Complete weird tales of.., p.183
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 183
On the floor above, four doors faced the narrow passage-way. I knocked at one. A gentle, sleepy voice answered:
“Very well.”
Then, in turn, I entered each of the remaining rooms and searched. In the first room there was nothing but a bed and a bit of mirror framed in pine; in the second, another bed and a clothes-press which contained an empty cider-jug and a tattered almanac; in the third room a mattress lay on the floor, and beside it two ink-horns, several quills, and a sheet of blue paper, such as comes wrapped around a sugar-loaf. The sheet of paper was pinned to the floor with pine splinters, as though a draughtsman had prepared it for drawing some plan, but there were no lines on it, and I was about to leave it when a peculiar odor in the close air of the room brought me back to re-examine it on both sides.
There was no mark on the blue surface. I picked up an ink-horn, sniffed it, and spilled a drop of the fluid on my finger. The fluid left no stain, but the odor I had noticed certainly came from it. I folded the paper and placed it in my beaded pouch, then descended the stairs, to find Mount stirring the corn-bread and Sir George laying a cloth over the kitchen table, while Beacraft sat moodily by the window, watching everybody askance. The fire needed mending and I used the bellows. And, as I knelt there on the hearth, I saw a milky white stain slowly spread over the finger which I had dipped into the ink-horn. I walked to the door and stood in the cool morning air. Slowly the white stain disappeared.
“Mount,” I said, sharply, “you and Murphy and Beacraft will eat your breakfast at once — and be quick about it.” And I motioned Murphy into the house and sat down on an old plough to wait.
Through the open door I could see the two big riflemen plying spoon and knife, while Beacraft picked furtively at his johnny-cake, eyes travelling restlessly from Mount to Murphy, from Sir George to the wooden stairway.
My riflemen ate like hounds after a chase, tipping their porridge-dishes to scrape them clean, then bolted eggs and smoking corn-bread in a trice, and rose, taking Beacraft with them to the doorway.
“Fill your pipes, lads,” I said. “Sit out in the sun yonder. Mr. Beacraft may have some excellent stories to tell you.”
“I must do my work,” said Beacraft, angrily, but Mount and Murphy each took an arm and led the unwilling man across the strip of potato-hills to a grassy knoll under a big oak, from whence a view of the house and clearing could be obtained. When I entered the house again, Sir George was busy removing soiled plates and arranging covers for three; and I sat down close to the fire, drawing the square of blue paper from my pouch and spreading it to the blaze. When it was piping hot I laid it upon my knees and examined the design. What I had before me was a well-drawn map of the Kingsland district, made in white outline, showing trails and distances between farms. And, out of fifty farms marked, forty-three bore the word “Rebel,” and were ornamented by little red hatchets.
Also, to every house was affixed the number, sex, and age of its inhabitants, even down to the three-months babe in the cradle, the number of cattle, the amount of grain in the barns.
Further, the Kingsland district of the county was divided into three sections, the first marked “McCraw’s Operations,” the second “Butler and Indians,” the third “St. Leger’s Indians and Royal Greens.” The paper was signed by Uriah Beacraft.
After a few moments I folded this carefully prepared plan for deliberate and wholesale murder and placed it in my wallet.
Sir George looked up at me with a question in his eyes. I nodded, saying: “We have enough to arrest Beacraft. If you cannot persuade Magdalen Brant, we must arrest her, too. You had best use all your art, Sir George.”
“I will do what I can,” he said, gravely.
A moment later a light step sounded on the stairs; we both sprang to our feet and removed our hats. Magdalen Brant appeared, fresh and sweet as a rose-peony on a dewy morning.
“Sir George!” she exclaimed, in flushed dismay— “and you, too, Mr. Ormond!”
Sir George bowed, laughingly, saying that our journey had brought us so near her that we could not neglect to pay our respects.
“Where is Mr. Beacraft?” she said, bewildered, and at the same moment caught sight of him through the open doorway, seated under the oak-tree, apparently in delightful confab with Murphy and Mount.
“I do not quite understand,” she said, gazing steadily at Sir George. “We are King’s people here. And you—”
She looked at his blue-and-buff uniform, shaking her head, then glanced at me in my fringed buckskins.
“I trust this war cannot erase the pleasant memories of other days, Miss Brant,” said Sir George, easily. “May we not have one more hour together before the storm breaks?”
“What storm, Sir George?” she asked, coloring up.
“The British invasion,” I said. “We have chosen our colors; your kinsmen have chosen theirs. It is a political, not a personal difference, Miss Brant, and we may honorably clasp hands until our hands are needed for our hilts.”
Sir George, graceful and debonair, conducted her to her place at the rough table; I served the hasty-pudding, making a jest of the situation. And presently we were eating there in the sunshine of the open doorway, chatting over the dinner at Varicks’, each outvying the others to make the best of an unhappy and delicate situation.
