Part 21

The silence of consternation gripped the hordes of the Keepers of the Trail. The sea of painted, scowling faces exhibited one frozen expression of awe at the suddenness of the tragedy. Only Murray gave no indication of feeling as he knelt by de Veulle's side.

"Where is Black Robe?" I whispered to Marjory, shivering on my shoulder.

"He went away last night. There was a call from Ga-o-no-geh, a village down the Trail. I think he was tricked."

"Would he----"

Murray stood up, wiping a spot of blood off one of his hands with a laced handkerchief.

"He is gone," he remarked impartially. "'Twas no more than to be expected. A man can not mix politics with women--especially uncivilized women."

"Give a look to the Indian girl," I urged.

He shrugged his shoulders as if to say it was not worth while; but Marjory stooped over Ga-ha-no, composed the disordered black tresses and closed the wildly staring eyes.

"'Tis useless, Harry," she said. "She is dead."

"Ga-ha-no--is--dead!" repeated Ta-wan-ne-ars blankly.

His heaving muscles relaxed, and he hung limp in his bonds against the stake.

"At the least, the woman gave you an avenue of escape from an intricate problem," commented Murray. "You do not seem glad, my dear."

"I am not glad," retorted Marjory scornfully. "And I am right content that you should be unable to understand why I will be mourning for her."

"Ah, well, we have never understood each other, have we?" rejoined Murray, taking snuff absent-mindedly. "Come, we will give orders for the removal of the unfortunate pair, and----"

The horror dawned once more in Marjory's face.

"And what!" she gasped.

"You forget, Marjory, that my savage henchmen have work to do," he answered nonchalantly. "I take it for granted that you do not wish to remain and view their labors?"

"You--you would----"

Emotion shocked her; but she fought for her self-control.

"You would leave these--these men--Master Ormerod--to--to----"

"And why not!" he replied. "They are enemies. As I have had occasion to tell him ere this, Master Ormerod has sought to contrive my ruin. Why should I spare him?"

"You know not the meaning of humanity, then!" she cried, anger striving with terror for control of her voice.

"'Tis a word which has divers meanings," he said. "But I am a reasonable man. I am always willing to discuss terms."

"And what might you mean by terms?" I demanded, taking a hand in the conversation.

He deliberated as unconcernedly as if we sat on opposite sides of a table in London, entirely ignoring the huddled corpses at his feet, the line of bodies stiffening in the bitter cold against the stakes and the attendant cordon of Indians whose faces studied his as their fingers itched to resume the torture.

"An undertaking to abandon this wholly barren persecution of my enterprises," he decided. "I should require the signature of Governor Burnet to the document."

"And my companions here?" I asked curiously.

"You forget that even my powers are necessarily limited," he said. "I could not possibly snatch from my people's vengeance Iroquois warriors taken red-handed in an attempt to massacre them."

I laughed.

"You do not yet know me, Murray."

"Possibly you are subject to education," he retorted, buttoning up his greatcoat. "Come, Marjory."

She drew away from him.

"I choose to remain," she said coldly.

"I choose that you shall not."

He waved his hand in unmistakable signal of release to the watchful False Faces and their followers. A yell of satisfaction swelled from their hungry throats, and they dashed forward. Indeed, so violent was their reaction from the restraint just imposed upon them that in the first mad rush a number of the younger men were carried beyond control of the evil priests and commenced to butcher the Senecas outright with knife and tomahawk.

Marjory shrank back and covered her eyes with her hands as a feather-tufted warrior ran up to Ta-wan-ne-ars and dangled a freshly severed scalp in his face.

"'Twill be difficult for me to control them at all in a few moments," observed Murray.

"Oh, you vile coward!" exclaimed Marjory, her own courage now regained. "I am steeped in shame whenever I remember that I have in my veins blood that is akin to yours."

"You are unreasonable, my mistress," he remonstrated. "I am giving the young man a chance for his life."

He addressed me directly.

"You will bear me out, Master Ormerod, that I warned you life on the frontier was not pretty. We who deal with savages must employ measures designed to strike their imaginations. We can not be overdainty. We----"

He looked up in amazement, as a mantle of silence enveloped the Council-Place for the second time.

