Complete weird tales of.., p.134
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 134
Men instinctively accorded them the room they seemed to desire; women understood them better, and took right of way, smiling the reproof which always brought the swaggerers up, cap-tails sweeping the street in extravagant salute. For there appeared, in those two graceless bibbers of wines, that gravity and politeness of intoxication which so grotesquely parodies the dignity of gallantry, and with which it is almost hopeless for sober people to contend.
However, I spoke to them so cuttingly that they relapsed into injured silence and ambled along on either side of me without serious offence to passing citizens.
We soon found ourselves in a crowd, the current of which swept down the King’s Road towards the fortress; and we followed in the wake, while past us rode companies of officers, 238 gentlemen, and sometimes squads of the Governor’s horse — those same gay, flame-coloured Virginians whom I had so admired at Johnstown a month ago.
Coaches passed us, too, rolling towards the fortress, and through the glass windows we caught glimpses of ladies in cloaks of swan’s-down, with their plumes and jewels shining in the rays of the coach-lamps. Gilded sedan-chairs began to appear, gayer and more painted and polished than our chairs in Johnstown, and the bearers often in handsome liveries, with a major-domo leading the way and footmen to heel, and my lady peeping out at us shabby foot-farers plodding along in the street beside her.
Cresap’s men were plentiful among the crowd, some of them sullen and muttering, others loud in their demands for Cresap’s release, threatening trouble for those who had jailed their leader, and careless who heard them. There were a few forest-runners dressed as we were, numbers of riflemen in green capes and gray wool shirts, and rangers in brown and yellow deer-skins, with thrums dyed scarlet or purple.
A short, thick-set fellow, wearing a baldrick fringed with scalps, was pointed out by people as one of Boone’s and Harrod’s dare-devils; and truly he looked his part, though the scalp-belt pleased me not.
I heard him boasting that the trophies were Wyandotte scalps, which news, if true, meant one more ally for the Cayuga and one more enemy for the colonies when the breach with England came. It sickened me to hear the great fool boast.
The bulk of the throng, however, was made up of sober, peaceful citizens, men of the quiet classes, in homespun and snuffy hats, guiltless of the silver buckle on knee or shoe, silent, reserved, thoughtful men of moderate gesture and earnest eyes, whose rare voices disturbed no one and whose inoffensive conduct rebuked the rufflers as no words could do.
Jack Mount, who at first appeared inclined to play the rôle of a marching orator and distribute morsels of his wit and learning to all who would pay him the fee of their attention, subsided of his own accord among the quiet company wherein we now found ourselves and contented himself and the 239 Weasel with a series of prodigious yawns, at which they both never seemed to tire of laughing.
They also sang in a subdued chorus:
“Quak’ress, Quak’ress, whither away?
Pray thee stay thee, Quak’ress gray.
I thy Quaker fain would be,
Yet dare not swear I care for thee!”
However, the few Quakers in the throng took no offence, and I presently nudged my mannerless comrades into a snickering silence.
The people ahead of us had now stopped, and, looking over their heads, I saw the dark shape of the “Governor’s Hall,” partly illuminated by two great lanthorns set in iron sockets flanking the portal. Shining in the feeble light moved the bayonets of the guards above the darkly massed crowd, while coach after coach rolled up and chair after chair deposited its burden of bejewelled beauty at the gateway. And all these people, all these dainty dames and gallants, had come to see the famous Logan — to hear the great Cayuga orator, “The Friend of the White Man,” ask why his little children had been slain by the white men, whose faithful friend he had been so long. Truly, there might be here something newer than the stale play at the Theatre Royal. It was not every day that my lady might hear and see an old man asking why his children had been murdered.
The crowd in front of us was compact, yet when Mount set his broad chest against it, the people hastily made a lane for him. The Weasel and I followed our big companion, elbowing our way to the portal, where Mr. Patrick Henry awaited us and passed us through the sentries and guards and pompous big-bellied tip-staves who turned up their vinous noses at the three shabby men from the forest.
