CHAPTER XV
On the very same night which was passed by Edith Prevost in the lodgeof the Black Eagle, some eight or ten wild-looking savages, if theycould be so called, assembled, apparently to deliberate upon a greatand important question. The place they took for their meeting laynearly twenty miles in a direct line from the Oneida Lake, and was,even in the daylight, a scene of remarkable beauty and grandeur. Atthe hour of their meeting, however, which was about forty minutesafter the sun went down, the surrounding objects were illuminated by adifferent and more appropriate light. Their council fire had beenkindled on the top of a large, flat mass of stone, fallen from thehigh rocks of a very narrow dell or pass separating a rugged andforest-bearing mountain from a spur of the same range, which seemed tohave been riven off from the parent chain by some rude and terribleconvulsion of nature. Forty yards, at the widest part, was the expanseof this fissure, and on either side were huge masses of rock tumbledabout in chaotic confusion, and blocking up the greater part of thebottom of the dell.
About half way through the glen was the large, flat stone, a sort ofnatural altar, on which the Indians had lighted their fire, andstrange and wild was the scene as those swarthy men, armed as if forbattle, but not painted, sat around in the broad glare, each with hisrifle resting on his arm, and each still and motionless as if a statuehewn out from the brown rock. Up went the towering flame from thegreat pile of dry wood, sending a flickering light over tree andprecipice; and yet no one stirred, no one spoke for several minutes.Each eye was fixed upon the fire, not as if watching it as an objectof interest, but with the steady, thoughtful gaze which showed thatthe mind was busy with other things; and there was something veryawful in that stone-cold silence.
At length the Black Eagle began to speak, without moving from hisseat, however, at least at first. His tone, too, was low and sad,though every word, in the sharp guttural language of the Iroquois, wasclear and distinct:
"For more than fifty winters," he said, "I have hovered over the landof the Oneidas, and my wing has not failed in its flight, my eyes havenot been dazzled by the blaze of the sun, nor dimmed by the light ofthe moon. The dew has fallen upon me, and the summer's sun and thewinter's snow, and still are my feathers unruffled, and my flight asstrong as in my youth. I am not a woman, that I should spare, nor achild, that I should weep. Who has seen a tear in my eye, or who hasseen the tomahawk uplifted not to strike? Have I asked anything of mychildren but to be the first in the battle? Have I ever forgiven theenemies of the children of the Stone? But we have made alliance with agreat nation; we have taken presents from them; we have promised themto live with them as brothers in the time of peace, to go to battlewith them as brothers in the time of war. Our children are theirchildren, and their children are ours. Moreover, with some of thisnation our chiefs have entered into more strict bonds of friendship.We have sat by their fires, we have smoked the pipe of peace together;we are their brothers. One family came and built their lodge amongstus, swept down the forest, and planted the cornfield. Their door wasalways open to the redman, their food was always shared with him. Theysaid not, 'This is mine and that is thine,' but they opened theirarms, and they said, 'Thou art my brother.' The children of the Stoneloved them well. They were dear to the Black Eagle as his own eaglets.The mat in the house of Prevost was a pleasant resting place to hisforehead when he was tired. His daughter was as my daughter, and hisson as of my blood and bone. A man came to his hearth whom we allknow, a good man, a friend to the redman. Should my brother Prevostrefuse to the Woodchuck room to burrow for one night? He went away,and far from the house of our brother he met an Oneida of the totem ofthe Tortoise, a man who had robbed him, and who had a lying tongue; asnake, who hated him whom he had stung. The tomahawk was bare, and theOneida was killed; but the man took not his scalp, he sung no song oftriumph over the children of the Stone. He slew him not as an enemy,but in self-defence, otherwise he would have twisted his finger in thescalp-lock, and the Oneidas would have mourned over a disgrace. It isright that there should be blood for blood, that the man who sheds theblood of the redman should die for his act, and that if he or none ofhis relatives could be found, some other man of his nation should bemade the sacrifice. But what have I done that the son of my brothershould be taken? Have I led you so often in the battle, have I coveredmy war post with the scalps of your enemies, that the tree I plantedshould be rooted up when the forest is full of worthless saplings? Wasthere no other white man to be found in the land, that you must takethe child of him who loved and trusted us? Had a moon passed, had aweek, that you might know that there was none but the beloved of theBlack Eagle whom you might use for your sacrifice? Had you made sure,even, that you could not catch the murderer himself, and take hisblood in requital of the blood he shed? Is the wisdom of our peoplegone by is their cunning a thing of other days, that they could notlure the man they sought into their power, that they could not huntany other game, that they not even try to find anyone but the one weloved the best? Remember, my children, that you are not rash andhasty, like the paleface, but that you are the children of the Stone;and though, like it, immovable and strong, you should be calm andstill, likewise. I have said."
