Chapter 17

A Cayuga chief sprang at the post and struck it twice.

Roars of applause shook the silence; then a masked figure leaped towards the central fire, shouting: "The False-Faces' feast! Ho! Hoh! Ho-ooh!"

In a moment the circle was a scene of terrific excesses. Masked figures pelted each other with live coals from the fires; dancing, shrieking, yelping demons leaped about whirling their blazing torches; witch-drums boomed; chant after chant was raised as new dancers plunged into the delirious throng, whirling the carcasses of white dogs, painted with blue and yellow stripes. The nauseating stench of burned roast meat filled the air, as the False-Faces brought quarters of venison and baskets of fish into the circle and dumped them on the coals.

Faster and more furious grew the dance of the False-Faces. The flying coals flew in every direction, streaming like shooting-stars across the fringing darkness. A grotesque masker, wearing the head-dress of a bull, hurled his torch into the air; the flaming brand lodged in the feathery top of a pine, the foliage caught fire, and with a crackling rush a vast whirlwind of flame and smoke streamed skyward from the forest giant.

"To-wen-yon-go [It touches the sky]!" howled the crazed dancers, leaping about, while faster and faster came the volleys of live coals, until a young girl's hair caught fire.

"Kah-none-ye-tah-we!" they cried, falling back and forming a chain-around her as she wrung the sparks from her long hair, laughing and leaping about between the flying coals.

Then the nine sachems of the Mohawks rose, all covering their breasts with their blankets, save the chief sachem, who is called "The Two Voices." The serried circle fell back, Senecas, Cayugas, and Mohawks shouting their battle-cries; scores of hatchets glittered, knives flashed.

All alone in the circle stood Magdalen Brant, slim, straight, motionless as a tinted statue, her hands on her hips. Reflections of the fires played over her, in amber and pearl and rose; violet lights lay under her eyes and where the hair shadowed her brow. Then, through the silence, a loud voice cried: "Little Rosebud Woman, the False-Faces thank you! Koon-wah-yah-tun-was [They are burning the white dog]!"

She raised her head and laid a hand on each cheek.

"Neah-wen-ha [I thank you]," she said, softly.

At the word the lynx rose and looked up into her face, then turned and paced slowly across the circle, green eyes glowing.

The young girl loosened the braids of her hair; a thick, dark cloud fell over her bare shoulders and breasts.

"She veils her face!" chanted the False-Faces. "Respect the veil! Adieu, O Woman of the Rose!"

Her hands fell, and, with bent head, moving slowly, pensively, she passed out of the infernal circle, the splendid lynx stalking at her heels.

No sooner was she gone than hell itself broke loose among the False-Faces; the dance grew madder and madder, the terrible rite of sacrifice was enacted with frightful symbols. Through the awful din the three war-cries pealed, the drums advanced, thundering; the iris-maids lighted the six little fires of black-birch, spice-wood, and sassafras, and crouched to inhale the aromatic smoke until, stupefied and quivering in every limb with the inspiration of delirium, they stood erect, writhing, twisting, tossing their hair, chanting the splendors of the future!

Then into the crazed orgie leaped the Toad-woman like a gigantic scarlet spider, screaming prophecy and performing the inconceivable and nameless rites of Ak-e, Ne-ke, and Ge-zis, until, in her frenzy, she went stark mad, and the devil worship began with the awful sacrifice of Leshee in Biskoonah.

Horror-stricken, nauseated, I caught Mount's arm, whispering: "Enough, in God's name! Come away!"

My ears rang with the distracted yelping of the Toad-woman, who was strangling a dog. Faint, almost reeling, I saw an iris-girl fall in convulsions; the stupefying smoke blew into my face, choking me. I staggered back into the darkness, feeling my way among the unseen trees, gasping for fresh air. Behind me, Mount and Sir George came creeping, groping like blind men along the cliffs.

"This way," whispered Mount.

XVI

ON SCOUT

Like a pursued man hunted through a dream, I labored on, leaden-limbed, trembling; and it seemed hours and hours ere the blue starlight broke overhead and Beacraft's dark house loomed stark and empty on the stony hill.

