The Hidden Children, Robert W. Chambers [e book reader free .txt] 📗

that I was going back to—to join you. Are you displeased?"

Her trembling hands clasped my shoulders tighter, and her face drew closer, so that her sweet, excited breath fell on my cheek.

"Listen!" she stammered. "I desire to tell you everything! I will tell you all, Euan! I ran back along the trail, meeting the boat-guard, batt-men, and the sick horses all along the way to Tioga, where they took me over on a raft of logs.... I paid them three hard shillings. Then Colonel Shreve heard of what I had been about, and sent a soldier after me, but I avoided the fort, Euan, and went boldly up through the deserted camps until I came to where the army had crossed. Some teamsters mending transport wagons gave me bread and meat enough to fill my pouch; and one of them, a kindly giant, took me over the Chemung dry shod, I clinging to his broad back like a very cat—and all o' them a-laughing fit to burst!... Are you displeased, dear lad?... Then, just at night, I came up with the rear-guard, where they were searching for strayed cattle; and I stowed myself away in a broken-down wagon, full of powder—quietly, like a mouse, no one dreaming that I was not the slender youth I looked. So none molested me where I lay amid the powder casks and sacking."

She smiled wistfully, and stood caressing my arms with her eager little hands, as though to calm the wrath to come.

"I heard your regiment's pretty conch-horn in the morning," she said, "and slipped out of my wagon and edged forward amid all that swearing, sweating confusion, noticed not at all by anybody, save when a red-head Jersey sergeant bawled at me to man a rope and haul at the mired cannon with the others. But I was deaf just then, Euan, and got free o' them with nothing worse than a sound cursing from the sergeant; and away across the creek I legged it, where I hid in the bush until the firing began and the horrid shouting on the ridge. Then it was that, badly scared, I crept through the Indian grass like a hunted hare, and saw Lieutenant Boyd there, and his men, halted across the trail. And very soon our cannon began, and then it was that I saw you and your Indians filing out to the right. So I followed you. Oh, Euan, are you very angry? Because, dear lad, I have had so lonely a trail, what with keeping clear of your party so that you might not catch me and send me back, and what with losing you after you had left the main, trodden trail! Save for the marks you left on trees, I had been utterly lost—and must have perished, no doubt——" She looked at me with melting eyes.

"Think on that, Euan, ere you grow too angry and are cruel with me."

"Cruel? Lois, you have been more heartless than I ever——"

"There! I knew it! Your anger is about to burst its dreadful bounds——"

"Child! What is there to say or do now? What is there left for me, save to offer you what scant protection I may—good God!—and take you forward with us in the morning? This is a cruel, unmerited perplexity you have caused me, Lois. What unkind inspiration prompted you to do this rash, mad, foolish thing! How could you so conduct? What can you hope to accomplish in all this wicked and bloody business that now confronts us? How can I do my duty—how perform it to the letter—with you beside me—with my very heart chilling to water at thought of your peril——"

"Hush, dearest lad," she whispered, tightening her fingers on my sleeve. "All in the world I care for lies in this place where we now stand—or near it. Have I not told you that I must go to Catharines-town? How could I remain behind when every tie I have in all the world was tugging at my heart to draw me hither? You ask me what I can do—what I can hope to accomplish. God knows—but my mother and my lover are here—and how could I stay away if there was a humble chance that I might do some little thing to aid her—to aid you, Euan?

"Why do you scowl at me? Try me, Test me. I am tough as an Indian youth, strong and straight and supple—and as tireless. See—I am not wearied with the trail! I am not afraid. I can do what you do. If you fast I can fast, too; when you go thirsty I can endure it also; and you may not even hope to out-travel me, Euan, for I am innured to sleeplessness, to hunger, to fatigue, by two years' vagabondage—hardened of limb and firm of body, self-taught in self-denial, in quiet endurance, in stealth, and patience. Oh, Euan! Make me your comrade, as you would take a younger brother, to school him in the hardy ways of life you know so well! I will be no burden to you; I will serve you humbly and faithfully; prove docile, obedient, and grateful to the end. And if the end comes in the guise of death—Euan—Euan! Why may I not share that also with you? For the world's joy dies when you die, and my body might as well die with it!"

So eager and earnest her argument, so tightly she clung to my arms, so pleading and sweet her ardent face, upturned, with the tears scarcely dry under her lashes, that I found nought to answer her, and could only look into her eyes—deep, deep into those grey-blue wells of truth—troubled to silence by her present plight and mine.

I could not take her back now, and also keep my tryst with Boyd at Catharines-town. I could not leave her here by this trail, even guarded—had I the guards to spare—for soon in our wake would come thundering the maddened debris of the Chemung battle, pell-mell, headlong through the forests, desperate, with terror leading and fury lashing at their heels.

I laid my hands heavily upon her firm, young shoulders, and strove to think the while I studied her; but the enchantment of her confused my mind, and I saw only the crisp and clustering curls, and clear, young eyes looking into mine, and the lips scarce parted, hanging breathless on my words.

"O boy-girl comrade!" I said in a low, unsteady voice. "Little boy-girl born to do endless mischief in this wide and wind-swept forest world of men! What am I to say to you, who have your will of everyone beneath the sun? Who am I to halt the Starry Dancers, or bar your wayward trail when Tharon himself has hidden you, and the Little People carry to you 'winged moccasins for flying feet as light and swift!' For truly I begin to think it has been long since woven in the silvery and eternal wampum—belt after belt, string twisted around string—that you shall go to Catharines-town unscathed.