Sir George spoke of the days in Albany spent with his aunt, and she responded in sensitive reserve, which presently softened under his gentle courtesy, leaving her beautiful, dark eyes a trifle dim and her scarlet mouth quivering,
“It is like another life,” she said. “It was too lovely to last. Ah, those dear people in Albany, and their great kindness to me! And now I shall never see them again.”
“Why not?” asked Sir George. “My aunt Livingston would welcome you.”
“I cannot abandon my own kin, Sir George,” she said, raising her distressed eyes to his.
“There are moments when it is best to sever such ties,” I observed.
“Perhaps,” she said, quickly; “but this is not the moment, Mr. Ormond. My kinsmen are exiled fugitives, deprived of their own lands by those who have risen in rebellion against our King. How can I, whom they loved in their prosperity, leave them in their adversity?”
“You speak of Guy Johnson and Sir John?” I asked.
“Yes; and of those brave people whose blood flows in my veins,” she said, quietly. “Where is the Mohawk nation now, Sir George? This is their country, secured to them by solemn oath and covenant, inviolate for all time. Their belts lie with the King of England; his belts lie still with my people, the Mohawks. Where are they?”
“Fled to Oswego with Sir John,” I said.
“And homeless!” she added, in a low, tense voice— “homeless, without clothing, without food, save what Guy Johnson gives them; their women and children utterly helpless, the graves of their fathers abandoned, their fireplace at Onondaga cold, and the brands scattered for the first time in a thousand years I This have you Boston people done — done already, without striking a blow.”
She turned her head proudly and looked straight at Sir George.
“Is it not the truth?” she asked.
“Only in part,” he said, gently. Then, with infinite pains and delicacy, he told her of our government’s desire that the Iroquois should not engage in the struggle; that if they had consented to neutrality they might have remained in possession of their lands and all their ancient rights, guaranteed by our Congress.
He pointed out the fatal consequences of Guy Johnson’s councils, the effect of Butler’s lying promises, the dreadful results of such a struggle between Indians, maddened by the loss of their own homes, and settlers desperately clinging to theirs.
“It is not the Mohawks I blame,” he said, “it is those to whom opportunity has given wider education and knowledge — the Tories, who are attempting to use the Six Nations for their own selfish and terrible ends!... If in your veins run a few drops of Mohawk blood, my child, English blood runs there, too. Be true to your bright Mohawk blood; be true to the generous English blood. It were cowardly to deny either — shameful to betray the one for the other.”
She gazed at him, fascinated; his voice swayed her, his handsome, grave face held her. Whether it was reason or emotion, mind or heart, I know not, but her whole sensitive being seemed to respond to his voice; and as he played upon this lovely human instrument, varying his deep theme, she responded in every nerve, every breath. Reason, hope, sorrow, tenderness, passion — all these I read in her deep, velvet eyes, and in the mute language of her lips, and in the timing pulse-beat under the lace on her breast.
I rose and walked to the door. She did not heed my going, nor did Sir George.
Under the oak-tree I found Murphy and Mount, smoking their pipes and watching Beacraft, who lay with his rough head pillowed on his arms, feigning slumber.
“Why did you mark so many houses with the red hatchet?” I asked, pleasantly.
He did not move a muscle, but over his face a deep color spread to the neck and hair.
“Murphy,” I said, “take that prisoner to General Schuyler!”
Beacraft sprang up, glaring at me out of bloodshot eyes.
“Shoot him if he breaks away,” I added.
From his convulsed and distorted lips a torrent of profanity burst as Murphy laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and faced him eastward. I drew the blue paper from my wallet, whispered to Murphy, and handed it to him. He shoved it inside the breast of his hunting-shirt, cocked his rifle, and tapped Beacraft on the arm.
So they marched away across the sunlit pasture, where blackbirds walked among the cattle, and the dew sparkled in tinted drops of fire.
In all my horror of the man I pitied him, for I knew he was going to his death, there through the fresh, sweet morning, under the blue heavens. Once I saw him look up, as though to take a last long look at a free sky, and my heart ached heavily. Yet he had plotted death in its most dreadful shapes for others who loved life as well as he — death to neighbors, death to strangers — whole families, whom he had perhaps never even seen — to mothers, to fathers, old, young, babes in the cradle, babes at the breast; and he had set down the total of one hundred and twenty-nine scalps at twenty dollars each, over his own signature.
Schuyler had said to me that it was not the black-eyed Indians the people of Tryon County dreaded, but the blue-eyed savages. And I had scarcely understood at that time how the ferocity of demons could lie dormant in white breasts.
Standing there with Mount under the oak, I saw Sir George and Magdalen Brant leave the house and stroll down the path towards the stream. Sir George was still speaking in his quiet, earnest manner; her eyes were fixed on him so that she scarce heeded her steps, and twice long sprays of sweetbrier caught her gown, and Sir George freed her. But her eyes never wandered from him; and I myself thought he never looked so handsome and courtly as he did now, in his officer’s uniform and black cockade.
