Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

"How long it lay concealed, and in whose care, how can I know? But it is certain that Amochol learned that it had been hidden, and sent his Cat–People out to prowl and watch. Then, doubtless did the mother send it from her by the faithful one whose bark letter was found by the new foster–parents when they found the little Lois.

"And this is how it has happened, brother. And that the Cat–People now know she is alive, and who she is, does not amaze me. For they are sorcerers, and if one of them did not steal after the messenger when he left Yndaia with the poor mother's yearly gift of moccasins, then it was discovered by witchcraft."

"For Amochol never forgets. And whom the Red Priest chooses for his altar sooner or later will surely die there, unless the Sorcerer dies first and his Cat–People are slain and skinned, and the vile altar is destroyed among the ashes of its accursed fire!"

"Then, with the help of an outraged God, these righteous things shall come to pass!" I said between clenched teeth.

The Sagamore sat with his crested head bowed. And if he were in ghostly communication with the Mighty Dead I do not know, for I heard him breathe the name of Tamanund, and then remain silent as though listening for an answer.

I had been asleep but a few moments, it seemed to me, when the Grey–Feather awoke me for my turn at guard duty; and the Mohican and I rose from our blankets, reprimed our rifles, crept out from under the laurel and across the shadowy rock–strewn knoll to our posts.

The rocky slope below us was almost clear to the river, save for a bush or two.

Nothing stirred, no animals, not a leaf. And after a while the profound stillness began to affect me, partly because the day had been one to try my nerves, partly because the silence was uncanny, even to me. And I knew how dread of the supernatural had already tampered with the steadiness of my red comrades—men who were otherwise utterly fearless; and I dreaded the effect on the Mohican, whose mind now was surcharged with hideous and goblin superstitions.

In the night silence of a forest, always there are faint sounds to be heard which, if emphasizing the stillness, somehow soften it too. Leaves fall, unseen, whispering downward from high trees, and settling among their dead fellows with a faintly comfortable rustle. Small animals move in the dark, passing and repassing warily; one hears the high feathered ruffling and the plaint of sleepy birds; breezes play with the young leaves; water murmurs.

But here there was no single sound to mitigate the stillness; and, had I dared in my mossy nest behind the rocks, I would have contrived same slight stirring sound, merely to make the silence more endurable.

I could see the river, but could not hear it. From where I lay, close to the ground, the trees stood out in shadowy clusters against the vague and hazy mist that spread low over the water.

And, as I lay watching it, without the slightest warning, a head was lifted from behind a bush. It was the head of a wolf in silhouette against the water.

Curiously I watched it; and as I looked, from another bush another head was lifted—the round, flattened head and tasselled ears of the great grey lynx. And before I could realize the strangeness of their proximity to each other, these two heads were joined by a third—the snarling features of a wolverine.

Then a startling and incredible thing happened; the head of the big timber–wolf rose still higher, little by little, slowly, stealthily, above the bush. And I saw to my horror that it had the body of a man. And, already overstrained as I was, it was a mercy that I did not faint where I lay behind my rock, so ghastly did this monstrous vision seem to me.

How my proper senses resisted the swoon that threatened them I do not know; but when the lynx, too, lifted a menacing and flattened head on human shoulders; and when the wolverine also stood out in human–like shadow against the foggy water, I knew that these ghostly things that stirred my hair were no hobgoblins at all, but living men. And the clogged current of my blood flowed free again, and the sweat on my skin cooled.

The furry ears of the wolf–man, pricked up against the vaguely lustrous background of the river, fascinated me. For all the world those pointed ears seemed to be listening. But I knew they were dead and dried; that a man's eyes were gazing through the sightless sockets of the beast.

From somewhere in the darkness the Mohican came gliding on his belly over the velvet carpet of the moss.

"Andastes," he whispered scornfully; "they wear the heads of the beasts whose courage they lack. Fling a stone among them and they will scatter."

As I felt around me in the darkness for a fragment of loose rock, the Mohican arrested my arm.

"Wait, Loskiel. The Andastes hang on the heels of fiercer prowlers, smelling about dead bones like foxes after a battle. Real men can not be far away."

We lay watching the strange and grotesque creatures in the starlight; and truly they seemed to smell their way as beasts smell; and they were as light–footed and as noiseless, slinking from bush to bush, lurking motionless in shadows, nosing, listening, prowling on velvet pads to the very edges of our rock escarpment.

"They have the noses of wild things," whispered the Mohican uneasily. "Somewhere they have found something that belongs to one of us, and, having once smelled it, have followed."

I thought for a moment.

"Do you believe they found the charred fragments of my pouch–flap? Could they scent my scorched thrums from where I now lie? Only a hound could do that! It is not given to men to scent a trail as beasts scent it running perdu."

The Mohican said softly:

"Men of the settlement detect no odour where those of the open perceive a multitude of pungent smells."

"That is true," I said.

"It is true, Loskiel. As a dog scents water in a wilderness and comes to it from afar, so can I also. Like a dog, too, can I wind the hidden partridge brood—though never the nesting hen—nor can a mink do that much either. But keen as the perfume of a bee–tree, and certain as the rank smell of a dog–fox in March—which even a white man can detect—are the odours of the wilderness to him whose only home it is. And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone the great night–butterfly, marked brown and crimson, and larger than a little bat, whose head bears tiny ferns, and whose wings are painted with the four quarters of the moon. Like crushed sumac is the odour of it, and in winter it hides in a bag of silk."

I nodded, my eyes following the cautious movements of the Andastes below; and again and again I saw their heads thrown buck, noses to the stars, as though sniffing and endeavouring to wind us. And to me it was horrid and unhuman.

For an hour they were around the river edge and the foot of the hillock, trotting silently and uneasily hither and thither, always seemingly at fault. Then, apparently made bold by finding no trace of what they hunted, they ranged this way and that at a sort of gallop, and we could even hear their fierce and whining speech as they huddled a moment to take counsel.

Suddenly their movements ceased, and I clutched the Mohican's arm, as a swift file of shadows passed in silhouette along the river's brink, one after another moving west—fifteen ghostly figures dimly seem but unmistakable.

"Senecas," breathed the Mohican.

The war party defiled at a trot, disappearing against the fringing gloom. And after them loped the Andastes pack, scurrying, hurrying, running into thickets and out again, but ever hastening along the flanks of their silent and murderous masters, who seemed to notice them not at all.