Suddenly the ghostly call of a whippoorwill broke out from the willows. Mount answered; Elerson appeared in the path, making a sign for silence.

"Magdalen Brant entered the house an hour since," he whispered. "She sits yonder on the door-step. I think she has fallen asleep."

We stole forward through the dusk towards the silent figure on the door-step. She sat there, her head fallen back against the closed door, her small hands lying half open in her lap. Under her closed eyes the dark circles of fatigue lay; a faint trace of rose paint still clung to her lips; and from the ragged skirt of her thorn-rent gown one small foot was thrust, showing a silken shoe and ankle stained with mud.

There she lay, sleeping, this maid who, with her frail strength, had split forever the most powerful and ancient confederacy the world had ever known.

Her superb sacrifice of self, her proud indifference to delicacy and shame, her splendid acceptance of the degradation, her instant and fearless execution of the only plan which could save the land from war with a united confederacy, had left us stunned with admiration and helpless gratitude.

Had she gone to them as a white woman, using the arts of civilized persuasion, she could have roused them to war, but she could not have soothed them to peace. She knew it--even I knew that among the Iroquois the Ruler of the Heavens can never speak to an Indian through the mouth of a white woman.

As an Oneida, and a seeress of the False-Faces, she had answered their appeal. Using every symbol, every ceremony, every art taught her as a child, she had swayed them, vanquishing with mystery, conquering, triumphing, as an Oneida, where a single false step, a single slip, a moment's faltering in her sweet and serene authority might have brought out the appalling cry of accusation:

"Her heart is white!"

And not one hand would have been raised to prevent the sacrificial test which must follow and end inevitably in a dreadful death.

* * * * *

Mount and Elerson, moved by a rare delicacy, turned and walked noiselessly away towards the hill-top.

"Wake her," I said to Sir George.

He knelt beside her, looking long into her face; then touched her lightly on the hand. She opened her eyes, looked up at him gravely, then rose to her feet, steadying herself on his bent arm.

"Where have you been?" she asked, glancing anxiously from him to me. There was the faintest ring of alarm in her voice, a tint of color on cheek and temple. And Sir George, lying like a gentleman, answered: "We have searched the trails in vain for you. Where have you lain hidden, child?"

Her lips parted in an imperceptible sigh of relief; the pallor of weariness returned.

"I have been upon your business, Sir George," she said, looking down at her mud-stained garments. Her arms fell to her side; she made a little gesture with one limp hand. "You see," she said, "I promised you." Then she turned, mounting the steps, pensively; and, in the doorway, paused an instant, looking back at him over her shoulder.

* * * * *

And all that night, lying close to the verge of slumber, I heard Sir George pacing the stony yard under the great stars; while the riflemen, stretched beside the hearth, snored heavily, and the death-watch ticked in the wall.

At dawn we three were afield, nosing the Sacandaga trail to count the tracks leading to the north--the dread footprints of light, swift feet which must return one day bringing to the Mohawk Valley an awful reckoning.

At noon we returned. I wrote out my report and gave it to Sir George. We spoke little together. I did not see Magdalen Brant again until they bade me adieu.

And now it was two o'clock in the afternoon; Sir George had already set out with Magdalen Brant to Varicks' by way of Stoner's; Elerson and Mount stood by the door, waiting to pilot me towards Gansevoort's distant outposts; the noon sunshine filled the deserted house and fell across the table where I sat, reading over my instructions from Schuyler ere I committed the paper to the flames.

So far, no thanks to myself, I had carried out my orders in all save the apprehension of Walter Butler. And now I was uncertain whether to remain and hang around the council-fire waiting for an opportunity to seize Butler, or whether to push on at once, warn Gansevoort at Stanwix that St. Leger's motley army had set out from Oswego, and then return to trap Butler at my leisure.

I crumpled the despatch into a ball and tossed it onto the live coals in the fireplace; the paper smoked, caught fire, and in a moment more the black flakes sank into the ashes.

"Shall we burn the house, sir?" asked Mount, as I came to the doorway and looked out.

I shook my head, picked up rifle, pouch, and sack, and descended the steps. At the same instant a man appeared at the foot of the hill, and Elerson waved his hand, saying: "Here's that mad Irishman, Tim Murphy, back already."