There was a pause of several minutes before anyone answered, and thena man of the middle age, not so tall as the Black Eagle by severalinches, but with a particularly cunning and serpent-like look abouthis eyes, rose slowly from his seat, and, standing on the very pointof the rock where he was placed, said in a hard, cold tone:
"The Black Eagle has spoken well. We are allies of the white man. Thepaleface calls us his brother. He takes our hunting grounds. He plantscorn and feeds oxen amongst us. Where our foot was free to go is oursno longer; it is his. He has taken it from us and he is our brother.The Black Eagle loves the paleface. He took a paleface for his wife,and he loves all her race. He loves their religion. His daughter is ofthe religion of the white man. He himself has faith in their God.Their Great Spirit he adores, and he has made their medicine man hisson by adoption. Is the religion of the white man the same as thereligion of the children of the Stone? Is their Great Spirit our GreatSpirit? No; for I have heard His words spoken, and they are not thewords that we are taught. The white man's Spirit tells us that weshall not do that which our Great Spirit tells us to do. It bids mento spare their enemies and to forgive. Ours tells us to slay ourenemies and to avenge. Which is the true Spirit? Ours! For thepaleface does not believe in his own Spirit nor obey His commands. Hedoes not spare his enemies, he does not forgive, but he takesvengeance as fiercely as the redman, and against his own law. Let usthen obey the voice of our own Great Spirit, and do according to ourown customs; for the white man knows his God to be false, or he wouldobey His commandments. Now, what would the Black Eagle have? Would hehave us all turn Christians, or would he have us obey the voice of theManitou, and follow the customs of our fathers? Have we not doneaccording to our own laws? What do our traditions tell us? They saythat them shalt appease the spirit of thy brother who is slain, bypouring out the blood of the slayer, If his blood cannot be had, thenthat of one of his family or of his friends. If his family and hisfriends are not, then that of one of his nation. So now, what is thecase, chiefs and warriors of the Oneidas? You have a brother slain.His soul goes to the land of spirits, but his bow and his arrows hangidle at his back. His heart is sad and desolate. He howls for food,and finds none. He wanders round and round the happy hunting grounds,and looks in in sorrow, for he must not enter till the blood ofatonement has been shed. He cries to you from the other side of thegrave with a great cry, 'Give me rest!' Shall his brothers give himnone? Shall they let him wander, cold and hungry, amidst frost andsnows, within sight of the blessed region, and prevent him fromentering, or shall we take the first man we find of the race of himwho slew him, and by his blood, poured out upon this very stone,appease the spirit of our dead brother, and let him enter the happyhunting grounds, where his soul may find repose? Ye men of the familyof the Snake, ye have done well to seize upon the paleface wh
om yefirst found, for ye have made sure of an atonement for the blood ofyour brother; and how could ye know that ye could find it if yedelayed your hand, or abandoned your prey? And now, let the chiefs andthe warriors consider whether they will still keep their brother whois dead hungering and thirsting for months in the cold region, orwhether they will make the atonement this very day, and open the wayfor him into the happy hunting grounds? I have said."