"O my people," boomed a harsh voice in the Cahnuaga dialect, "verily Ha-ne-go-ate-geh has claimed you! You are mad! You toy with your enemies here when the warriors of the Long House are as thick along the Doom Trail as the falling leaves of Autumn. The Keepers who were on watch are dead or in flight. At any minute the Iroquois will be here. They have burned Ga-o-no-geh. The snow of the Trail is trampled flat by their multitudes. Aye, the Doom Trail is bringing doom upon its Keepers."

The tall, severe figure of Black Robe pushed through the surrounding masses of renegades until he had reached Marjory's side.

"What have they done to you, my daughter?" he asked kindly, his tone changing as if by magic. "I was led away by a false story."

She pointed down at the corpses of Ga-ha-no and de Veulle. Père Hyacinthe made the sign of the cross and muttered a brief prayer.

"Providence works mysteriously," he sighed. "Once I trusted this man--" and he swung around with stern hostility upon Murray--"and this one here. Now I think I know them for what they were, servants of evil who employed the force of God's holy Word in the furtherance of their own wicked plans.

"France is great, my daughter. France has a destiny before her. But her greatness and her destiny may not be reached through by-paths of sin and evil-doing."

He would have said more, but Murray intervened.

"I will answer your personal comments at a future time, sir," he said; "but do I understand you to say that the Doom Trail has been penetrated by the Iroquois?"

"They are almost at your door," replied Black Robe sternly.

"'Sdeath!" swore Murray. "This is too much!"

He raised his voice in a shout.

"To your arms, O Keepers of the Trail! The Iroquois are upon us!"

But his words were drowned in a racket of firing from the heart of the Evil Wood. A number of the False Faces emerged from the shelter of the firs, their awful masks wabbling unsteadily.

"The People of the Long House!" they wailed. "The People of the Long House are come!"

"We are attacked back and front," snarled Murray. "Well, Master Ormerod, you and your friend the chief are excellent hostages."

He bellowed a series of commands which brought some degree of order out of the confusion, and dispatched one party of Keepers into the Wood to resist the attack from that quarter. Another body he sent through the village to hold the approaches of the Doom Trail. Under his directions the remainder of the warriors unbound the surviving prisoners from the stakes and escorted us to the stockaded house in which he dwelt.

As we passed the chapel we saw Black Robe standing in the doorway. His eyes were fixed upon the heavens.

"You were a chosen people!" he cried. "You were the few selected from the many! The Word of God was brought to you, and you saw the light--or said you did. Your feet were set upon the narrow way. A great work was given you to do.

"But you wandered far afield, back into unexplored realms of the ancient wickedness of your race. You became devil-worshipers in secret; aye, eaters of human flesh. You lived a life of deceit. You became tools of Ha-ne-go-ate-geh.

"Great was your fall, and great will be your punishment therefor. You will be torn up, root and branch. You will be banished from your villages and exiled to a strange country. Your warriors will die under the tomahawk, your children will be reared by your enemies. You will perish, O Keepers of the Trail! Your end is----"

Cowering under the whip-lashes of his words, the Keepers hurried by the chapel, and ran us inside the stockade. In the doorway they paused to await the coming of Murray. He arrived presently, with Marjory hanging unwillingly on his arm.

"The prisoners?" he rasped in answer to the question of our guards. "Take them to the cellar. Look to their security if you value your lives."

An echo of distant shouts reached our ears as we stood there, and across the posts of the stockade we saw the Keepers streaming from the Evil Wood and at their heels certain darting, quick-moving figures that we knew must be the warriors of the Eight Clans.

"It is time to bring our women and children inside the stockade," proposed one of the Cahnuagas.

Murray shook his head.

"We have not room nor food to spare," he refused with iron determination.

Discontent showed in the faces of the Keepers, for even these fiends knew the instinct of domestic affection; but Murray cut off attempts at protestation.

"See," he said, as the sound of firing came from the southward, "we are surrounded. We are ignorant of the strength of the Iroquois. It may be all we can do to defend ourselves. Women and children would be so many inconveniences to us."

And whilst a squad of savages conducted us to our prison the rest manned the firing-platforms around the stockade and prepared to cover the retreat of the Keepers, who were falling back rapidly before the hard-driving attacks of the Iroquois.

