Prisoners of Hope Part 29

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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds who spat fire at them and slew them with thunder. Their hearts became soft, and they fled before the strange G.o.ds. 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, succ.u.mbed, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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, d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sion 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.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DUEL

The trees of the orchard stood out black against a crimson sky. "Faith!

it is a color we shall see more of presently," said Laramore, divesting himself of his doublet.

His antagonist, pa.s.sing a laced handkerchief along a gleaming blade, smiled politely. "A pretty tint. Wine, the lips of women, Captain Laramore's blood--Lard! 'tis a color I adore!"

"Gentlemen!" cried Colonel Verney. "Once more I beg of you to forego this foolish quarrel. William Berkeley, for the first time in your life, be reasonable!"

The Governor turned sharply, his chest, beneath his s.h.i.+rt of finest holland, swelling, each closely cropped hair upon his head, bared for action, stiff with injured dignity.

"Colonel Richard Verney forgets himself," he began angrily; then, "Confound you, d.i.c.k! keep your hands out of this. I don't want to fight you too! I say not that this gentleman is disloyal, but I do say, and I will maintain it with the last drop of my blood, that he strives to draw to himself a party in the State, with what intent he best knows. If he choose to pocket that a.s.sertion and withdraw, I am content."

"On guard, sir," said Carrington, raising his sword.

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his post beside Mr.

Peyton.

"Very well, gentlemen, since you will not be ruled. Are you ready?"

The rapiers clashed together, and the game began.

The Governor fenced brilliantly, if a trifle wildly; his antagonist with a cool steadiness of manner and an iron wrist. Laramore fought with bull-like ferocity, striving to beat down his opponent's guard, making mad lunges, stamping, and keeping up a continuous rumble of oaths. Sir Charles, always smiling, and with an air as if his thoughts were anywhere but at that particular spot, put aside his thrusts with the ease with which the toreador avoids the bull.

Mr. Peyton was moved to reluctant admiration. "When I was in London, sir," he said in an excited whisper to the Colonel, "I did see Mathews fight with Westwicke, and thought I had seen fencing indeed, but your cousin--ah!"

Laramore's sword described a curve in the air, and lodged in the boughs of an apple-tree, while its owner staggered forward and fell heavily to the ground. At the same instant Carrington wounded the Governor in the wrist. Colonel Verney struck up the weapons. "By the Lord, gentlemen!

you shall go no further! Jack Laramore's down, run through the shoulder!

Major Carrington, you have drawn blood--it is enough."

"If Sir William Berkeley is content," began Carrington, bowing to his antagonist.

"Rat me! I've no choice," said the Governor ruefully. "You've disabled my sword arm, and the gout has the other."