CHAPTER XII.THE SPELL BROKEN.
Mahaska and her band of warriors rode into the Indian village with their chief a captive in their midst.
The people came out to meet them, and when the shouts of joy that greeted the queen’s return had died away, Gi-en-gwa-tah lifted his pinioned hands, and cried out:
“Behold the way in which your chief is treated! He comes among you, bound like a dog!”
“He suffers the disgrace of a traitor!” exclaimed Mahaska, “and the lips of the tribe shall pronounce upon him a traitor’s doom.”
The savages pressed about him in great confusion at the strange sight, and the words which the two had spoken.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah demands instant judgment!” cried the chief.
“The chiefs gave Mahaska command of the expedition,” said the woman, turning to the old men. “She has fulfilledtheir wishes. She is weary and will commune with her spirits; she asks that they may not meet in council till nightfall.”
The wily creature, it was apparent to her husband, desired to employ the interval in winning the principal warriors entirely to her cause.
“Let the council sit now!” exclaimed Gi-en-gwa-tah; “the chief is not to be kept bound at the bidding of a squaw.”
His violent words excited the interest and astonishment of the greater portion of those present. Their favorite chief and husband of their queen a prisoner and a traitor!
Old Upepah advanced, after a moment’s hesitation.
“I demand the council shall convene at once, for by delay to consult her dreams, this bad woman means to pour poison into your ears. I demand the council-fire to be litnow.”
“It shall be as the chief demands,” Upepah added.
“It shall not be!” shouted Mahaska, fairly beside herself, and fearful of the power which her husband’s eloquence would bring to bear against her.
“Mahaska is queen, not chief,” said Upepah. “She will not command now.”
“Shewillcommand. Shewillconsult the prophet before she goes to the council. It shall be as she says; nor will she release this dog until he goes to the council.” She spoke with frenzied energy, and looked like a Nemesis of fury.
“She dares not go where Gi-en-gwa-tah will expose her wicked craft and tell the story of her past crimes. Let my people only hear me and her power is gone forever. She then becomes my squaw, and the Senecas shall be saved from the destruction which she is plotting. To the council-chamber!” The chief rose upon his horse, extending his pinioned hands to the sight of his braves and the chiefs. Upepah stepped forward, and, with his knife, severed the thongs which bound his wrists.
Unable longer to control herself, the infuriated woman hurled her tomahawk full at Gi-en-gwa-tah’s head, but it passed harmlessly by him and buried itself in the brain of old Upepah, who sunk to the earth a corpse!
“Seize her—seize her!” cried a dozen voices at once, maddened as they were at the atrocious deed. But she drewherself up proudly on the horse, her eyes flashing and scintillating like a serpent’s.
“Let him who wants to die,” she hissed, “but touch a hair of my horse’s mane. Guards!” she added, in a tone of imperious command, “see to it that that dog does not escape. I will be at the council-chamber at nightfall.” With that, she turned to ride away for the castle. It was the mistake of her life, to leave her husband there with the people whom he might harangue, and, over the dead body of the aged chief, might recall the Senecas to a sense of their baseness and humiliation in submitting to the tyranny of a woman. But, she could not do otherwise; for the dead Upepah was a power she dare not face, and she resolved to rely upon her own resources for any emergency that might arise.
Gi-en-gwa-tah, at the fall of the old man, had leaped from his horse, and was leaning over him when the queen rode away. The bloody tomahawk he placed in his own girdle. Then he gave orders for the removal of the body to the council-house. The guards still hovered around as if to execute the queen’s orders for his secure keeping, but he did not notice them, and no attempt was made for his seizure. Arrived at the council-lodge, the crowd paused while the body was borne within. None but chiefs entered, at first, but Gi-en-gwa-tah ordered the old warriors to enter and the young braves to surround the building, that they might hear all that was said—a very unusual proceeding, for the young men had never been permitted even to hear the discussions in the lodge.