I sought for a word with Marjory as we entered the door, but Murray deliberately strode between us. All I gained was a glance from her eyes that bade me be strong and confident. And I needed all the strength and confidence I could obtain during that dreadful afternoon and night in the cellar, with the shouts of the opposing sides and the discharges of their muskets the sole tidings to reach us of what went on above.

Ta-wan-ne-ars sat with his back to a wall, his eyes fixed on vacancy, his lips murmuring at intervals Ga-ha-no's name. I tried to interest him in what went on without success. He looked at me, and turned his eyes away.

In desperation I struggled with two of our eight surviving comrades to untie our bonds, and after hours of trial we succeeded and released the others. This permitted me to pay attention to those who had been injured. One had a broken shoulder, the result of a blow from a war-club the night we were captured. One had been partially scalped at the stake, and three had been hacked and cut in the preliminary stages of torture.

We slept little that night, for we were very cold and we had no food. But in the morning the Keepers thrust a pan of corn-mush within the door and we ate it to the last kernel. I forced a portion upon Ta-wan-ne-ars, feeding him with a stick we found on the floor.

After that we slept for several hours, and then a lanthorn gleamed on the stairs and Murray stepped into our midst, an immaculate periwig on his head, his linen spotless, his brown cloth suit as fresh as if direct from the tailor's hands.

He set the lanthorn on the dirt floor and stood beside it.

"A good morrow to you, Master Ormerod," he began. "I have come to hold counsel with you."

"'Tis more than kind," I observed sarcastically.

"Nay, 'tis no more than a proposition of business," he returned coolly. "Look you, my friend, we each of us have that which the other wants. In such a case sensible men come to terms."

"If I remember rightly you were speaking of terms only yesterday," I said dryly.

"True, and naturally I was not then disposed to yield you much."

"I would not trust you now on any terms," I said flatly.

"Tut, tut, sir. Is that language for one gentleman to employ to another?"

"You are not a gentleman, sir; you are----"

He glowered.

"Have a care, sir," he warned.

"You are a scoundrel," I finished.

He made a gesture of magnificent disdain.

"Let it pass, let it pass. Your opinion, Master Ormerod, is of little moment to me. What I seek is an accommodation of our mutual desires."

"As how?"

He pursed his lips.

"Look you, Master Ormerod," he replied, "I have you fast here. I have also the chief, your friend. I have in addition one you love."

"Before you proceed further," I interrupted, "I wish you to answer me one question: Whose child is she!"

He hesitated, and regarded me sidewise.

"Oh, well," he said after a moment, "it might as well out now as later. She'd tell you herself, I suppose. The maid is the child of my sister."

"And her name!"

"She is a Kerr of Fernieside," he answered pompously. "I should add, sir, that I have been at particular pains with the girl, having an especial affection for her."

"Oh," I murmured politely. "An especial affection!"

"Even so."

He bowed elegantly.

"I have treated her as my own daughter. Her father was lost in the '15, and since then, seeing that her mother was dead, I have made her my charge. She hath been well educated in a dame's school in Edinburgh."

"Well, of that we will say no more," I said. "I find it unpleasant to hear you talk of her."

He frowned, but made no reply.

"You consider us as hostages, then?" I continued.

"Yes. I might as well admit to you that I am surrounded here. The Iroquois have sent out the largest war-party ever I saw."

"You are helpless, but you attempt to impose terms," I said.

"Pardon me, sir; I am not helpless," he objected. "If the worst comes to the worst I shall give intelligence to my opponents of my intent to blow up my house and my hostages and undertake to fight a way through the Iroquois. Better a death in such fashion than captivity and disgrace, let alone the torture-stake."

I considered this, and gauged him as capable of doing all that he said.

"Yes," I assented finally; "being what you are, you have advantages on your side. What are your terms?"

"A safe-conduct for me and my people to Canada."

"So that you may restore your trade again?"

A look of sorrow fitted over his face.

"I can not restore it, Master Ormerod. That fact is indisputable. My one hold upon public opinion was my success and the power it gave me. Let me fail and lose my power, and my influence is dead."

"Yes," I agreed; "that is true."

"Moreover," he went on, "my savages are killed or scattered. My organization is gone. My most valuable servants are slain."

"And Mistress Marjory?"