Again a quiet silence took possession of the throng, and it lastedlong; but the eyes of the Black Eagle moved hither and thither roundthe circle, watching every face, and when he gathered, by a sort ofkindling look in the eyes of one of the warriors, that he was about tospeak, he himself interposed, rising this time to his full height, andsaying:
"The medicine man has spoken, and he has explained the law; but he hascounseled with words contrary to the law. The medicine man has the lawin his heart, but his words are the words of foxes. He has notunfolded the roll of the law into which the words of the Manitou werewhispered; but he says truly that we are to shed the blood of themurderer of our brother, to appease his spirit. If we cannot find him,we are to shed the blood of some one of his many kindred; if we cannotfind one of them, the blood of one of his nation; but have ye soughtfor the murderer, ye brethren of the Snake? Can ye say that ye havetried to catch him? Have ye had time? Will your brother who is gone becontented with the blood of the first paleface ye can find, when yemight find the real murderer? Will he lap, like the dog, at the firstpool in his way? Will he not rather say, 'Give us the sweet water thatonly can allay our thirst? Would ye sing in our ears, and make usbelieve music? This is not the blood of him who shed our blood. Thisis not the blood of his kindred. The happy hunting grounds will notopen to us for this blood.' Oneidas, it is the medicine man beguilesyou from the customs of your fathers. They say, 'Wait till ye havesearched diligently. Make sure that ye offer the best atonement thatye can. Do not kill the fox because the panther has mangled the game.Do not shoot the oriole for the thing that the hawk has done. The sonof my brother Prevost is no kin of the Yengee who slew the brother ofthe Snake. His blood will not atone if ye can find other blood morefriendly to the murderer. The eyes of the Manitou are over all; hesees that ye have not sought as ye should seek."
Some moments after he had spoken, but with a less interval than hadhitherto occurred between any of the speeches, a fierce-looking youngwarrior arose and exclaimed:
"Let him die! Why should we wait? The Woodchuck is safe in the land ofthe Yengees. He has taken himself far from the arrow of the Oneida.There is a cloud between us and him, and we cannot see through it. TheWoodchuck has no kindred. He has often declared so when he sat by thefire and talked of the deeds he has done. He has boasted that he was aman alone; that his father was hay and his mother grass, and thehemlock and the oak his brothers and his sisters. Neither him can wefind, nor any of his kin; but we have taken what was nearest tohim--his friend, and the son of his friend. This is the blood thatwill appease the spirit of our brother. Let him die, and die quickly.Does the Black Eagle ask if this boy was his friend? The Black Eagleknows he was; but moreover, it may be that he himself was thecompanion of the murderer even when he killed our brother. They wentforth together to seek some prey. Was it not the redman that thewolves hunted? They killed a panther and a man when they went forthtogether. That we know, for there were eyes of redmen near. The bloodof our brother was licked up by the earth. The skin of the panther wassent by this boy (our captive) to Otaitsa, the daughter of the BlackEagle. I took it from the runner this very day. The man who brought itis near at hand. The skin is here. I have said." And he threw thepanther's skin down before him, almost into the flame of the fire.
A buzzing murmur ran round the Indians, and the keen mind of the BlackEagle soon perceived that the danger of poor Walter Prevost wasgreatly heightened.
"Let the law be announced to us," he said. "The roll of the law ishere, but let it not be read by the tongue of a fox. Let the man ofancient times read it. Let the warrior and the priest who kept it forso many years now tell us what it ordains, according to theinterpretation of the old days, and not according to the rashness ofboys, who would be chiefs long before a scalp hangs at the door oftheir lodge. I can see," he cried, in a loud voice, starting up fromhis seat, and waving his arm, as if some strong emotion overpoweredhis habitual calmness, "I can see the time coming when theintemperance of youth and the want of respect for age and for renownwill bring low the power of the Oneidas, will crush the greatness ofthe Five Nations into dust. So long as age and counsel were reverencedthey were a mighty people, and the scalps of their enemies werebrought from every battlefield. They were a wise people, for theylistened to the voice of experience, and they circumvented theirenemies. But now the voices of boys and striplings prevail. They takepresents, and they sell themselves for baubles. They drink thefirewater till they are no more men, till reason has departed, andcourage and strength are not in them. They use the lightning, and theyplay with the thunder; but the tomahawk and the scalping knife aregreen rushes in their hands. Let the law be announced, then; let it beannounced by the voice of age and wisdom; and let us abide by hiswords, for they are good."
