from slumber she shall waken,And behold the green robe shakenFrom his shoulders to her own!21Ye-ji-se-way-ad-kerone!"

The pretty song of the Hidden Children softened to a murmur and died out as our trail entered the swamp once more, north of the oval glade. And into its sombre twilight we passed out of the brief gleam of sunshine. Once more the dark and bitter water coiled its tortuous channel through the slime; huge, gray evergreens, shaggy and forbidding, towered above, closing in closer and closer on every side, crowding us into an ever-narrowing trail.

But this trail, since we had left the sunny glade, had become harder under foot, and far more easy to travel; and we made fast time along it, so that early in the afternoon we suddenly came out into that vast belt of firm ground and rocky, set with tremendous oaks and pines and hemlocks, on the northern edge of which lies Catharines-town, on both banks of the stream.

And here the stream rushed out through this country as though frightened, running with a mournful sound into the northern forest; and the pines were never still, sighing and moaning high above us, so that the never ceasing plaint of wind and water filled the place.

And here, on a low, bushy ridge, we lay all day, seeing in the forest not one living thing, nor any movement in that dim solitude, save where the grey and wraith-like water tossed a flat crest against some fallen tree, or its dull and sullen surface gleamed like lead athwart the valley far ahead.

My Indians squatted, or sprawled prone along the ridge; Lois lay flat on her stomach beside me, her chin resting on her clasped hands. We talked of many things that afternoon—of life as we had found it, and what it promised us—of death, if we must find it here in these woods before I made her mine. And of how long was the spirit's trail to God—if truly it were but a swift, upward flight like to the rushing of an arrow already flashing out of sight ere the twanging buzz of the bow-string died on the air. Or if it were perhaps a long, slow, painful journey through thick night, toilsome, blindly groping, wings adroop trailing against bruised heels. Or if we two must pass by hell, within sight and hearing of the thunderous darkness, and feel the rushing wind of the pit hot on one's face.

Sometimes, like a very child, she prattled of happiness, which she had never experienced, but meant to savour, wedded or not—talked to me there of all she had never known and would now know and realize within her mother's tender arms.

"And sometimes, Euan, dreaming of her I scarce see how, within my heart, I can find room for you also. Yet, I know well there is room for both of you, and that one without the other would leave my happiness but half complete.... I wonder if I resemble her? Will she know me—and I her? How shall we meet, Euan—after more than a score of years? She will see my moccasins, and cry out! She will see my face and know me, calling me by name! Oh, happiness! Oh, miracle! Will the night never come!"

"Dear maid and tender! You should not build your hopes too high, so that they crush you utterly if they must fall to earth again."

"I know. Amochol may have slain her. We will learn all when you take Amochol—when God delivers him into your hands this night.... How will you do it, Euan?"

"Take him, you mean?"

"Aye."

"We lie south, just outside the fire-ring's edge. Boyd watches them from the north. His signal to us begins the business. We leap straight for the altar and take Amochol at its very foot, the while Boyd's heavy rifles deal death on every side, keeping the others busy while we are securing Amochol. Then we all start south for the army, God willing, and meet our own people on the high-ridge east of us."

"But Yndaia!"

"That we will scour the instant we have Amochol."

"You promise?"

"Dearest, I promise solemnly. Yet—I think—if your mother lives—she may be here in Catharines-town tonight. This is the Dream Feast, Lois. I and my Indians believe that she has bought her life of Amochol by dreaming for them. And if this be true, and she has indeed become their Prophetess and Interpreter of Dreams, then this night she will be surely here to read their dreams for them."

"Will we see her before you begin the attack?"

"Little Lois, how can I tell you such things? We are to creep up close to the central fire—as close as we dare."

"Will there be crowds of people there?"

"Many people."

"Warriors?"

"Not many. They are with Hiokatoo and Brant. There will be hunters and Sachems, and the Cat-People, and the Andastes pack, and many women. The False Faces will not be there, nor the Wyoming Witch, nor the Toad Woman, because all these are now with Hiokatoo and Walter Butler. For which I thank God and am very grateful."

"How shall I know her in this fire-lit throng?" murmured Lois, staring ahead of her where the evening dusk had now veiled the nearer trees with purple.

Before I could reply, the Sagamore rose from his place on my left, and we all sprang lightly to our feet, looked to our priming, covered our pans, and trailed arms.

"Now!" he muttered, passing in front of me and taking the lead; and we all filed after him through the open forest, moving rapidly, almost on a run, for half a mile, then swung sharply out to the right, where the trees grew slimmer and thinner, and plunged into a thicket of hazel and osier.

"I smell smoke," whispered Lois, keeping close to me.

I nodded. Presently we halted and stood in silence, minute after minute, while the purple dusk deepened swiftly around us, and overhead a few stars came out palely, as though frightened.

