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Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia, a novel by Mary Johnston |
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Chapter 20. Wherein The Peace Pipe Is Smoked |
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_ CHAPTER XX. WHEREIN THE PEACE PIPE IS SMOKED The sun had some time passed the meridian when the party saw through the widening glades of the forest the gleam of a great river, and upon its bank an Indian village of perhaps fifty wigwams, set in fields of maize and tobacco, groves of mulberries, and tangles of wild grape. The titanic laughter of Laramore and the drinking catch which Sir Charles trolled forth at the top of a high, sweet voice had announced their approach long before they pushed their horses into the open; and the population of the village was come forth to meet them with song and dance and in gala attire. The soft and musical voices of the young women raised a kind of recitative wherein was lauded to the skies the virtue, wisdom and power of the white father who had come from the banks of the Powhatan to those of the Pamunkey to visit his faithful Chickahominies, bringing (beyond doubt) justice in his hand. The deeper tones of the men chimed in, and the mob of naked children, bringing up the rear of the procession, added their shrill voices to the clamor, which, upon the booming in of a drum and the furious shaking of the conjurer's rattle, became deafening. The chant came to an end, but the orchestra persevered. Ten girls left the throng, formed themselves into line, and advancing one after the other with a slow and measured motion, laid at the feet of the Governor (who had dismounted) platters of parched maize, beans and chinquepins, with thin maize cakes. They were succeeded by two stalwart youths bearing, slung upon a pole between them, a large buck which they deposited upon the ground before the white men. There came a tremendous crash from the drum, and a discordant scream from a long pipe made of a reed. The crowd opened, and from out their midst stalked a venerable Indian. "My fathers are welcome," he said gravely. "Where is the half king?" demanded the Governor sharply. "I have no time for these fooleries. Make them stop that infernal racket, and lead us to your chiefs at once." The Indian frowned at this cavalier reception of the village civilities, but he waved his arm for the music to cease, and proceeded to conduct the visitors through a lane made by two rows of dusky bodies and staring faces, to a large wigwam in the centre of the village. Before this hut stood a mulberry tree of enormous size, and seated upon billets of wood in the shade of its spreading branches were the half king of the tribe and the principal men of the village. Their faces and the upper portions of their bodies were painted red--the color of peace. They wore mantles of otter skins, and from their ears depended strings of pearl and bits of copper. To the earring of the half king were attached two small, green snakes that twisted and writhed about his neck; his body had been oiled and then plastered with small feathers of a brilliant blue, and upon his head was fastened a stuffed hawk with extended wings. To one side of this group stood a band of Indians, two score or more in number, who differed in appearance and attire from the Chickahominies. The iron had entered the soul of the latter; they had the bearing of a subject race. Not so with the former. They were men of great size and strength, with keen, fierce faces; their clothing was of the scantiest possible description; ornaments they had, but of a peculiar kind--necklaces and armlets of human bones, belts in which long tufts of silk grass were interwoven with a more sinister fibre. They leaned on great bows, and each sternly motionless figure looked a bronze Murder. The chief of the Chickahominies raised his eyes from the ground as the Governor and his party entered the circle. "My white fathers are welcome," he said. "Let them be seated," and looked at the ground again. The "white fathers" took possession of half a dozen billets, and waited in silence the next move of the game. After a while, the half king lifted from the log beside him a pipe with a stem a yard long and a bowl in which an orange might have rested. An Indian, rising, went to where a fire burned beneath a tripod, and returning with a live coal between his fingers, calmly and leisurely lighted the pipe. The half king, still in dead silence, lifted it to his lips, smoked for five minutes, and handed it to the Indian, who bore it to the Governor. The Governor drew two or three tremendous whiffs and passed it on to Colonel Verney, who in his turn transferred it to the Surveyor-General. When the monster pipe had been smoked by each of the white men, it went the round of the savages. An Indian summer haze began to settle around the company. Through it the patient gazing throng on the outskirts of the circle became shadowy, impalpable; the face of the half king, now hidden in shifting smoke wreaths, now darkly visible, like that of an eastern idol before whom incense is burned. There was no sound save the wash of the waters below them, the sighing of the wind, the drone of the cicadas in the trees. The Indians sat like statues, but the white men were more restive. The elders managed to restrain their impatience, but Laramore began to whistle, and when checked by a look from the