Thus saying, he stepped across the little chasm which lay between himand the second speaker on this occasion, and took up a heavy rollwhich lay beside the priest or medicine man. It consisted ofinnumerable strings of shells sawn into long strips, like the pendantsof an earring, and stained of three separate colors--black, red, andwhite. These were disposed in various curious groups, forming noregular pattern, but yet not without order; and so many were there inthis roll that, though each was very small, the weight of the wholecould not have been less than twenty or thirty pounds. Thus loaded,and bearing this burden with the appearance of great reverence, BlackEagle carried the roll half way round the circle and laid it upon theknees of a man evidently far advanced in life, although his shorn headand long white scalp-lock showed to an Indian eye, at least, that hestill judged himself fit to accompany the warriors of the tribe tobattle.
The chief then slowly resumed his seat, and once more profound silencespread over the assembly. The eyes of all were, it is true, directedtoward the old man whose exposition of their laws and customs was tobe final; but not a limb stirred, and even the very eagerness of theirgaze was subdued into a look of tranquil attention, except in the caseof the young man who had spoken so vehemently, and whose relationshipas a brother of the slain Indian excused, in the sight of the tribe, agood deal of unwonted agitation.
For some two minutes after receiving the roll the old priest remainedmotionless, with his eyes raised toward the flame that still toweredup before him, licking and scorching the branches of a hemlock treeabove. But at length his fingers began to move amongst the carvedshells, and, unloosing rapidly some thongs by which the roll wasbound, he spread out the seemingly tangled mass in fair order. Then,bending down his head, he seemed to listen, as if for a voice.
"The law of the Oneidas cannot change," he said, at length. "It is thewill of Hawaneyoh, the Great Spirit. A white man must die for theblood spilt by a white man; but the spiller of the blood must besought for, or our brother will still be shut out from the happyhunting grounds. Listen not to the song of singing birds against theyoung man, thou brother of the Snake. Neither do thou make trouble inthe Five Nations because the blossom of the Black Eagle's tree cannotbe reached by thy hand."
The open allusion to that which he thought was one of the deep secretsof his bosom, was too much for even the Indian stoicism of the brotherof the Snake, and he drew his blanket or mantle over his chest as ifto hide what was within. Black Eagle, however, though probably takenas much by surprise as anyone by the old man's words, remainedperfectly unmoved, not a change of expression even appearing upon hisrigid features, though the speaker paused for a whole minute, as if tolet what he had said produce its full effect.
"Remember," continued the priest, "the prophecy of the child of thesky, Tohganawetah, when our fathers, under his counsels, j
oinedthemselves together in a perpetual league, a lifetime before apaleface was seen in the land. He said, 'When the white throats shallcome, if ye suffer dissensions among yourselves, ye shall pull downthe Long House of the Five Nations, cut down the tree of peace, andextinguish the council fire forever.' And wilt thou, brother of theSnake, bring this cloud upon thy people? Thou shalt search for him whospilt thy brother's blood till the moon have changed, and waxed andwaned again, and then thou shalt come before the sachems of the eighttotems and make manifest that thou hast not been able to find him orany of his kindred. Then shall the sachems choose a paleface for thesacrifice, and let him die the death of a warrior by the stroke of thetomahawk; but they shall make no delay, for thy brother must not beshut out from the hunters gone before, more than two moons. Hiro! Ihave spoken."
"Hou?, hou?! It is well!" said all the Indians present but one, and,rising from their seats, they raised the roll of their law reverently,and one by one glided down the path which led to the opening of thedell.