The Hidden Children

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."