Governor, turned to Sir Charles with a comically disconsolate face and a shrug of the shoulders. Whereupon the latter drew from his pocket, dice and a handful of gold pieces. Laramore's face brightened, and the two, screened from observation by the Colonel's shoulders, which were of the broadest, fell to playing noiselessly, cursing beneath their breath. Mr. Peyton leaned his elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, and allowed the dreamy beauty of the afternoon to overflow a poetic soul. At length, and when the patience of the whites was well-nigh exhausted, the pipe came back to where the half king sat with lowered eyes and impassive face. He laid it down beside him and rose to his feet, gathering his mantle around him. "My white fathers are welcome," he said in a sonorous voice. "Very welcome to the Chickahominies is the face of the white father, who rules in the place of the great white father across the sea. Their corn feast is not yet, and yet my people rejoice. Our hearts were glad when my father sent word that he would this day visit his faithful Chickahominies. Our ears are open: let my father speak." "I thank Harquip and his people for their welcome," said the Governor coldly. "I have ever found them full of words. They profess loyalty to the great white father beyond the seas, but they forget his good laws and disobey his officers. I am weary of their words." "Tell me," said Harquip, with a sombre face, "are they good laws which drive us from our hunting grounds? Are they good laws which take from us our maize fields? Does the great white father love to hear our women cry for food? or is his heart Indian and longs for the sound of the war whoop?" "That is a threat," the Governor said sternly. The Indian waved his hands. "Have we not smoked the peace pipe?" he said coldly. "Humph!" said the Governor then, "I am not come to listen to idle complaints. Your grievances as to the land shall be laid before the next Assembly, and it will pass judgment upon them--justly and righteously, of course." "Ugh!" said the Indian. "I am here," continued the Governor, "to ask certain questions of the Chickahominies, and to lay certain commands upon them which they will do well to obey." "Let my father speak," said the Indian calmly. "Why did you shelter in your village the man with the red hair? Word was sent to all the tribes, to the Nansemonds, the Wyanokes, the Cheskiacks, the Paspaheghs, the Pamunkeys, the Chickahominies, that he should be delivered up if they found him among them. Why did the Chickahominies hide him?" "In the night time, the red fox came to the village of the Chickahominies and burrowed there. The eyes of my people were closed: they saw him not." "Humph! Why did you not carry your guns to the Court House when the tribes were ordered to do so, a fortnight ago, and leave them there, taking in exchange roanoke and fire-water?" "My fathers asked much," said the half king gloomily. "My young men love their sticks-that-speak. They love to see the deer go down before them like maize before the hail storm. My fathers asked much." "How many guns has your village?" "Five," was the prompt reply. "Humph! To-morrow you will deliver ten guns to the captain of the trainband at the court-house. When do these men," pointing to the stranger band, "return to their tribe?" "They are our friends. They wait to dance the corn dance with us. Then will they return to the Blue Mountains, and will tell the Ricahecrians of the great things they have seen, and of the wisdom and power of my white fathers." "When is your corn feast?" "Seven suns hence." "They must be gone to-morrow." The face of the half king darkened, and there was a slight, instantly repressed movement among the circle of braves. "My father asks very much," said the half king with emphasis. "Not more than I can, and will, enforce," said the Governor sternly, and getting to his feet as he spoke. "You, Harquip, shall be answerable to me and to the Council for these men's departure to-morrow. If by sunrise of the next morning their canoes are far up the river, headed for the Blue Mountains, if by the same hour the guns which you have retained in defiance of the express decree of the Assembly, be given up to those at the Court House, then will I overlook your hiding the man with the red hair, and the Assembly will listen to your complaints as to your hunting grounds. Disobey, and my warriors shall come, each with a stick-that-speaks in his hand. I have spoken," and the Governor beckoned to the servants who held the horses. The half king rose also. "My white father shall be obeyed," he said with gloomy dignity. "He is stronger than we. Otee has been angry with the red men for many years. He is gone over to the palefaces and helps their god against the red men. My young men shall take their guns back to the palefaces to-morrow, and shall bring back fire-water, and we will drink, and forget that the days of Powhatan are past and that Otee fights against us. Also when the Pamunkey is red with to-morrow's sunset, my brothers from the Blue Mountains shall turn their faces homewards. My father is content?" "I am content," said the Governor. "There is a thing which my brothers have to say to my white fathers," continued the half king. "Will they hear the great chief, Black Wolf?" The Governor pulled out a great watch, glanced at it, and sighed resignedly. "Gentlemen, have patience a moment longer. Harquip, I will listen