Prisoners of Hope Part 28

The company fell to drinking, and then to tobacco. The Governor, whose fits of pa.s.sion were as short as they were violent, arrived by rapid degrees at a pitch of high good humor. The company listened gravely for the fiftieth time to stories of the court of the first James; of Buckingham's amours, of the beauty of Henrietta Maria, of a visit to Paris, an interview with Richelieu, a duel with a captain of Mousquetaires, a kiss imprinted upon the fair hand of Anne of Austria.

The charmed stream of the old courtier's reminiscences flowed on--he stopped for breath, and Sir Charles took the word and proceeded to unfold before their dazzled eyes a gorgeous phantasmagoria. The King, the Duke, Sedley and Buckingham, Mesdames Castlemaine, Stuart and Gwynne, Dryden and Waller and Lely, the King's house, the Queen's chapel, the Queen's duennas, the t.i.tyre Tus, Paul's Walk, the Russian Amba.s.sador, astrologers, orange girls, b.a.l.l.s, masques, pageants, duels, the court of Louis le Grand, the King's hunting parties, Madame d'Orleans, Olympe di Mancini.

The Governor listened with dilating nostrils and sparkling eyes; Colonel Yerney's vexed countenance smoothed itself; Captain Laramore, sitting with outstretched legs, and head hidden in clouds of tobacco smoke, rumbled from out that obscurity laughter and strange oaths. Even Mr.

Peyton, after vainly trying to fix his attention upon the construction of a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow, succ.u.mbed to the enchantment, and sat with parted lips, drinking in wonders; but the Surveyor-General, though he listened courteously, listened with forced smiles and with an attention which was hard to preserve from wandering.

In the midst of a brilliant account of the nuptials of the Chevalier de Grammont came an interruption.

"De horses am fed an' brought roun', ma.s.sa."

The Governor started up. "Rat me, if good sack and good stories make not a man forget all else beside! Colonel Verney, I wish you, as lieutenant of this s.h.i.+re, to ride with me to this Chickahominy village where I have promised an audience to the half king of the tribe. Plague on the unreasonable vermin! Why can they not give way peaceably? If the colony needs and takes their lands, it leaves them a plenty elsewhere.

Let them fall back towards the South Sea. Sir Charles, I grieve for the necessity, but we must leave the court and come back to the wilderness.

Gentlemen, will you ride with Verney and me, or shall we part now to meet at sunset in his orchard?"

"We had best ride with your Excellency," said Carrington gravely. "I like not the temper of the Chickahominies, who ever mean most when they say least. And these roving Ricahecrians, their guests, are of a strange and fierce aspect. It is as well to go in force."

"Those vagrants from the Blue Mountains have been here overlong," said the Governor. "I shall send them packing! Well, gentlemen, since we are to have the pleasure of your company, boot and saddle is the word!"

CHAPTER XX

WHEREIN THE PEACE PIPE IS SMOKED

The sun had some time pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tanic 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 princ.i.p.al 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 impa.s.sive 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 a.s.sembly, and it will pa.s.s 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 a.s.sembly, be given up to those at the Court House, then will I overlook your hiding the man with the red hair, and the a.s.sembly 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 G.o.d 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,"