"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 superst.i.tion, 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 G.o.d!" 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!"
"Kill that executioner!" panted Lois, struggling in my arms. "In G.o.d"s name, slay him where he stands!"
"It means our death," said the Sagamore.
The Night Hawk came crouching close to my shoulder. He had unslung and strung his little painted bow of an adolescent, and was fitting the nock of a slim arrow to the string.
He looked up at me; I nodded; and as the executioner clapped his heels together, straightened himself, and drew the arrow to his ear, we heard a low tw.a.n.g! And saw the black hand of the Seneca pinned to his own bow by the Night Hawk"s shaft.
So noiselessly was it done that the fascinated throng could not at first understand what had happened to the executioner, who sprang into the air, screamed, and stood clawing and plucking at the arrow while his bow hung dripping with blood, yet nailed to his shrinking palm.
Amochol, frozen to a scarlet statue, stared at the contortions of the executioner for a moment, then, livid, wheeled on the Prophetess, shaking from head to foot.
"Is this your accursed magic?" he shouted. "Is this your witchcraft, Sorceress of Biskoonah? Is it thus you strike when threatened? Then you shall burn! Take her, Andastes!"
But the Andastes, astounded and terrified, only cowered together in a swaying pack.
Restraining Lois with all my strength, I said to the Mohican:
"If Boyd comes not before they take her, concentrate your fire on Amochol, for we can not hope to make him prisoner----"
"Hark!" motioned the Sagamore, grasping my arm. I heard also, and so did the others. The woods on our left were full of noises, the trample of people running, the noise of crackling underbrush.
We all thought the same thing, and stood waiting to see Boyd"s onset break from the forest. The Red Priest also heard it, for he had turned where he stood, his rigid arm still menacing the White Sorceress.
Suddenly, into the firelit circle staggered a British soldier, hatless, dishevelled, his scarlet uniform in rags.
For a moment he stood staring about him, swaying where he stood, then with a hopeless gesture he flung his musket from him and pa.s.sed a shaking hand across his eyes.