Candle-light softened the bare walls and benches; candle-light set silks and jewels in a blaze where the ladies, banked up like beds of rustling roses, choked the wooden balcony above our heads, murmuring, whispering, fluttering fans and scarfs till the perfumed breeze from their stirrings fanned my cheeks. And more of them were arriving every moment; the wooden stairway leading to the gallery was ablaze with 240 starred sashes and petticoats, and twinkling satin shoon, with now and then the sparkle of a hilt as some scented gallant ascended with his fluttering and gorgeous convoy.
The scarlet coats of colonial and British officers spotted the galleries; here and there a silver gorget caught the light, blinding the eyes with brilliancy, only to turn and sink to a cinder as the wearer moved.
I looked for Silver Heels, but, from the floor below, all faces were vague and delicate as massed blossoms in a garden, and eyes sparkled as faintly as dew on velvet petals all unfolded.
At the end of the hall two carpeted steps led to a stone platform hung with a flag and the arms of Virginia. This was the Governor’s audience-seat; the gilded chair in the centre was for him; the tables that flanked it for his secretaries.
For envoys, deputies, and for all plaintiffs, red benches faced the platform; behind these stretched rank on rank of plain, unpainted seats for the public, or as much of it as the soldiers and tip-staves thought proper to admit.
This same public was now clamouring at the gate for right of entrance without favour or discrimination, and I could hear them protesting and shuffling at the portal behind us, while the soldiers disputed and the tip-staves tapped furiously on the stones with their long, tasselled wands.
“Why should not the public enter freely a public place?” I asked of Patrick Henry.
“They will, one day,” he said, with his grave smile.
“Drums beating,” added Mount, loudly, but withered at once under the sharp stare of displeasure with which Mr. Henry favoured him.
We now took seats on the last of the red benches, which stood near the centre of the hall, and in one corner of which I perceived Logan sitting bolt upright, eyes fixed on space, brooding, unconscious of the thronged beauty in the galleries above him or of the restless public now pouring into the hall behind his back.
Mr. Henry took his seat beside the stricken chief; next followed Jack Mount, lumbering to his place; and I heard a stir pass around the gallery with whispers of wonder and 241 admiration for the giant, followed by a titter as the little Weasel trotted to his seat next to Mount. I sat down beside the Weasel, closing the row on our bench, and turned around to watch the people filling up the hall behind me. They were serious, sober-eyed people, and, unlike the gay world in the galleries, had apparently not come to seek amusement in the clothes of three shabby rangers or in the dumb grief of a savage.
“They are mostly patriots,” whispered the Weasel, “peppered with Tories and sprinkled with Dunmore’s spies. But they don’t blab what they know — trust them for that, Mr. Cardigan.”
“I can see Paul Cloud and Timothy Boyd sitting together, and our host of the ‘Virginia Arms,’ Rolfe,” I said, leaning to search the audience. Then I caught a glimpse of a face I knew better, the scarred, patched-up visage of the man whom I had made to taste his own hatchet. Startled, and realizing for the first time the proximity of Walter Butler, I hunted the hall for him with hopeful eyes, for I meant to seek him and kill him without ceremony when the first chance came. I could not find him, however, but in a corner near the door, whispering together and peeping about, I discovered his other two creatures, Wraxall, the Johnstown barber, and Toby Tice, the treacherous tenant of Sir William. Where the cubs were the old wolf was not far away, that was certain. But search as I might I could find nothing but the wolf’s stale trail.
One circumstance impressed me: behind Wraxall and Tice sat Saul Shemuel, hands folded on his stomach, apparently dozing while waiting for the spectacle to begin. But he was not asleep, for now and again, between his lids, I caught a sparkle of open eyes, and I knew that his large, soft ears were listening hard.
While I was still watching Shemuel, the Weasel nudged me, and I turned to see the platform before me alive with gentlemen, moving about and chatting, seating themselves in groups, while behind them half a dozen British officers in full uniform lounged or stared curiously up at the packed balconies.
Some of the gentlemen on the platform exchanged salutes 242 with ladies in the balconies, some smiled or waved their hands to friends. But that soon ceased, and the commotion on the platform was stilled as a gorgeous tip-staff advanced, banging his great stave on the stones and announcing the coming of his Lordship the Earl of Dunmore, Royal Governor of his Majesty’s colony of Virginia. God save the King!