Murphy came jauntily up the hill, saluted me with easy respect, and drew from his pouch a small packet of papers which he handed me, nodding carelessly at Elerson and staring hard at Mount as though he did not recognize him.

"Phwat's this?" he inquired of Elerson--"a Frinch cooroor, or maybe a Sac shquaw in a buck's shirrt?"

"Don't introduce him to me," said Mount to Elerson; "he'll try to kiss my hand, and I hate ceremony."

"Quit foolin'," said Elerson, as the two big, over-grown boys seized each other and began a rough-and-tumble frolic. "You're just cuttin' capers, Tim, becuz you've heard that we're takin' the war-path--quit pullin' me, you big Irish elephant! Is it true we're takin' the war-path?"

"How do I know?" cried Murphy; but the twinkle in his blue eyes betrayed him; "bedad, 'tis home to the purty lasses we go this blessed day, f'r the crool war is over, an' the King's got the pip, an--"

"Murphy!" I said.

"Sorr," he replied, letting go of Mount and standing at a respectful slouch.

"Did you get Beacraft there in safety?"

"I did, sorr."

"Any trouble?"

"None, sorr--f'r me."

I opened the first despatch, looking at him keenly.

"Do we take the war-path?" I asked.

"We do, sorr," he said, blandly. "McDonald's in the hills wid the McCraw an'ten score renegades. Wan o' their scouts struck old man Schell's farm an' he put buckshot into sivinteen o' them, or I'm a liar where I shtand!"

"I knew it," muttered Elerson to Mount. "Where you see smoke, there's fire; where you see Murphy, there's trouble. Look at the grin on him--and his hatchet shined up like a Cayuga's war-axe!"

I opened the despatch; it was from Schuyler, countermanding his instructions for me to go to Stanwix, and directing me to warn every settlement in the Kingsland district that McDonald and some three hundred Indians and renegades were loose on the Schoharie, and that their outlying scouts had struck Broadalbin.

I broke the wax of the second despatch; it was from Harrow, briefly thanking me for the capture of Beacraft, adding that the man had been sent to Albany to await court-martial.

That meant that Beacraft must hang; a most disagreeable feeling came over me, and I tore open the third and last paper, a bulky document, and read it:

"VARICK MANOR, "June the 2d. "An hour to dawn.

"In my bedroom I am writing to you the adieu I should have said the night you left. Murphy, a rifleman, goes to you with despatches in an hour: he will take this to you, ... wherever you are.

"I saw the man you sent in. Father says he must surely hang. He was so pale and silent, he looked so dreadfully tired--and I have been crying a little--I don't know why, because all say he is a great villain.

"I wonder whether you are well and whether you remember me." ("me" was crossed out and "us" written very carefully.) "The house is so strange without you. I go into your room sometimes. Cato has pressed all your fine clothes. I go into your room to read. The light is very good there. I am reading the Poems of Pansard. You left a fern between the pages to mark the poem called 'Our Deaths'; did you know it? Do you admire that verse? It seems sad to me. And it is not true, either. Lovers seldom die together." (This was crossed out, and the letter went on.) "Two people who love--" ("love" was crossed out heavily and the line continued)--"two friends seldom die at the same instant. Otherwise there would be no terror in death.

"I forgot to say that Isene, your mare, is very well. Papa and the children are well, and Ruyven a-pestering General Schuyler to make him a cornet in the legion of horse, and Cecile, all airs, goes about with six officers to carry her shawl and fan.

"For me--I sit with Lady Schuyler when I have the opportunity. I love her; she is so quiet and gentle and lets me sit by her for hours, perfectly silent. Yesterday she came into your room, where I was sitting, and she looked at me for a long time--so strangely--and I asked her why, and she shook her head. And after she had gone I arranged your linen and sprinkled lavender among it.

"You see there is so little to tell you, except that in the afternoon some Senecas and Tories shot at one of our distant tenants, a poor man, one Christian Schell; and he beat them off and killed eleven, which was very brave, and one of the soldiers made a rude song about it, and they have been singing it all night in their quarters. I heard them from your room--where I sometimes sleep--the air being good there; and this is what they sang:

"'A story, a story Unto you I will tell, Concerning a brave hero, One Christian Schell.

