He nodded, then:
"A Mohican Sagamore insults a dirty priest of Amochol! I do you honour by offering you battle, with knife, with hatchet, with rifle, with naked hands! Choose, sp.a.w.n of Atensi--still-born kitten of Iuskeha, choose! Not one soul except myself will raise hand against you. By Tharon, I swear it! Choose! And the victor pa.s.ses freely and whither he wills!"
The Erie mocked him from his high perch:
"Squirrels talk! Long since has your Tharon been hurled headlong into Biskoonah by Atensi and her flaming grandson!"
At this awful blasphemy, the Mohican fairly blanched so that under his paint his skin grew ashy for a moment.
The Grey-Feather shouted:
"Lying and degraded priest! Mowawak Cannibal of a Sinako Cat! It is Atensi herself who burns with Iuskeha in Biskoonah; and the sacrilegious fires lick your altars!"
The Erie laughed horribly:
"Where is your fool of a stripling called Loskiel? Is he there with you? Or did my hatchet fetch him such a clip that he died of fright and a bullet in his belly?"
"He is unharmed," replied the Mohican, tauntingly. "A squaw shoots better than a Cat!"
"A lie! I saw my rifle blow a hole in his body!"
"Hatchet and rifle failed. The Ensign, Loskiel, laughed, asking what forest-flies were buzzing at his ear. Loskiel spits on Cats, and brushes their flying hatchets from his ears as others brush mosquitos!"
"Let him speak, then, to prove it!" shouted the Erie, incredulously.
But I remained silent.
Then the Erie"s ferocious laugh rang out from the cliff.
"Now, you Mohican slave and you Oneida dogs, you shall know the power of Amochol. For what was done to Loskiel and to the Praying Mole, will be done to you all on the last day of this month, when the Dream Feast is held at Catharines-town! You shall die. And others shall die--not as you, but on the red altar of the Great Sachem Amochol! Strangled, disemboweled, sacrificed to clothe Atensi!"
The Grey-Feather, unable any longer to retain his self-control, was getting to his feet, staring wildly up at the cliff; but the Mohican drew him back into his form and held him there with powerful grip.
"Listen," he hissed, "to what this warlock blabbs."
The Erie laughed, evidently awaiting a retort. None came, and he laughed again triumphantly.
"Amochol"s arm is long, O you Oneida dogs who howl outside the Long House gates! Amochol"s eyes are like the white-crested eagle"s eyes, seeing everything, and his ears are like the red buck"s ears, so that nothing stirs unheard by him.
"Phantoms arise and walk at night; Amochol sees. Under earth and water, demons are breathing; Amochol hears. Then we Eries listen, too, and make the altar fires burn hotter. For the ghosts of the night and the demons that stir must be fed."
He waited again, doubtless expecting some exclamation of protest against his monstrous profession. After a moment he went on:
"Spectres and demons must be fed--but not on the foul flesh of dogs like you! We cut your throats to feed the Flying Heads."
He paused; and as no reply was forthcoming, the sorcerer laughed scornfully.
"Your blood becomes water! You cringe at the power of Amochol. But the red altar is not for you. Listen, dogs! Had I not found it necessary to slay your stripling, Loskiel, he had been burned and strangled an that altar!... And there is another at Otsego who shall die strangled on the altar of Amochol--the maiden called Lois! Long have we followed her.
Long is the arm of the Red Priest--when his White Sorceress dreams for him!
"And now you know, you Mohican mongrel, why Amochol was at Otsego. His arm reaches even into the barracks of Clinton! Because to Atensi the sacrifice of these two would be grateful--the maiden Lois and your Loskiel. Only the pure and guarded pleasure her. And these two are Hidden Children. One has died. The other shall not escape us. She shall die strangled by Amochol upon his own altar!"
I sat up, sick with horror and surprise, and stared at the Mohican for an explanation. He and the Oneidas were now looking at me very gravely and in silence. And after a moment my head dropped.
I knew well enough what the brutal Erie meant by "Hidden Children." But that I was one I never dreamed, nor had it occurred to me that Lois was one, in spite of her strange history. For among the Iroquois and their adopted captives there are both girls and boys who are spoken of as "Hidden Persons" or "Hidden Children." They are called Ta-neh-u-weh-too, which means, "hidden in the husks," like ears of corn.
And the reason is this: a mother, for one cause or another, or perhaps for none at all, decides to make of her unborn baby a Hidden Child. And so, when born, the child is instantly given to distant foster-parents, and by them hidden; and remains so concealed until adolescence. And, being considered from birth pure and unpolluted, a girl and a boy thus hidden are expected to marry, return to their people when informed by their foster-parents of the truth, and bring a fresh, innocent, and uncontaminated strain into their clan and tribe.
What the Erie said seemed to stun me. What did this foul creature know of me? What knowledge had this murdering beast of Lois? And Amochol--what in G.o.d"s name did the Red Sorcerer know of us, or of our history?
Even the horrid threat against Lois seemed so fantastic, so unreal, so meaningless, that at the moment, it did not impress me even with its unspeakable wickedness.
The Sagamore touched my arm as though with awe and pity, and I lifted my head.
"Is this true, brother?" he asked gently.
"I do not know if it is," I said, dazed.
"Then--it is the truth."
"Why do you say that, Mayaro?"
"I know it, now. I suspected it when your eyes first fell on the Ghost-bear rearing on my breast. I thought I knew you, there at Major Lockwood"s house in Poundridge. It was your name, Loskiel, and your knowledge of your red brothers, that stirred my suspicions. And when I learned that Guy Johnson had sheltered you, then I was surer still."
"Who, then, am I?" I asked, bewildered.
The three Indians were staring at me as though that murderer aloft on his eyrie did not exist. I, too, had forgotten him for the moment; and it was only the loud explosion of his smooth-bore that shocked us to the instant necessity of the situation.
The bullet screamed through the leaves above us; we clapped our rifles to our cheeks, striving to glimpse him. Nothing moved on the rocky shelf.
"He fired to signal his friends," whispered the Mohican. "He must believe them to be within hearing distance."
I set my teeth and stared savagely at the cliff.
"If that is so," said I, "we must leave him here and pull foot."
There was a tense silence, then, as we rose, an infuriated yell burst from the Oneidas, and in their impotence they fired blindly at the cliff, awaking a very h.e.l.l of echo.
Through the clattering confusion of the double discharge, the demoniac laughter of the Erie rang, and my Oneidas, retreating, hurled back insult and anathema, promising to return and annihilate every living sorcerer in the Dark Empire, including Amochol himself.
"Ha-e!" he shouted after us, giving the evil spirits" cry. "Ha-e!
Ha-ee!" From his shelf he cast a painted stick after us, which came hurtling down and landed in the water. And he screamed as he heard us threshing over the shallows: "Koue! Askennon eskatoniot!"
The thing he had cast after us was floating, slowly turning round and round in the water; and it seemed to be a stick something thicker than an arrow and as long, and painted in concentric rings of black, vermillion, and yellow.
Then, as we gave it wide berth, to our astonishment it suddenly crinkled up and was alive, and lifted a tiny, evil head from the water, running out at us a snake"s tongue that flickered.
That this was magic my Indians never doubted. They gave the thing one horrified glance, turned, and fairly leaped through the water till the shallow flood roared as though a herd of deer were pa.s.sing over.