Then Mayaro dropped noiselessly to the ground and began to crawl forward over the velvet moss; and we followed his example, feeling our way with our right hands to avoid dry branches and rocks. From time to time we paused to regain our strength and breathe; and the last time we did so the aromatic smell of birch-smoke blew strong in our nostrils, and there came to our ears a subdued murmur like the stirring of pine-tops in a steady breeze. But there were no pines around us now, only osier, hazel, and grey-birch, and the deep moss under foot.

"A house!" whispered the Yellow Moth, pointing.

There it stood, dark and shadowy against the north. Another loomed dimly beyond it; a haystack rose to the left.

We were in Catharines-town.

And now, as we crawled forward, we could see open country on our left, and many unlighted houses and fields of corn, dim and level against the encircling forest. The murmur on our right had become a sustained and distinct sound, now swelling in the volume of many voices, now subsiding, then waxing to a dull tumult. And against the borders of the woods, like a shining crimson curtain shifting, we could see the red reflection of a fire sweeping across the solid foliage.

With infinite precautions, we moved through the thicket toward it, the glare growing yellower and more brilliant as we advanced. And now we remained motionless and very still.

Massed against the flare of light were crowded many people in a vast, uneven circle ringing a great central fire, except at the southern end. And here, where the ring was open so that we could see the huge fire itself, stood a great, stone slab on end, between two round mounds of earth. It was the altar of Amochol, and we knew it instantly, where it stood between the ancient mounds raised by the Alligewi.

The drums had not yet begun while we were still creeping up, but they began now, muttering like summer thunder, the painted drummers marching into the circle and around it twice before they took their places to the left of the altar, squatting there and ceaselessly beating their hollow sounding drums. Then, in file, the eight Sachems of the dishonoured Senecas filed into the fiery circle, chanting and timing their slow steps to the mournful measure of their chant. All wore the Sachem's crest painted white; their bodies were most barbarously striped with black and white, and their blankets were pure white, crossed by a single blood-red band.

What they chanted I could not make out, but that it was some blasphemy which silently enraged my Indians was plain enough; and I laid a quieting hand on the Sagamore's shaking arm, cautioning him; and he touched the Oneidas and the Stockbridge, one by one, in warning.

Opposite us, the ruddy firelight played over the massed savages, women, children, and old men mostly, gleaming on glistening eyes, sparkling on wampum and metal ornaments. To the right and left of us a few knives and hatchets caught the firelight, and many multi-coloured plumes and blankets glowed in its shifting brilliancy.

The eight Sachems stood, tall and motionless, behind the altar; the drumming never ceased, and from around the massed circle rose a low sing-song chant, keeping time to the hollow rhythm of the drums:

22"Onenh are oya    Egh-des-ho-ti-ya-do-re-donNene ronenh     'Ken-ki-ne ne-nya-wenne!"

Above this rumbling undertone sounded the distant howling of dogs in Catharines-town; and presently the great forest owls woke up, yelping like goblins across the misty intervale. Strangely enough, the dulled pandemonium, joined in by dog and owl and drum and chanting savages, made but a single wild and melancholy monotone seeming to suit the time and place as though it were the voice of this fierce wilderness itself.

Now into the circle, one by one, came those who had dreamed and must be answered—not as in the old-time and merry Feast of Dreams, where the rites were harmless and the mirth and jollity innocent, if rough—for Amochol had perverted the ancient and innocent ceremony, making of a fourteen-day feast a sinister rite which ended in a single night.

I understood this more clearly now, as I lay watching the proceedings, for I had seen this feast in company with Guy Johnson on the Kennyetto, and found in it nothing offensive and no revolting license or blasphemy, though others may say this is not true.

Yet, how can a rite which begins with three days religious services, including confession of sins on wampum, be otherwise than decent? As for the rest of the feast, the horse-play, skylarking, dancing, guessing contests—the little children's dance on the tenth day, the Dance for Four on the eleventh, the Dance for the Eight Thunders on the thirteenth—the noisy, violent, but innocent romping of the False Faces—all this I had seen in the East, and found no evil in it and no debauchery.

But what was now already going on I had never seen at any Iroquois feast or rite, and what Amochol had made of this festival I dared not conjecture as I gazed at the Dreamers now advancing into the circle with an abandon and an effrontery scarcely decent.

Six young girls came first, naked except for a breadth of fawn-skin falling from waist to instep. Their bodies were painted vermilion from brow to ankle; they carried in their hands red harvest apples, which they tossed one to another as they move lightly across the open space in a slow, springy, yet not ungraceful dance.

Behind them came a slim maid, wearing only a black fox-head, and the soft pelt dangling from her belt, and the tail behind. She was painted a ruddy yellow everywhere except a broad line of white in front, like a fox's belly; and, like a fox, too, her feet and hands were painted black.