"'Who was attacked by the savages. And Tories, it is said; But for this attack Most freely they bled.

"'He fled unto his house For to save his life. Where he had left his arms In care of his wife.

"'They advanced upon him And began to fire, But Christian with his blunderbuss Soon made them retire.

"'He wounded Donald McDonald And drew him in the door, Who gave an account Their strength was sixty-four.

"'Six there was wounded And eleven there was killed Of this said party, Before they quit the field.'

"And I think there are a hundred other verses, which I will spare you; not that I forget them, for the soldiers sang them over and over, and I had nothing better to do than to lie awake and listen.

"So that is all. I hear my messenger moving about below; I am to drop this letter down to him, as all are asleep, and to open the big door might wake them.

"Good-bye.

* * * * *

"It was not my rifleman, only the sentry. They keep double watch since the news came about Schell. "Good-bye. I am thinking of you.

"DOROTHY.

"Postscript.--Please make my compliments and adieux to Sir George Covert.

"Postscript.--The rifleman is here; he is whistling like a whippoorwill. I must say good-bye. I am mad to go with him. Do not forget me!

"My memories are so keen, so pitilessly real, I can scarce endure them, yet cling to them the more desperately.

"I did not mean to write this--truly I did not! But here, in the dusk, I can see your face just as it looked when you said good-bye!--so close that I could take it in my arms despite my vows and yours!

"Help me to reason; for even God cannot, or will not, help me; knowing, perhaps, the dreadful after-life He has doomed me to for all eternity. If it is true that marriages are made in heaven, where was mine made? Can you answer? I cannot. (The whimper of the whippoorwill again!) Dearest, good-bye. Where my body lies matters nothing so that you hold my soul a little while. Yet, even of that they must rob you one day. Oh, if even in dying there is no happiness, where, where does it abide? Three places only have I heard of: the world, heaven, and hell. God forgive me, but I think the last could cover all.

"Say that you love me! Say it to the forest, to the wind. Perhaps my soul, which follows you, may hear if you only say it. (Once more the ghost-call of the whippoorwill!) Dear lad, good-bye!"

XVII

THE FLAG

Day after day our little scout of four traversed the roads and forests of the Kingsland district, warning the people at the outlying settlements and farms that the county militia-call was out, and that safety lay only in conveying their families to the forts and responding to the summons of authority without delay.

Many obeyed; some rash or stubborn settlers prepared to defend their homes. A few made no response, doubtless sympathizing with their Tory friends who had fled to join McDonald or Sir John Johnson in the North.

Rumors were flying thick, every settlement had its full covey; every cross-road tavern buzzed with gossip. As we travelled from settlement to settlement, we, too, heard something of what had happened in distant districts: how the Schoharie militia had been called out; how one Huetson had been captured as he was gathering a band of Tories to join the Butlers; how a certain Captain Ball had raised a company of sixty-three royalists at Beaverdam and was fled to join Sir John; how Captain George Mann, of the militia, refused service, declaring himself a royalist, and disbanding his company; how Adam Crysler had thrown his important influence in favor of the King, and that the inhabitants of Tryon County were gloomy and depressed, seeing so many respectable gentlemen siding with the Tories.

We learned that the Schoharie and Schenectady militia had refused to march unless some provision was made to protect their families in their absence; that Congress had therefore established a corps of invalids, consisting of eight companies, each to have one captain, two lieutenants, two ensigns, five sergeants, six corporals, two drums, two fifes, and one hundred men; one company to be stationed in Schoharie, and to be called the "Associate Exempts"; that three forts for the protection of the Schoharie Valley were nearly finished, called the Upper, Lower, and Middle forts.

More sinister still were the rumors from the British armies: Burgoyne was marching on Albany from the north with the finest train of artillery ever seen in America; St. Leger was moving from the west; McDonald had started already, flinging out his Indian scouts as far as Perth and Broadalbin, and Sir Henry Clinton had gathered a great army at New York and was preparing to sweep the Hudson Valley from Fishkill to Albany. And the focus of these three armies and of Butler's, Johnson's, and McDonald's renegades and Indians was this unhappy county of Tryon, torn already with internal dissensions; unarmed, unprovisioned, unorganized, almost ungarrisoned.