"Where she was born returns the rosy Forest Pigeon to her native tree for mating. White-Throat—White-Throat—your course is flown! For this is Amochol's frontier; and by tomorrow night we enter Catharines-town—thou and I, little Lois—two Hidden Children—one hidden by the Western Gate, one by the Eastern Gate's dark threshold, 'hidden in the husks.'...How shall it be with us now, O little rosy spirit of the home-wood? My Indians will ask. What shall I say to them concerning you?"

"All laws break of themselves before us twain, who, having been hidden, are prepared for mating—where we will—and when.... And if the long flight be truly ended—and the home forests guard our secret—and if Tharon be God also—and His stars the altar lights—and his river-mist my veil——" She faltered, and her clear gaze became confused. "Why should your Indians question you?" she asked.

The last ray of the sun reddened the forest, lingered, faded, and went out in ashes. I said:

"God and Tharon are one. Priest and Sagamore, clergyman and Sachem, minister, ensign, Roya-neh—red men or white, all are consecrated before the Master of Life. If in these Indians' eyes you are still to remain sacred, then must you promise yourself to me, little Lois. And let the Sagamore perform the rite at once."

"Betroth myself, Euan?"

"Yes, under the Rite of the Hidden Children. Will you do this—so that my Indians can lay your hands upon their hearts? Else they may turn from you now—perhaps prove hostile."

"I had desired to have you take me from my mother's arms."

"And so I will, in marriage—if she be alive to give you."

"Then—what is this we do?"

"It is our White Bridal."

"Summon the Sagamore," she said faintly.

And so it was done there, I prompting her with her responses, and the mysterious rite witnessed by the priesthood of two nations—Sachem and Sagamore, Iroquois and Algonquin, with the tall lodge-poles of the pines confirming it, and the pale ghost-flowers on the moss fulfilling it, and the stars coming one by one to nail our lodge door with silver nails, and the night winds, enchanted, chanting the Karenna of the Uncut Corn.

And now the final and most sacred symbol of betrothal was at hand; and the Oneida Sachem drew away, and the Yellow Moth and the Night Hawk stood aside, with heads quietly averted, leaving the Sagamore alone before us. For only a Sagamore of the Enchanted Clan might stand as witness to the mystery, where now the awful, viewless form of Tharon was supposed to stand, white winged and plumed, and robed like the Eight Thunders in snowy white.

"Listen, Loskiel," he said, "my younger brother, blood-brother to a Siwanois. Listen, also, O Rosy-Throated Pigeon of the Woods—home from the unseen flight to mate at last!"

He plucked four ghost-flowers, and cast the pale blossoms one by one to the four great winds.

"O untainted winds that blow the Indian corn," he said, "winds of the wilderness, winds of the sounding skies—clean and pure as ye are, not one of you has blown the green and silken blankets loose from these, our Hidden Children, nestling unseen, untouched, unstained, close cradled in a green embrace. Nor wind, nor rain, nor hail, not the fierce heat of many summers have revealed these Hidden Ones, stripped them of the folded verdure that conceals them still, each wrapped within the green leaves of the corn.

"Continue to listen, winds of the sounding skies. Let the Eight White-plumed Thunders listen. An ensign of the Magic Clan bears witness under Tharon. A Sagamore veils his face. Let Tharon hear these children when they speak. Let Tamenund listen!"

Standing straight and tall there in the starlight, he drew his blanket across his eyes. The Oneidas and the Stockbridge did the same.

Slowly, timidly, in compliance with my whispered bidding, the slender, trembling hands of Lois unlaced my throat-points to the shoulder, baring my chest. Then she said aloud, but in a voice scarce audible, I prompting every word:

"It is true! Under the folded leaves a Hidden Youth is sleeping. I bid him sleep awhile. I promise to disturb no leaf. This is the White Bridal. I close what I have scarcely parted. I bid him sleep this night. When—when——"

I whispered, prompting her, and she found her voice, continuing:

"When at his lodge door they shall come softly and lay shadows to bar it, a moon to seal it, and many stars to nail it fast, then, in the dark within, I shall hear the painted quiver rattle as he puts it off; and the antlers fall clashing to the ground. Only the green and tender cloak of innocence shall endure—a little while—then, falling, enfold us twain embraced where only one had slept before. A promised bride has spoken."

She bowed her head, took my hands in hers, laid them lightly on her heart; then straightened up, with a long-drawn, quivering breath, and stood, eyes closed, as I unlaced her throat-points, parting the fawn-skin cape till the soft thrums lay on her snowy shoulders.

"It is true," I whispered. "Under the folded leaves a Hidden Maid lies sleeping. I bid her sleep awhile; I bid her dream in innocence through this White Bridal night. I promise to disturb no leaf that sheathes her. I now refold and close again what I have scarcely touched and opened. I bid her sleep.

"When on my lodge door they nail the Oneida stars, and seal my door with the moon of Tharon, and lay long shadows there to bar it; then I, within the darkness there, shall hear the tender rustle of her clinging husks, parting to cradle two where one alone had slept since she was born."

Gently I drew the points, closing the cape around her slender throat, knotted the laces, smoothed out the thrums, took her small hands and laid them on my breast.

One by one the stately Indians came to make their homage, bending their war-crests proudly and placing her hands upon their painted