He regarded me oddly.

"Do you care to sue for her hand?" he parried.

"I shall wed her, if she pleases," I responded; "but I do assure you, sir, I have no intent to approach you in the matter."

"You make a grave mistake then. I should like to settle upon her a jointure proportionate to her birth and heritage."

My first sensation of amusement was turned to ridicule.

"Murray," I said, "you seem not to understand that honest men and women want nothing of your bloody, ill-gotten money. I know that Mistress Marjory will uphold me in this. All we ask of you is that you should disappear, erase yourself."

He flushed, but had himself in hand immediately.

"You have insulted me more than enough, sir," he said with dignity. "Let us end this interview. Are you prepared to go outside the stockade and secure consent to the terms we have discussed, giving your word of honor to return here afterwards?"

I bowed.

"I will do so, but first permit me to acquaint my companions."

And as rapidly as I could I informed the Senecas of the upshot of our talk. All heard it with relief, save Ta-wan-ne-ars. His sombre eyes looked through and beyond me.

"My Lost Soul!" was his response. "I must seek my Lost Soul, brother!"

"In time," I assured him gently. "Do you bide here and await me, and presently you shall go hence and seek her if you wish."

XXIX

THE BARRING OF THE DOOM TRAIL

"Qua, O-te-ti-an-i!"

Do-ne-ho-ga-weh's right arm was lifted in the salute. The little group of Indians standing at his side on the fringe of the woods overlooking the smoking ruins of La Vierge du Bois repeated the greeting. Corlaer, his broad face with its insignificant, haphazard features shining with emotion, grasped my hand and wrung it heartily.

"You hafe der lifes of a cat, my friendt!" he exclaimed. "We hafe foundt der torture stakes with der bodies of some of your party andt----"

He paused and glanced at Do-ne-ho-ga-weh. The Guardian of the Western Door drew himself up proudly.

"Ga-ha-no did wrong," he said, "but she died as became the daughter of a _roy-an-eh_ of the Long House."

"She died like a warrior," I replied.

"O-te-ti-an-i makes the heart of Do-ne-ho-ga-weh very glad," acknowledged the _roy-an-eh_. "Can he still my fears for my nephew?"

"Ta-wan-ne-ars fought like a chief," I answered. "But his heart was made very sad by the death of Ga-ha-no and his mind has wandered from him for a space."

"It will return," affirmed Do-ne-ho-ga-weh. "Now tell us, O my white son, do you come hither as a captive or a conqueror?"

"I come to offer the terms of Murray; but first tell me how successful you have been, so that I may know whether I should advise acceptance of what he offers."

Do-ne-ho-ga-weh swept his arm around the horizon.

"Everywhere you see ashes and destruction," he replied. "The Keepers of the Trail are dead or imprisoned in Murray's stockade. Their women and children are our prisoners. Our belts can scarcely support the loads of scalps we have taken. We have swept the Doom Trail."

A new figure stepped forward--modestly, as became a young warrior in the company of _roy-an-ehs_ and chiefs. 'Twas the Otter. He too saluted me.

"We thought that you escaped the ambush," I said. "You did well. Great will be the fame of the Otter."

He selected two from a bundle of scalps at his belt and held them aloft.

"Two pursued the Otter when he ran from the Evil Wood," he boasted. "But none returned to tell the way he took. The Otter hastened day and night, O my white brother, O-te-ti-an-i, hoping he might bring warriors to rescue you from the Keepers."

"The Otter did well," I repeated. "Had it not been for him, Murray might have been able to flee to Canada. As it is, the warriors of the Long House have surrounded him. He wishes only to save his life. Harken to the terms he offers."

They listened without comment to Murray's proposition.

"But we have a hostage, also," objected Do-ne-ho-ga-weh when I had finished. "We have been holding him for the torture-stake. Perhaps Murray will be willing to accept less when he learns that we have taken Black Robe."

"No, Black Robe means nothing to Murray," I said.

And I described the clash between the two rulers of La Vierge du Bois over the wedding of Marjory.

"It does not matter," commented Do-ne-ho-ga-weh. "Black Robe is our enemy, and we will torture him to avenge our warriors who have perished here at the stake."

