The Hidden Children

So we went back together across the river, the young Oneida and I; and we hid the Mole deep in the bed of a rotting log, and laid his Testament on his breast over the painted cross, and his weapons beside him. Then, working cautiously, we rolled back the log, replaced the dead leaves, brushed up the deep green pile of the moss, and smoothed all as craftily us we might, so that no Seneca prowling might suspect that a grave was here, and disinter the dead to take his scalp.

Over the blood-wet leaves where he had fallen, we made a fire of dry twigs, letting it burn enough to deceive. Then we covered it as hunters cover their ashes; the Oneida took the Erie's hatchet; and we hastened back to the others.

They were still lying exactly where we left them. Neither the Erie nor they had stirred or spoken. And, as I settled down in my ambush beside the Mohican, I asked him again whether there was any possible way to provoke the Erie so that he might stir and expose some portion of his limbs or body.

The Night-Hawk, who carried strapped to his back the quiver of an Oneida adolescent containing a boy's short bow and a dozen game arrows, consulted with the Grey-Feather in a low voice.

Presently he wriggled off to where some sun-dried birch-bark fluttered in the river breeze, returned with it, shredded it with care, strung his bow, tipped an arrow with the bark, and held it out to me.

I struck flint to steel, lighted my tinder, and set the shred of bark afire.

Then the Night-Hawk knelt, bent his bow, and the blazing arrow soared whistling with flame, and fell behind the rock on the shelf.

Arrow after arrow followed, whizzing upward and dropping accurately; but the wet mosses of the cliff extinguished the flashes.

As the last arrow fell, flared a moment, then merely smoked, an insulting laugh came from aloft, and my Indians uttered fierce exclamations and cuddled their rifle-stocks close to their cheeks, fairly trembling for a shot.

"Dogs of Oneidas!" called the Erie. "Go howl for your dead pig of a Stockbridge slave."

"The Mole wears his scalp with Tharon!" retorted the Grey-Feather, choking with fury. "But Tahoontowhee's hatchet is still sticking in the Senecas' heads!"

"For which the Night-Hawk shall burn at the Seneca stake, sobbing his death-song!" shouted the Erie, so fiercely that for a moment we lay silent, hoping that by some ungovernable movement he might expose himself.

"Taunt him!" I whispered; and the Mohican said with a derisive laugh:

"Four scalp-tufts from the mangy Cats of Amochol trim my hatchet-sheath. When the young men ask me what this sparse and sickly fur may be, I shall strip it off and cast it at their feet, saying it is but Erie filth to spit upon."

"Liar of a conquered nation!" roared the Erie, "for every priest of Amochol who fell by Otsego under your cowardly butcher's knife, a Siwanois Sagamore shall burn three days, and yet live to die the fourth! The day that August dies, so shall the Sagamore die at the Festival of Dreams in Catharines-town!"

"I shall remember," said I in a low voice to the Sagamore, "that the Onon-hou-aroria is to be celebrated in Catharines-town on the last day of August."

He nodded, then:

"A Mohican Sagamore insults a dirty priest of Amochol! I do you honour by offering you battle, with knife, with hatchet, with rifle, with naked hands! Choose, spawn of Atensi—still-born kitten of Iuskeha, choose! Not one soul except myself will raise hand against you. By Tharon, I swear it! Choose! And the victor passes freely and whither he wills!"

The Erie mocked him from his high perch:

"Squirrels talk! Long since has your Tharon been hurled headlong into Biskoonah by Atensi and her flaming grandson!"

At this awful blasphemy, the Mohican fairly blanched so that under his paint his skin grew ashy for a moment.

The Grey-Feather shouted:

"Lying and degraded priest! Mowawak Cannibal of a Sinako Cat! It is Atensi herself who burns with Iuskeha in Biskoonah; and the sacrilegious fires lick your altars!"

The Erie laughed horribly:

"Where is your fool of a stripling called Loskiel? Is he there with you? Or did my hatchet fetch him such a clip that he died of fright and a bullet in his belly?"

"He is unharmed," replied the Mohican, tauntingly. "A squaw shoots better than a Cat!"