Swish! swish! went the silken petticoats as the gallery rose; the people on the floor rose too, with clatter and shuffle and scrape of benches shoved over the stones.
Ah! There he was! — painted cheeks, pale eyes, smirk, laces, bird-claws and all — with a splendid order blazing on his flame-coloured sash and his fleshless legs mincing towards the gilded chair under the canopy which bore the arms of Virginia and the British flag.
Before he was pleased to seat himself, he peered up into the balcony and kissed his finger-tips; and I, following his eyes by instinct, saw Silver Heels sitting in the candle-flare, scarlet and silent, with her sad eyes fixed, not on my Lord Dunmore, but on me.
Before I met her eyes I had been sullenly frightened, dreading to speak aloud in such a company, scarcely hoping to find my tongue when the time came to voice my demands so that the whole town could hear. Now, with her deep, steady eyes meeting mine, fear fell from me like a cloak, and the blood began to race through every limb and my heart beat “To arms!” so fearlessly and so gayly that I smiled up at her; and she smiled at me in turn.
Again the Weasel began twitching at my sleeve, and I bent beside him, listening and watching the gentlemen on the platform.
“That’s John Gibson, Dunmore’s secretary — the man in black on the Governor’s left! That loud, bustling fellow on his right is Doctor Connolly, Dunmore’s deputy for Indian affairs. He arrested Cresap to clear his own skirts of blame for the war. Behind him sits Connolly’s agent, Captain Murdy. Murdy’s agent was Greathouse. You see the links in the chain?”
“Perfectly,” I replied, calmly; “and I mean to shatter them if my voice is not scared out of my body.”
“Scourge me that ramshackle Dunmore!” whispered 243 Mount, thickly, leaning across the Weasel. “Give him hell-fire and a — hic! — black eye—”
Mr. Henry jerked the giant’s arm and he relapsed into a wise silence, nodding his thanks as though Mr. Henry had imparted to him an acceptable secret instead of a reproof.
We were near enough to the platform to hear the Governor chattering with Gibson and Doctor Connolly, and sniffing his snuff as he peeped about with his lack-lustre eyes.
“Que dieu me damne!” he said, spitefully. “But you have a mauvais quart d’heure ahead, Connolly! — curse me if you have not! Faith, I wash my hands of you, and you had best make your sulky savage yonder some good excuse for the war.”
Connolly’s deep voice replied evasively, but Dunmore clipped him short:
“Oh no! Oh no! The people won’t have that, Connolly! — skewer me if they will! Body o’ Judas, Connolly, you can’t make them believe Cresap started this war!”
Connolly whispered something.
“Eh? What? I say I wash my hands o’ ye! Didn’t you hear me say I washed my hands? And mind you clear me when you answer your filthy savage. I’ll none of it, d’ye hear?”
Connolly flushed darkly and leaned back. Gibson appeared nervous and dispirited, but Captain Murdy smiled cheerfully on everybody and took snuff with a zest.
“And, Connolly,” observed Dunmore, settling himself in his gilded chair, “you had best announce the restoration to rank and command of Cresap. Ged! — that ought to put the clodhoppers yonder in good humour, to keep them from snivelling while your dirty savage speaks.”
Presently Connolly arose, and, making a motion for silence, briefly announced the restoration of Cresap to command. There was no sound, no demonstration. Those in the balconies cared nothing for Cresap, those on the floor cared too much to compromise him with applause.
I heard Dunmore complaining to Gibson that the first part of Connolly’s programme had fallen flat and that he, Dunmore, wanted to know what Gibson thought of refusing Logan the right of speech.
Gibson nervously shook his head and signalled to the interpreter, a grizzled sergeant of the Virginia militia, to take his station; and when the interpreter advanced, announcing in English and in the Cayuga language that the Governor of Virginia welcomed his brother, Logan, chief of the Cayugas, warrior of the clan of the Wolf, and “The White Man’s Friend,” I saw Patrick Henry touch Logan on the shoulder.
Slowly the Indian looked up, then rose like a spectre from his sombre blanket and fixed his sad eyes on Dunmore.