Following her came eight girls plumed in spotless white and clothed only in white feathers—aping the Thunders, doubtless; but even to me, a white man and a Christian, it was a sinister and evil sight to see this mockery as they danced forward, arms entwined, and the snowy plumes floating out in the firelight, disclosing the white painted bodies which the firelight tinted with rose and amber lights.

Then came dancing other girls, dressed in most offensive mockery of the harmless and ancient rite—first the Fire Keeper, crowned with oak leaves instead of wild cherry, and wearing a sewed garment made of oak twigs and tufted leaves, from which the acorns hung. Followed two girls in cloaks of shimmering pine-needles, and wearing wooden masks, dragging after them the carcasses of two white dogs, to "Clothe the Moon Witch!" they cried to the burly Erie acolyte who followed them, his heavy knife shining in his hand.

Then the Erie disemboweled the strangled dogs, cast their entrails into the fire, and kicked aside the carcasses, shouting:

"Atensi stands naked upon the Moon! What shall she wear to cover her?"

"The soft hide of a Hidden Child!" answered a Sachem from behind the altar. "We have so dreamed it."

"It shall be done!" cried the Erie; and, lifting himself on tip toe, he threw back his brutal head and gave the Panther Cry so that his voice rang hideously through the night.

Instantly into the circle came scurrying the Andastes, some wearing the heads of bulls, some of wolves, foxes, bears, their bodies painted horribly in raw reds and yellows, and running about like a pack of loosened hounds. All their movements were wild and aimless, and like animals, and they seemed to smell their way as they ran about hither and thither, sniffing, listening, but seldom looking long or directly at any one thing.

I was sorely afraid that some among them might come roving and muzzling into the bushes where we lay; but they did not, gradually gathering into an uneasy pack and settling on their haunches near the dancing girls, who played with them, and tormented them with branches of hazel, samphire and green osier.

Suddenly a young girl, jewelled with multi-coloured diamonds of paint, and jingling all over with little bells, came dancing into the ring, beating a tiny, painted drum as she advanced. She wore only a narrow sporran of blue-birds' feathers to her knees, glistening blue moccasins of the same plumage, and a feathered head dress of the scarlet fire-bird. Behind her filed the Cat-People, Amochol's hideous acolytes, each wearing the Nez Perce ridge of porcupine-like hair, the lynx-skin cloak and necklace of claws; and all howling to the measure of the little painted drum. I could feel Mayaro beside me, quivering with eagerness and fury; but the time was not yet, and he knew it, as did his enraged comrades.

For behind the Eries, moving slowly, came a slender shape, shrouded in white. Her head was bent in the shadow of her cowl; her white wool vestments trailed behind her. Both hands were clasped together under her loose robe. On her cowl was a wreath of nightshade, with its dull purple fruit and blossoms clustering around her shadowed brow.

"Who is that?" whispered Lois, beginning to tremble, "God knows," I said. "Wait!"

The shrouded shape moved straight to the great stone altar and stood there a moment facing it; then, veiling her face with her robe, she turned, mounted the left hand mound, and seated herself, head bowed.

Toward her, advancing all alone, was now approaching a figure, painted, clothed, and plumed in scarlet. Everything was scarlet about him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and blanket, girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver on his back—nay, the very arrows in it were set with scarlet feathers, and the looped bowstring was whipped with crimson sinew.

The Andastes came moaning, cringing, fawning, and leaping about his knees; he noticed them not at all; the Cat-People, seated in a semicircle, looked up humbly as he passed; he ignored them.

Slowly he moved to the altar and laid first his hand upon it, then unslung his bow and quiver and laid them there. A great silence fell upon the throng. And we knew we were looking at last upon the Scarlet Priest.

Yes, this was Amochol, the Red Sachem, the vile, blaspheming, murderous, and degraded chief who had made of a pure religion a horror, and of a whole people a nation of unspeakable assassins.

As the firelight flashed full in his face, I saw that his features were not painted; that they were delicate and regular, and that the skin was pale, betraying his French ancestry.

And good God! What a brood of demons had that madman, Frontenac, begot to turn loose upon this Western World! For there appeared to be a Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever heard of—and it seemed as though there was no end to their number. One, praise God, had been slain before Wyoming—which some said enraged the Witch, his mother, to the fearsome deeds she did there—and one was this man's sister, Lyn Montour—a sleek, lithe girl of the forest, beautiful and depraved. But the Toad Woman, mother of Amochol, was absent, and of all the Montours only this strange priest had remained at Catharines-town. And him we were now about to take or slay.

"Amochol!" whispered the Sagamore in my ear.

"I know," I said. "It is strange. He is not like a monster, after all."

"He is beautiful," whispered Lois.

I stared at the pale, calm face over which the firelight played. The features seemed almost perfect, scarcely cruel, yet there was in the eyes a haunting beauty that was almost terrible when they became fixed.