All was still and solemn as the death-scene within demanded. Soon, however, the voice of Gi-en-gwa-tah broke the stillness. At first it was low and monotonous, as if but the expression of commonplace phrases; but soon it grew in volume, and the attentive crowd without caught his words. They were the words of one who spoke with great pain, of one whose own wrongs were past expression. The speaker suddenly paused, and all outside thought his speech ended. It was but a moment’s lull, for, like a thunder-burst, his cry of mingled scorn, anguish, and offended honor rose wild and high, penetrating even to the forest beyond the lodges. The savages were riveted to the soil by the tremendous fury of the speaker’s eloquence—were silent and motionless as the great oaksaround. Higher and fuller rolled forth the volume of words. In the strong imagery of the Senecas’ figurative tongue, he painted not his own but his people’s abasement in permitting the will of a woman, proven to be artful as a serpent and as cruel as a wolf, to rule them. His language was, at times, that of resolution and defiance; then he uttered a reproof calculated to sting the Indians’ sense of honor; all at once, the picture of a nation humiliated by English insolence, bleeding from its feuds, sorrowing for its braves lost in an unholy contest against their old friends the French, sprung to vivid reality before their startled gaze, and the dread silence without was broken. A long, low howl, resembling a wail, broke over the masses; it was the wail of men roused to their danger and eager to retrieve it. Ere it had died away, the chief bent over, raised the body of the dead Upepah in his arms, held it aloft, crying in his loudest tones:
“As this body of our wise chief is a mark of the queen’s regard for our old men, it is but a type of the fate in store for the Seneca nation if she is permitted to exercise dominion over it. If it is your will to retain her as your ruler, then Gi-en-gwa-tah is a dog—a woman’s whelp—made to die by her hand as Upepah has died, and as others who oppose her will shall die.Lethim die rather than live and see his people a lost, ruined, and disgraced race.”
He ceased, and stepping forth from the council-lodge, placed his hands together and shouted:
“Guards! do the duty of your queen, and make your chief a dog!”
Not one of the hundred chosen braves stirred; they stood abashed and awed before the noble man. Soon a murmur ran through the crowd of young men surrounding the lodge; some clutched their tomahawks and looked fiercely at the silent guards; others talked excitedly together; a powerful body gathered around Gi-en-gwa-tah, until he was encompassed by a human wall which it were dangerous for any person to attempt to penetrate. Within the council-chamber now arose the sound of voices engaged in dispute. Gi-en-gwa-tah listened. The chiefs were disagreed as to the course to be pursued. Some were for banishing the woman from their midst; some would have her slain; others would retain her, butdeprive her of power. It was a moment of extreme pain to the chief; for soon surged up in his bosom his old love of the dazzling woman; she was the mother of his child, too; could he see his wife disgraced, driven away, or consent to her death? The struggle for a minute was fearful, for the cup was indeed bitter; but, there came back to him the last few days’ experiences—the remembrance of her scorn and galling insults—the knowledge of her duplicity and craft; and he was decided. She was no longer his wife—she was not the mother of his child, for she was a beautiful monster, as loathsome as a serpent and as treacherous.
“Guards!” he shouted, “bring hither Mahaska, the squaw of Gi-en-gwa-tah!”
The hundred men did not, for a moment, seem to comprehend the nature of the order.
“Dogs! I say, bring hither your woman master!”
The men moved slowly away to their task, for the fire in Gi-en-gwa-tah’s eyes, and the fierce temper sitting like a thunder-cloud on the features of the young braves surrounding him, proved to the guards that to disobey would be their own death-warrant.
They had not to proceed far, for Mahaska appeared on her way to the council. She was pale, and evidently intensely excited, though outwardly composed. Her dress was elaborate and gorgeous in the extreme, all the resources of her magnificent wardrobe having been taxed to add to her display. Evidently she knew what had transpired—some one of her body-guard probably having informed her of the proceedings—and she came forth realizing that the great and final crisis in her fortunes was to be faced. She was not unprepared; but, little did she know of the terrible strength of the elements against her.
Walking with a step of haughty independence, she passed on, the crowd giving way before her, and approached the lodge through an avenue of men. As she neared the entrance she confronted her husband, who stood with folded aims in her path.
“Away with you, dog—traitor—coward!” was her greeting.
She had determined, it was apparent, to carry her point byforce—too proud, too defiant to yield, at that crisis evoked by her own fury.
The chief stepped not out of her way, but more completely before her.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah will no longer permit a squaw decked in gewgaws presented by the English hogs as the price of her baseness, to address him. Thus he disposes of these emblems of disgrace and treachery.”
He deliberately seized her coronet of feathers and dashed it to the earth; then her splendid cloak and trail of crimson velvet he stripped from her shoulders. She was speechless and powerless before this unexpected display of audacious assumption, but, recovering in a moment, she caught the jeweled dagger from her belt, and, quick as thought, aimed a blow full at his breast. His hand was too rapid in its movement, for he caught her wrist in his vice-like clutch, drew the poniard from her grasp, and threw it away. He unclasped from her arm its serpent wristlet of gold and blood-stone, wrenched from her neck the splendid necklace of pearls and crown diamond. This done, he led her unresistingly into the lodge. Proceeding to its center, he said:
“Here is the murderer of Upepah—the attempted betrayer of my tribe—the deceiver and impostor. Do with her as you will. Gi-en-gwa-tah repudiates her as his wife; she is no longer the mother of his child, and he casts her forth as the enemy of his race—the destroyer of his peace. Henceforth she is not even to him a slave. Gi-en-gwa-tah bids her away—away forever, for the door of his lodge is closed against her.”