"No, no," I objected. "You must let him go. The Great Spirit has set his seal upon him. Twice before this he has been tortured, yet he still lives."

"The third time may be the last," insisted Do-ne-ho-ga-weh, and the other chiefs murmured agreement with him.

"Will my father yield the life of Black Robe to me as a special gift?" I tried again. "He befriended the maiden I hope to marry. I should like to set him free."

They consulted together, and Corlaer urged my cause. In the end Do-ne-ho-ga-weh assented because, he said, I had brought good luck to the Long House and this was the first favor I had requested.

"And now," he concluded, "take back this message to Murray, my white son. Tell him that he is to surrender his house as it stands, with all it contains. Tell him that he is to give up to us the maiden he calls his daughter, whom you desire to wed. Tell him that he is to send forth the prisoners he has taken. Tell him that he is to render up all the arms he has in his possession.

"And then he and those of the Keepers of the Trail who are left to him shall march out, and the People of the Long House will escort them to Jaraga, where they shall be handed over to Joncaire to dispose of as pleases Onontio and the French.

"_Na-ho!_"

I said good-bye to them, and tramped back across the clearing to the stockade above which waved a white napkin fastened to a ramrod. Murray awaited me just within the gate. The Keepers, in their fantastic feather headdresses, crouched on the firing-platform and peered down at us fearfully. Splotches of blood in the dirty snow showed where several of them had been killed by the plunging fire of the Iroquois from the trees which rimmed the clearing.

Murray heard my report in silence, and cast his eye over the surrounding scene before replying.

"It shall be done," he said at last. "Was ever a man so sorely tried by fate? Zooks! 'twill cost me a pretty penny and no slight effort to recoup my fortunes."

I regarded him with amazement.

"Do you think to be tolerated hereabouts in the future?" I asked.

"Hereabouts! It may be so; it may not be," he answered musingly. "But my star is no ordinary star, Master Ormerod. And despite my demerits, which seem to have impressed you unduly, if you will allow me to say so, I am not entirely without certain capacities which are valuable in adversity."

"The devil looks out for his own!" I ejaculated rudely.

"Needs must, if the devil drives," he countered. "Ah, well, we are simply headed toward another fruitless bicker. You are strangely burdened by that animus which the clergy dub conscience. Your judgment is biased."

"Where you are concerned."

"I fear so," he deplored. "Let us set a term to this debate. Does our treaty go into effect at once?"

"Yes."

"So be it. I will give orders to have your friends conducted here."

The battered remnants of our war-party appeared with Ta-wan-ne-ars walking in the lead, his face once more a study in impassive rigor.

"Murray says we are free, brother," he said, stepping to my side.

"It is true."

The sadness shone momentarily in his eyes.

"I have had a bad dream, brother," he went on.

"'Twas no dream," I cried. "Do not doubt your sorrow, Ta-wan-ne-ars. It was----"

"It was a dream," he answered steadily. "My Lost Soul is redeemed by Ha-wen-ne-yu and is gone on before me for a visit to Ata-ent-sic. But in a little time, when I am rested, I shall go after her and fetch her back to dwell happily with me in my lodge."

"But how can you, a mortal, journey into the hereafter?" I protested.

"Did I not tell you an old tale of my people of a warrior who ventured to the Land of Lost Souls? O my brother, the Great Spirit is generous. He recognizes courage and true love. If I am daring of everything, surely he will stand my aid and help me into Ata-ent-sic's country."

"It can not be!"

"How shall we know it can not be until we have tried? Ta-wan-ne-ars will try."

I could say no more. Such simple faith was unanswerable. And I watched him, quietly directing the piling of the weapons of the Keepers and the unbarring of the gate in the stockade. I wondered how much of it was the unconscious working on a sensitive mind of the very Christianity he had rejected.

Marjory's voice recalled me to the present.

"Master Murray tells me he hath surrendered," she said.

I turned eagerly to find her at my side. My hands leaped out for hers, and she yielded them without hesitation, her brave eyes beaming love and comradeship unashamed.

"Yes, we are free, Marjory. Will you come with me----"

She caught my meaning, and made to pull away from me.

"But we will have had no wooing," she exclaimed, half between laughter and tears. "Sure, sir, you will not be expecting a maid to yield without suit?"

I would not let her go.