To his scarlet moccasins crept the Andastes, one by one, and squatted there in silence.

Then a single warrior entered the ring. He was clad in the ancient arrow-proof armour of the Iroquois, woven of sinew and wood. His face was painted jet black, and he wore black plumes. He mounted the eastern mound, strung his bow, set an arrow to the string, and seated himself.

The red acolytes came forward, and the slim Prophetess bent her head till the long, dark hair uncoiled and fell down, clouding her to the waist in shadow.

"Hereckenes!" cried Amochol in a clear voice; and at the sound of their ancient name the Cat-People began a miauling chant.

"Antauhonorans!" cried Amochol.

Every Seneca took up the chant, and the drums timed it softly and steadily.

"Prophetess!" said Amochol in a ringing voice. "I have dreamed that the Moon Witch and her grandson Iuskeha shall be clothed. With what, then, shall they be clothed, O Woman of the Night Sky? Explain to my people this dream that I have dreamed."

The slim, white-cowled figure answered slowly, with bowed head, brooding motionless in the shadow of her hair:

"Two dogs lie yonder for Atensi and her grandson. Let them be painted with the sun and moon. So shall the dream of Amochol come true!"

"Sorceress!" he retorted fiercely. "Shall I not offer to Atensi and Iuskeha two Hidden Children, that white robes may be made of their unblemished skins to clothe the Sun and Moon?"

"Into the eternal wampum it is woven that the soft, white skins shall clothe their bodies till the husks fall from the silken corn."

"And then, Witch of the East? Shall I not offer them when the husks are stripped?"

"I see no further than you dream, O Amochol!"

He stretched out his arm toward her, menacingly:

"Yet they shall both be strangled here upon this stone!" he said. "Look, Witch! Can you not see them lying there together? I have dreamed it."

She silently pointed at the two dead dogs.

"Look again!" he cried in a loud voice. "What do you see?"

She made no reply.

"Answer!" he said sharply.

"I have looked. And I see only the eternal wampum lying at my feet—lacking a single belt."

With a furious gesture the Red Priest turned and stared at the dancing girls who raised their bare arms, crying:

"We have dreamed, O Amochol! Let your Sorceress explain our dreams to us!"

And one after another, as their turns came, they leaped up from the ground and sprang forward. The first, a tawny, slender, mocking thing, flung wide her arms.

"Look, Sorceress! I dreamed of a felled sapling and a wolverine! What means my dream?"

And the slim, white figure, head bowed in her dark hair, answered quietly:

"O dancer of the Na-usin, who wears okwencha at the Onon-hou-aroria, yet is no Seneca, the felled sapling is thou thyself. Heed lest the wolverine shall scent a human touch upon thy breast!" And she pointed at the Andastes.

A dead silence followed, then the girl, horror struck, shrank back, her hands covering her face.

Another sprang forward and cried:

"Sorceress! I dreamed of falling water and a red cloud at sunset hanging like a plume!"

"Water falls, daughter of Mountain Snakes. Every drop you saw was a dead man falling. And the red cloud was red by reason of blood; and the plume was the crest of a war chief."

"What chief!" said Amochol, turning his deadly eyes on her.

"A Gate-Keeper of the West."

The shuddering silence was broken by the eager voice of another girl, bounding from her place—a flash of azure and jewelled paint.

"And I, O Sorceress! I dreamed of night, and a love song under the million stars. And of a great stag standing in the water."

"Had the stag no antlers, little daughter?"

"None, for it was spring time."

"You dreamed of night. It shall be night for a long while—for ages and ages, ere the stag's wide antlers crown his head again. For the antlers were lying upon a new made grave. And the million stars were the lights of camp-fires. And the love-song was the Karenna. And the water you beheld was the river culled Chemung."

The girl seemed stunned, standing there plucking at her fingers, scarlet lips parted, and her startled eyes fixed upon the white-draped sibyl.

"Executioner! Bend your bow!" cried Amochol, with a terrible stare at the Sorceress.

The man in woven armour raised his bow, bent it, drawing the arrow to the tip. At the same instant the Prophetess rose to her feet, flung back her cowl, and looked Amochol steadily in the eyes from the shadow of her hair.

So, for a full minute in utter silence, they stared at each other; then Amochol said between his teeth:

"Have a care that you read truly what my people dream!"

"Shall I lie?" she asked in even tones. And, quivering with impotent rage and superstition, the Red Priest found no word to answer.

"O Amochol," she said, "let the armoured executioner loose his shaft. It is poisoned. Never since the Cat-People were overthrown has a poisoned arrow been used within the Long House. Never since the Atotarho covered his face from Hiawatha—never since the snakes were combed from his hair—has a Priest of the Long House dared to doubt the Prophetess of the Seneca nation. Doubt—and die!"

Amochol's face was like pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron war-head glinting in the firelight.