With that he left her, disrobed and disowned, standing alone in the center of the circle, while he took his seat on the ground in the first rank allotted to the leading chiefs.
“It is well!” said the eldest of the chiefs.
“It is well!” was slowly and solemnly repeated in turn by every one of the circle save Gi-en-gwa-tah, who sat as one conscious of his triumph, but too dignified, too much afflicted by the events of the hour to betray his feelings further. He was as impassive in his grief and pain as a statue of bronze—as insensible as a rock.
Mahaska stood as one in a dream. So sudden, so unexpected, had been the act of Gi-en-gwa-tah, as to confound her,while the conscious justice of his act seemed to strike her nerves powerless. Then that line of faces, as hard and as dark as flint, all acting with one common impulse of sympathy and duty, convinced the queen that she had, indeed, passed from power and was a queen no longer. This consciousness was overwhelming; the long pent-up, warped and perverted woman’s nature asserted itself; tears, so strange, so almost unknown to her wild, fierce breast, welled up in her eyes and dropped upon her bosom; a low moan, something like a wail and a sigh, broke from her white lips; and, clasping her hands over her heart, she turned and walked slowly out of the lodge toward the castle. All eyes followed her, but not a soul approached, for all respect for and fear of her had not passed away in that act of dethronement and widowhood. She was alone in her sorrow, and was so absorbed by it as to be unconscious of all things else. Once or twice she paused, and, for a second, the old baleful light of uncontrolled passion would gleam in her eyes and redden her cheeks; but only for a second, for the deadly whiteness would quickly return, and, with a gasp, a smothered sob, a suppressed cry of anguish painful even to the dullest sense, she would hurry on, evidently eager to reach the shelter of her lake retreat. How hateful, how reproachful all looked to her now! Everywhere were tokens of her deception and treachery; every article of English gift was a silent witness of her duplicity; but amid them were the gifts of costly furs from her noble husband’s hands, and oh, how they rebuked her! Strange that never before this woman, so shrewd, so sagacious, so intellectual, had looked upon herself in her true light!
But, she saw it all now; and not more desolate was the lonely pine on the mountain, with the wind sobbing and shrieking through its branches, than the soul of that proud, crushed woman at that moment.
Proceeding at once to her chamber, where she had left her boy asleep, she found his little couch of furs vacant—he was gone—was not there to receive her parting kiss! Thus was the cup of her agony made full, but, in her self-abasement, she felt that it was just the outraged father should have removed him. Mahaska sunk upon a seat and gave way to her great grief. Ah, it was terrible to witness. Such grief could onlycome from the conscience-stricken, from the wretch conscious of his own debasement past all redemption. For an hour she remained in her fearful agony—not over her wrecked fortunes, over her lost empire, over the detection of her true character and her humiliating exposure, for all these things her fierce nature could bear; but that she was an outcast, scorned by the savage who had loved her like a Spartan, despised by the race among whom she had come as prophet and queen, and, more than all, that she, a mother, was childless as well as a banished, disgraced wife—all these made her hour of agony one passing all words to depict. That hour had one redeeming virtue—it proved that she was a woman, and taught us to know that beneath the fury of the most violent natures is a deep of humanity and purity which will assert itself at the propitious moment.
At length Mahaska arose, gathered up some of the child’s little garments and some of her own clothing, which she made up into a light bundle. Then she took from the drawer of her dressing-case a purse of gold, and her jewels, which she placed in her bosom. A tomahawk and jeweled dagger she cast upon the floor, but, thinking a moment, she picked up the dagger and placed it in her belt. This completed her preparations for the exile; like Hagar, she was banished, but, unlike the Jewess, she had no child to comfort her and to suffer with her. Bestowing one long, agonizing look upon the child’s bed, murmuring his name in tones of endearment, she passed out of the castle, by the door looking out upon the lake. Her canoe she pushed off the sands, and, entering it, swept off over the waters just as darkness began to make somber shadows in the forests. Away she sped—out into the gloom until suddenly she vanished from sight, whether swallowed up in the deep waters or caught up into the clouds the Senecas could not divine. They had watched her departure in awe and in fear, for their superstitious souls still were filled with images of her divinity; and when the canoe suddenly vanished it was only to confirm their impression of her league with spirits—whether with the good or the bad spirits, they did not care to say.
The next morning Mahaska’s canoe was seen floating on the bosom of the water in the center of the lake, but she wasgone. It was brought to the shore and given to Gi-en-gwa-tah. The chief received it as a token of her final departure and placed it in the castle. Then he closed the building and it was left in all its loneliness, sitting upon the shore of the lake like a watcher daily and nightly awaiting for its mistress to come again, but she came not.
Mahaska, the Indian Queen, was no more.
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
[Fleuron]