"A lie! I saw my rifle blow a hole in his body!"

"Hatchet and rifle failed. The Ensign, Loskiel, laughed, asking what forest-flies were buzzing at his ear. Loskiel spits on Cats, and brushes their flying hatchets from his ears as others brush mosquitos!"

"Let him speak, then, to prove it!" shouted the Erie, incredulously.

But I remained silent.

Then the Erie's ferocious laugh rang out from the cliff.

"Now, you Mohican slave and you Oneida dogs, you shall know the power of Amochol. For what was done to Loskiel and to the Praying Mole, will be done to you all on the last day of this month, when the Dream Feast is held at Catharines-town! You shall die. And others shall die—not as you, but on the red altar of the Great Sachem Amochol! Strangled, disemboweled, sacrificed to clothe Atensi!"

The Grey-Feather, unable any longer to retain his self-control, was getting to his feet, staring wildly up at the cliff; but the Mohican drew him back into his form and held him there with powerful grip.

"Listen," he hissed, "to what this warlock blabbs."

The Erie laughed, evidently awaiting a retort. None came, and he laughed again triumphantly.

"Amochol's arm is long, O you Oneida dogs who howl outside the Long House gates! Amochol's eyes are like the white-crested eagle's eyes, seeing everything, and his ears are like the red buck's ears, so that nothing stirs unheard by him.

"Phantoms arise and walk at night; Amochol sees. Under earth and water, demons are breathing; Amochol hears. Then we Eries listen, too, and make the altar fires burn hotter. For the ghosts of the night and the demons that stir must be fed."

He waited again, doubtless expecting some exclamation of protest against his monstrous profession. After a moment he went on:

"Spectres and demons must be fed—but not on the foul flesh of dogs like you! We cut your throats to feed the Flying Heads."

He paused; and as no reply was forthcoming, the sorcerer laughed scornfully.

"Your blood becomes water! You cringe at the power of Amochol. But the red altar is not for you. Listen, dogs! Had I not found it necessary to slay your stripling, Loskiel, he had been burned and strangled an that altar!… And there is another at Otsego who shall die strangled on the altar of Amochol—the maiden called Lois! Long have we followed her. Long is the arm of the Red Priest—when his White Sorceress dreams for him!

"And now you know, you Mohican mongrel, why Amochol was at Otsego. His arm reaches even into the barracks of Clinton! Because to Atensi the sacrifice of these two would be grateful—the maiden Lois and your Loskiel. Only the pure and guarded pleasure her. And these two are Hidden Children. One has died. The other shall not escape us. She shall die strangled by Amochol upon his own altar!"

I sat up, sick with horror and surprise, and stared at the Mohican for an explanation. He and the Oneidas were now looking at me very gravely and in silence. And after a moment my head dropped.

I knew well enough what the brutal Erie meant by "Hidden Children." But that I was one I never dreamed, nor had it occurred to me that Lois was one, in spite of her strange history. For among the Iroquois and their adopted captives there are both girls and boys who are spoken of as "Hidden Persons" or "Hidden Children." They are called Ta-neh-u-weh-too, which means, "hidden in the husks," like ears of corn.

And the reason is this: a mother, for one cause or another, or perhaps for none at all, decides to make of her unborn baby a Hidden Child. And so, when born, the child is instantly given to distant foster-parents, and by them hidden; and remains so concealed until adolescence. And, being considered from birth pure and unpolluted, a girl and a boy thus hidden are expected to marry, return to their people when informed by their foster-parents of the truth, and bring a fresh, innocent, and uncontaminated strain into their clan and tribe.

What the Erie said seemed to stun me. What did this foul creature know of me? What knowledge had this murdering beast of Lois? And Amochol—what in God's name did the Red Sorcerer know of us, or of our history?

Even the horrid threat against Lois seemed so fantastic, so unreal, so meaningless, that at the moment, it did not impress me even with its unspeakable wickedness.

The Sagamore touched my arm as though with awe and pity, and I lifted my head.

"Is this true, brother?" he asked gently.

"I do not know if it is," I said, dazed.