Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

"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.

Then the Prophetess turned and stood looking out over the throng through the thick, aromatic smoke from the birch–fire, and presently her clear voice rang through the deathly silence:

"O People of the Evening Sky! Far on the Chemung lie many dead men. I see them lying there in green coats and in red, in feathers and in paint! Through forests, through mountains, through darkness, have my eyes beheld this thing. There is a new thunder in the hills, and red fire flowers high in the pines, and a hail falls, driving earthward in iron drops that slay all living things.

"New clouds hang low along the river; and they are not of the water mist that comes at twilight and ascends with the sun. Nor is this new thunder in the hills the voice of the Eight White Plumed Ones; nor is the boiling of the waters the stirring of the Serpent Bride.

"Red run the riffles, yet the sun is high; and those who would cross at the ford have laid them down to dam the waters with their bodies.

"And I see fires along the flats; I see flames everywhere, towns on fire, corn burning, hay kindling to ashes under a white ocean of smoke—the Three Sisters scorched, trampled, and defiled!" She lifted one arm; her spellbound audience never stirred.

"Listen!" she cried, "I hear the crashing of many feet in northward flight! I hear horses galloping, and the rattle of swords. Many who run are stumbling, falling, lying still and crushed and wet with blood. I, Sorceress of the Senecas, see and hear these things; and as I see and hear, so must I speak my warning to you all!"

She whirled on Amochol, flinging back her hair. Her skin was as white us my own!

With a stifled cry Lois sprang to her feet; but I caught her and held her fast.

"Good God!" I whispered to the Sagamore. "Where is Boyd?"

The executioner had risen, and was bending his bow; the Sorceress turned deathly pale but her blue eyes flashed, never swerving from the cruel stare of Amochol.

"Where is Boyd?" I whispered helplessly. "They mean to murder her!"