Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

Behind her trotted in order the Yellow Moth, Tohoontowhee, and lastly the Grey–Feather—"Like Father Death herding us all to destruction," whispered Lois in my ear, as I halted while the Sagamore surveyed the trail ahead with cautious eyes.

As we moved forward once more, I glanced around at Lois and thought I never had seen such fresh and splendid vigor in any woman. Nor had I ever seen her in such a bright and happy spirit, as though the nearness to the long sought goal was changing her every moment, under my very eyes, into a lovelier and more radiant being than ever had trod this war–scarred world.

While we had eaten our hasty morning meal, I had told her what I had learned of the Vale Yndaia; and this had excited her more than anything I ever saw to happen to her, so that her grey eyes sparkled with brilliant azure lights, and the soft colour flew from throat to brow, waxing and waning with every quick–drawn breath.

She wore also, and for the first time, the "moccasins for flying feet"—and ere she put them on she showed them to me with eager and tender pride, kissing each soft and beaded shoe before she drew it over her slender foot. Around her throat, lying against her heart, nestled her father's faded picture. And as we sped I could hear her murmuring to herself:

"Jean Coeur! Jean Coeur! Enfin! Me voici en chemin!"

North, always north we journeyed, moving swiftly on a level runway, or, at fault, checked until the Sagamore found the path, sometimes picking our dangerous ways over the glistening bog, from swale to log, now leaping for some solid root or bunch of weed, now swinging across quicksands, hanging to tested branches by our hands.

Duller grew the light as the foliage overhead became denser, until we could scarce see the warning glimmer of the bog. Closer, taller, more unkempt grew the hemlocks on every hand. In the ghostly twilight we could not distinguish their separate spectral trunks, so close they grew together. And it seemed like two solid walls through which wound a dusky corridor of mud and bitter tasting water.

Then, far ahead a level gleam caught my eye. Nearer it grew and brighter; and presently out of the grewsome darkness of the swamp we stepped into a lovely oval intervale of green ferns and grasses, set with oak trees, and a clear, sweet thread of water dashing through it, and spraying the tall ferns along its banks so that they quivered and glistened with the sparkling drops. And here we saw a little bird flitting—the first we had seen that day.

At the western end of the oval glade a path ran straight away as far as we could see, seeming to pierce the western wall of the hills. The little brook followed at.

As Lois knelt to drink, the Sagamore whispered to me:

"This is the pass to the Vale Yndaia! You shall not tell her yet—not till we have dealt with Amochol."

"Not till we have dealt with Amochol," I repeated, staring at the narrow opening which crossed this black and desolate region like a streak of sunshine across burnt land.

Tahoontowhee examined the trail; nothing had passed since the last rain, save deer and fox.

So I went over to where Lois was bathing her flushed face in the tiny stream, and lay down to drink beside her.

"The water is cold and sweet," she said, "not like that bitter water in the swamp." She held her cupped hands for me to drink from. And I kissed the fragrant cup.

As we rose and I shouldered my rifle, the Grey–Feather began to sing in a low, musical, chanting voice; and all the Indians turned merry faces toward Lois and me as they nodded time to the refrain:

"Continue to listen and hear the truth,

Maiden Hidden and Hidden Youth.

The song of those who are 'more than men'!

*Thi–ya–en–sa–y–e–ken!" [19] "They will (live to) see it again!"

"It is the chant of the Stone Throwers—the Little People!" said Mayaro, laughing. "Ye two are fit to hear it."

"They are singing the Song of the Hidden Children," I whispered to Lois. "Is it not strangely pretty?"

"It is wild music, but sweet," she murmured, "—the music of the Little People—che–kah–a–hen–wah."

"Can you catch the words?"

"Aye, but do not understand them every one."

"Some day I will make them into an English song for you. Listen! 'The Voices' are beginning! Listen attentively to the Chant of Ta–neh–u–weh–too!" [20] "Hidden in the Husks."

The Night Hawk was singing now, as he walked through the sunlit glade, hip–deep in scented ferns and jewel–weed. Two brilliant humming–birds whirled around him as he strode.

A VOICE

ANOTHER VOICE

The pretty song of the Hidden Children softened to a murmur and died out as our trail entered the swamp once more, north of the oval glade. And into its sombre twilight we passed out of the brief gleam of sunshine. Once more the dark and bitter water coiled its tortuous channel through the slime; huge, gray evergreens, shaggy and forbidding, towered above, closing in closer and closer on every side, crowding us into an ever–narrowing trail.

But this trail, since we had left the sunny glade, had become harder under foot, and far more easy to travel; and we made fast time along it, so that early in the afternoon we suddenly came out into that vast belt of firm ground and rocky, set with tremendous oaks and pines and hemlocks, on the northern edge of which lies Catharines–town, on both banks of the stream.

And here the stream rushed out through this country as though frightened, running with a mournful sound into the northern forest; and the pines were never still, sighing and moaning high above us, so that the never ceasing plaint of wind and water filled the place.