Where their pathway entered the alders, below the lane, they vanished from our sight; and, leaving Mount to watch I went back to the house, to search it thoroughly from cellar to the dark garret beneath the eaves.
At two o’clock in the afternoon Sir George and Magdalen Brant had not returned. I called Mount into the house, and we cooked some eggs and johnny-cake to stay our stomachs. An hour later I sent Mount out to make a circle of a mile, strike the Iroquois trail and hang to it till dark, following any traveller, white or red, who might be likely to lead him towards the secret trysting-place of the False-Faces.
Left alone at the house, I continued to rummage, finding nothing of importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and a peony lay dead and smelling rank, with the ants crawling all over it. In the mellow light the stillness was absolute, save when a distant white-throat’s silvery call, long drawn out, floated from the forest’s darkening edge.
The melancholy of the deserted home oppressed me, as though I had wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft’s worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead man, hung on a peg behind the door. I searched the pockets with repugnance and found a few papers, which smelled like the covers of ancient books, memoranda of miserable little transactions — threepence paid for soling shoes, twopence here, a penny there; nothing more. I threw the papers on the grass, dipped up a bucket of well-water, and rinsed my fingers. And always the tenantless house watched me furtively from its humble windows.
The sun’s brassy edge glittered above the blue chain of hills as I walked across the pasture towards the path that led winding among the alders to the brook below. I followed it in the deepening evening light and sat down on a log, watching the water swirling through the flat stepping-stones where trout were swarming, leaping for the tiny winged creatures that drifted across the dusky water. And as I sat there I became aware of sounds like voices; and at first, seeing no one, I thought the noises came from the low bubbling monotone of the stream. Then I heard a voice murmuring: “I will do what you ask me — I will do everything you desire.”
Fearful of eavesdropping, I rose, peering ahead to make myself known, but saw nothing in the deepening dusk. On the point of calling, the words died on my lips as the same voice sounded again, close to me:
“I pray you let me have my way. I will obey you. How can you doubt it? But I must obey in my own way.”
And Sir George’s deep, pleasant voice answered: “There is danger to you in this. I could not endure that, Magdalen.”
They were on a path parallel to the trail in which I stood, separated from me by a deep fringe of willow. I could not see them, though now they were slowly passing abreast of me.
“What do you care for a maid you so easily persuade?” she asked, with a little laugh that rang pitifully false in the dusk.
“It is her own merciful heart that persuades her,” he said, under his breath.
“I think my heart is merciful,” she said— “more merciful than even I knew. The restless blood in me set me afire when I saw the wrong done to these patient people of the Long House.... And when they appealed to me I came here to justify them, and bid them stand for their own hearths.... And now you come, teaching me the truth concerning right and wrong, and how God views justice and injustice; and how this tempest, once loosened, can never be chained until innocent and guilty are alike ingulfed.... I am very young to know all these things without counsel.... I needed aid — and wisdom to teach me — your wisdom. Now, in my turn, I shall teach; but you must let me teach in my way. There is only one way that the Long House can be taught.... You do not believe it, but in this I am wiser than you — I know.”
“Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?”
“No, Sir George.”
“When will you tell me?”
“Never. But you will know what I have done. You will see that I hold three nations back. What else can you ask? I shall obey you. What more is there?”
Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness save the low ripple of the stream. An hour later I picked my way back to the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside him, pointing towards the east.
“I’ve found the False-Faces’ trysting-place,” said Mount, eagerly, as I came up. “I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land — a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir. And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something sickening, and I dogged ’em till they turned off into the bush to shoot a doe full of arrows — though all had guns! — and left ’em eating. Then comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles, and I tied to them. And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff — you know, Sir George, where Klock’s old line cuts into the Mohawk country?”
“I know,” said Sir George.
Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear.
“The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones. I could see my painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap. Then they disappeared in the ravine — and I guess that settles it, Captain Ormond.”
Sir George looked at me, nodding.
“That settles it, Ormond,” he said.
I bade Mount cook us something to eat. Sir George looked after him as he entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely clasped behind him.
“About Magdalen Brant,” he said, abruptly. “She will not speak to the three nations for Butler’s party. The child had no idea of this wretched conspiracy to turn the savages loose in the valley. She thought our people meant to drive the Iroquois from their own lands — a black disgrace to us if we ever do!... They implored her to speak to them in council. Did you know they believe her to be inspired? Well, they do. When she was a child they got that notion, and Guy Johnson and Walter Butler have been lying to her and telling her what to say to the Oneidas and Onondagas.”
He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“She has gone to bed. She would eat nothing. We must take her back with us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts.”
“Yes,” I said, slowly. “But before we leave I must see the False-Faces.”
“Did Schuyler make that a point?”
“Yes, Sir George.”