to the Ricahecrian until the shadow of that tree reaches the fire. What says he?" The half king spoke to the strangers in their own tongue--their ranks broke, and an Indian stalked forward to the centre of the circle. His tall, powerful, nearly nude figure was thickly tatooed with representations of birds and beasts; he wore an armlet of a dull, yellow metal ("Gold! by the Eternal!" ejaculated the Governor to Colonel Verney); over his naked, deeply scarred breast hung three strings of hideous mementoes of torture stakes; the belt that held tomahawk and scalping knife was fringed with human hair; beside his streaming scalplock was stuck the dried hand of an enemy. The face beneath was cunning, relentless, formidable. He spoke in his own language, and the half king translated. "Black Wolf is a great chief. In his village in the Blue Mountains are fifty wigwams--the largest is his. There are a hundred braves--he leads the war parties. The Monacans run like deer, the hearts of the Tuscaroras become soft, they hide behind their squaws! Black Wolf is a great chief. Seven moons of cohonks have passed since the Ricahecrians sharpened their hatchets and came down from the mountains to where the waters of Powhatan fall over many rocks. There they met the palefaces. The One above all was angry with his Ricahecrians. They saw for the first time the guns of the palefaces. They thought they were gods who spat fire at them and slew them with thunder. Their hearts became soft, and they fled before the strange gods. Some the palefaces slew, and some they took prisoner. Black Wolf saw his brother, the great chief Grey Wolf, fall. The Ricahecrians went back to the Blue Mountains, and their women raised the death chant for those whom they left stretched out on the bank of the great river.... Seven times had the maize ripened, when Black Wolf led a war party against a tribe that dwelt on the banks of the Pamunkey where a fallen pine might span it. The waters ran red with blood. When there were no more Monacans to kill, when the fires had burnt low, Black Wolf looked down the waters of the Pamunkey. He had heard that it ran into a great water that was salt, whose further bank a man could not see. He had heard that the palefaces rode in canoes that had wings, great and white. He thought he would like to know if these things were true, or if they were but tales of the singing birds. To find out, Black Wolf and his young men dipped their oars into the water of the Pamunkey, and rowed towards the moonrise. In the morning they met twenty men of the Pamunkeys in three canoes. The Pamunkeys lie deep in the slime of the river; the eels eat them; their scalps shall hang before the wigwams of Black Wolf and his young men. In the afternoon, they drove their canoes into the reeds and went into the forest to find meat. Black Wolf's arrow brought down a buck and they feasted. Afterwards they caught a hunter who saw only the deer he was chasing. They tied him to a tree and made merry with him. When he was dead, they drew their boats from out the reeds, and rowed on down the broadening river. The next day, at the time of the full sun-power, they came to this village. Many years before the palefaces came, the Chickahominies were a great nation, reaching to the foot of the Blue Mountains, and then were they and the Ricahecrians friends and allies. When Black Wolf showed them the totem of his tribe upon his breast, they welcomed him and his young men. That was ten suns ago. Black Wolf and his young men have seen many things. When they go back to the Blue Mountains, the Ricahecrians will think they listen to singing birds. They will tell of the great salt water, of the boats with wings, of the palefaces, of their fields of maize and tobacco, of the black men who serve them, of their temples, werowances and women. They will tell of the great white father who rules, of his power, his wisdom, his open hand--" "I thought it would come at last," quoth the Governor. "What does he want, Harquip?" "The Ricahecrian starts for his wigwam in the Blue Mountains to-morrow as my father commands. He says: 'Shall I not return to my people with a gift from the great white father in my hand?'" The Governor laughed. "Let one of your young men go to the court-house. I will give him an order for beads, for a piece of red cloth, and yes, rat me! he shall have a mirror! I hope he is satisfied!" The half king's eyes gleamed covetously. "My father gives large gifts. He has indeed an open hand. But the Ricahecrian desires another thing. He says: 'Seven years ago, at the falls of the Powhatan, Black Wolf saw his brother fall before the stick-that-speaks of the palefaces. Grey Wolf was a great chief. The village in the Blue Mountains mourned very much. Nicotee, his squaw, went wailing into the land of shadows. His son hath seen but seven moons of corn, but he dreams of the day when he shall sharpen the hatchet against the slayers of his father.... The Chickahominies have told Black Wolf that his brother was wounded and not slain by the palefaces. They brought him captive to their great board wigwams. There they tied him not to the torture stake; they knew that a Ricahecrian laughs at the pine splinters. They tortured his spirit. They made him a woman. The great chief of the Ricahecrians no longer throws the tomahawk--the guns of the palefaces are about him. He dances the corn dance no more--his back is bowed with burdens. His arrow brings not down