I remember, one rainy day towards sunset, coming into a small hamlet where, in front of the church, some score of farmers and yokels were gathered, marshalled into a single line. Some were armed with rifles, some with blunderbusses, some with spears and hay-forks. None wore uniform. As we halted to watch the pathetic array, their fifer and drummer wheeled out and marched down the line, playing Yankee Doodle. Then the minister laid down his blunderbuss and, facing the company, raised his arms in prayer, invoking the "God of Armies" as though he addressed his supplication before a vast armed host.

Murphy strove to laugh, but failed; Mount muttered vaguely under his breath; Elerson gnawed his lips and bent his bared head while the old man finished his prayer to "The God of Armies!" then picked up his blunderbuss and limped to his place in the scanty file.

And again I remember one fresh, sweet morning late in June, standing with my riflemen at a toll-gate to see some four hundred Tryon County militia marching past on their way to Unadilla on the Susquehanna, where Brant, with half a thousand savages, had consented to a last parley. Stout, wholesome lads they were, these Tryon County men; wearing brown and yellow uniforms cut smartly, and their officers in the Continental buff and blue, riding like regulars; curved swords shining and their epaulets striking fire in the sunshine.

"Palatines!" said Mount, standing to salute as an officer rode by. "That's General Herkimer--old Honikol Herkimer--with his hard, weather-tanned jaws and the devil lurking under his eyebrows; and that young fellow in his smart uniform is Colonel Cox, old George Klock's son-in-law; and yonder rides Colonel Harper! Oh, I know 'em, sir; I was not in these parts for nothing in '74 and '75!"

The drums and fifes were playing "Unadilla" as the regiment marched past; and my riflemen, lounging along the roadside, exchanged pleasantries with the hardy Palatines, or greeted acquaintances in their impudent, bantering manner:

"Hello! What's this Low Dutch regiment? Say, Han Yost, the pigs has eat off your queue-band! Bedad, they marrch like Albany ducks in fly-time! Musha, thin, luk at the fat dhrummer laad! Has he apples in thim two cheeks, Jack? I dunnoa! Hey, there goes Wagner! Hello, Wagner! Wisha, laad, ye're cross-eyed an' shquint-lipped a-playin' yere fife hind-end furrst!"

And the replies from the dusty, brown ranks, steadily passing:

"Py Gott! dere's Jack Mount! Look alretty, Jacob! Hello, Elerson! Ish dot true you patch your breeches mit second-hand scalps you puy in Montreal? Vat you vas doing down here, Tim Murphy? Oh, joost look at dem devils of Morgan! Sure, Emelius, dey joost come so soon as ve go. Ya! Dey come to kiss our girls, py cricky! Uf I catch you round my girl alretty, Dave Elerson--"

"Silence! Silence in the ranks!" sang out an officer, riding up. The brown column passed on, the golden dust hanging along its flanks. Far ahead we could still hear the drums and fifes playing "Unadilla."

"They ought to have a flag; a flag's a good thing to fight for," said Mount, looking after them. "I fought for the damned British rag when I was fifteen. Lord! it makes me boil to think that they've forgot what we did for 'em!"

"We Virginians carried a flag at the siege o' Boston," observed Elerson. "It was a rattlesnake on a white ground, with the motto, 'Don't tread on me!'"

I told them of the new flag that our Congress had chosen, describing it in detail. They listened attentively, but made no comment.

It was on these expeditions that I learned something of these rough riflemen which I had not suspected--their passionate devotion to the forest. What the sea is to mariners, the endless, uncharted wilderness was to these forest runners; they loved and hated it, they suspected and trusted it. A forest voyage finished, they steered for the nearest port with all the eager impatience of sea-cloyed sailors. Yet, scarcely were they anchored in some frontier haven than they fell to dreaming of the wilderness, of the far silences in the trackless sea of trees, of the winds ruffling the forest's crests till ten thousand trees toss their leaves, silver side up, as white-caps flash, rolling in long patches on a heaving waste of waters.