There was a faint movement, a rustle from the throng on floor and gallery, then dead silence, as from the old warrior’s throat burst the first hollow, heart-sick word:
“Brother!”
Oh, the grim sadness of that word! — the mockery of its bitterness! — the desolate irony of despair ringing through it! Brother! That single word cursed the silence with an accusation so merciless that I saw Connolly’s heavy visage grow purple, and Gibson turn his eyes away. Only my Lord Dunmore sat immovable, with the shadow of a sneer freezing on his painted face.
Logan slowly raised his arm: —
“Through that thick night which darkens the history of our subjugation, through all the degradation and reproach which has been heaped upon us, there runs one thread of light revealing our former greatness, pleading the causes of our decay, illuminating the pit of our downfall, promising that our dead shall live again! Not in the endless darkness whither priests and men consign us is that thread of light to be lost; but from the shadowy past it shall break out in brilliancy, redeeming a people’s downfall, and wringing from you, our subjugators, the greeting — Brothers!
“Fathers: For Logan, that light comes too late. Death darkens my lodge; my door is closed to sun and moon and stars. Death darkens my lodge. All within lie dead. Logan is alone. He, too, is blind and sightless; like the quiet dead his ears are stopped, he hears not; nor can he see darkness or light.
“For Logan, light or darkness comes too late.”
The old man paused; the silence was dreadful.
Suddenly he turned and looked straight at Dunmore.
“I appeal to any white man if he ever entered Logan’s lodge hungry and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not!”
The visage of the Earl of Dunmore seemed to be growing smaller and more corpse-like. Not a feature on his ghastly mask moved, yet the face was dwindling.
Logan’s voice grew gentler.
“Such was my love,” he said, slowly. “Such was my great love for the white men! My brothers pointed at me as they passed, and said, ‘He is the friend of white men.’ And I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of my brothers, the white men.
“Unprovoked, in cold blood, they have slain my kin — all! — all! — not sparing woman or child. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature!
“Hearken, Brothers! I have withstood the storms of many winters. Leaves and branches have been stripped from me. My eyes are dim, my limbs totter, I must soon fall. I, who could make the dry leaf turn green again; I, who could take the rattlesnake in my palm; I, who had communion with the dead, dreaming and waking; I am powerless. The wind blows hard! The old tree trembles! Its branches are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace! Peace!
“Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!”
The old man bent his withered head and covered his face with his blanket. Through the frightful stillness the painful breathing of the people swept like a smothered cry; women in the balcony were sobbing; somewhere a child wept uncomforted.
Patrick Henry leaned across to me; his eyes were dim, his voice choked in his throat.
“The great orator!” he whispered. “Oh, the great man! — greatest of all! The last word has been said for Logan! I shall not speak, Mr. Cardigan — it were sacrilege — now.”
He rose and laid one arm about the motionless chief, then very gently he drew him out into the aisle. There was not a sound in the hall as they passed slowly out together, those great men who had both struck to the hilt for the honour of their kindred and of their native land.
Now, when at last he had disappeared, a living spectre of reproach, which the guilt of men had raised to confound the lords of the New World, those gathered there to listen breathed again, and hastened to forget that glimpse which they had caught of the raw heart of all tragedy — man’s inhumanity to man.
Dunmore came slowly from his trance, mechanically preening his silken plumage and ruffling like a meagre bird; Connolly rose from his seat and shook himself, and, finding nothing better to do, went about the platform, snuffing the candles, a duty pertaining to servants, but which he was doubtless thankful to perform as it brought his back to the spectators and gave his heavy, burning face a respite from the pillory of eyes. Gibson leaned heavily on his writing-table, wan, loose-jawed, and vacant-eyed. As for Captain Murdy, he sat serenely in his chair, shapely legs crossed, examining the lid of his snuff-box with ever-freshening interest.
Above us in the galleries some people had risen and were about to leave. The rustle of silks and satins seemed to break the heavy quiet; people breathed deeply, shifted in their seats, and turned around. Some stood up to go; chairs and benches grated on the stones; shoes shuffled and tapped sharply.