the fleeing deer, he tracks not the bear to his den--he toils like a squaw in the fields of the palefaces. Black Wolf says to the white father: "Give back the Sagamore to the Ricahecrians, to his son, to the village by the falling stream in the Blue Mountains. Then will the Ricahecrians be friends with the palefaces forever." To-morrow Black Wolf and his young men row towards the sunset; let the captive chief be in their midst. This is the gift which Black Wolf asks of his white fathers. He has spoken.'" In the midst of a dead silence the half king took his seat and studied the ground. The Chickahominies, squatted round the circle, stirred not a finger, and the outer row of spectators, motionless against a background of interlacing branches patched with vivid blue, seemed a procession in tapestry. The Ricahecrians and their formidable chief maintained a stony gloom. Whatever interest they felt in the fate of their captive chief was carefully concealed. The sun, now hanging, broad and red, low in the heavens might have been the Gorgon's head and the whole village staring at it. The Governor began to laugh. Sir Charles chimed in musically and Laramore followed suit. The Surveyor-General frowned, but the Colonel, after one or two attempts at sobriety of demeanor, succumbed, and the trio became a quartette. The glades of the forest rang to the jovial sound--it was as though there were enchantment in the golden afternoon, or in the ring of dark and frowning countenances before them, for they laughed as though they would never stop. Even the servants at the horses' heads were infected, and laughed at they knew not what. The Surveyor-General lost patience. "I think the Jamestown weed groweth in these woods," he said dryly. The Governor pulled himself together. "Faith! I believe you are right!" he said airily. "But rat me! if the impudence of the varlets be not the most amusing thing since the Quaker's plea for toleration!" "The amusement seems to be on our side," said the Surveyor-General. The Governor cast a careless glance in the direction indicated by the other. "Pshaw! a fit of the sulks! They will get over it. Is this precious captive the giant whom I have seen at Rosemead, Major Carrington?" "Not so, your Excellency. My man is a Susquehannock." "I believe I may lay claim to the fellow, Sir William," said the Colonel, wiping his eyes. "Is he the Indian who was whipt the other day?" asked Sir Charles, taking snuff. "For stealing fire-water--yes." The Governor began to laugh again. "Of course you will release the rascal, Colonel? The Blue Mountains threaten war if you do not. Fling yourself into the breach, and so prevent a 'scandal to the community and a menace to the State,' to quote your words of this morning. Consistency is a jewel, Dick the Peacemaker. Wherefore let the savage go." "I'll be d--d if I do!" cried the Colonel. The Governor, shaking with laughter, got to his feet. At a signal his groom brought up his horse and held the stirrup for him to mount. His Excellency swung himself into the saddle and gathered the reins into his gauntleted hands; the remainder of the company, too, got to horse. The Governor's steed, a fiery, coal black Arabian, danced with impatience. "Selim scents a fray!" cried his Excellency. "Come on, gentlemen! 'T will be sunset before we reach that sweet piece of earth behind Verney's orchard." The half king rose from his seat, took three measured strides, and stood side by side with the Ricahecrian chief. "My white father will give to the Ricahecrian the gift he asks?" A gust of passion took the Governor. "No!" he thundered, turning in his saddle. "The Ricahecrian may go to the devil and the Blue Mountains alone!" He struck spurs into his horse's sides. "Gentlemen, we waste time!" The Arabian dashed down one of the winding glades of the forest; the remainder of the party spurred their horses into the mad gallop known as the "planter's pace," and in an instant the whole cavalcade had whirled out of sight. A burst of laughter, made elfin by distance, came back to the village on the banks of the Pamunkey, then all was quiet again. The gold-laced, audacious company had vanished like a troop of powerful enchanters, leaving behind them a sullen throng of native genii, kept down by a Solomon's Seal which is not always unbreakable. Something stirred in the midst of the great mulberry tree, a tree so vast and leafy that it might have hidden many things. A man swung himself down with a lithe grace from limb to limb, and finally dropped into the circle of Indians who stood or sat in a sombre stillness which might mean much or little. Only on the outskirts the crowd of women, children and youths, had commenced a low, monotonous, undefined noise which had in it something sinister, ominous. It was like the sound, dull and heavy, of the ground swell that precedes the storm. The man who dropped from the tree was Luiz Sebastian, and his appearance seemed in no degree to surprise the Indians. There followed a short and sententious conversation between the mulatto, the half king and the Ricahecrian chief. Beside the half king lay the still smoking peace pipe. When the colloquy was ended, he raised it. At a signal an Indian brought water in a gourd, and into it the half king plunged the glowing bowl. The fire went out in a cloud of hissing steam. The sound of the ground swell became louder and more threatening. _ |
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