CHAPTER XIV.IN BONDS AND OUT OF THEM.
All that night and the next day, the savage troop sped on through the forest. When twilight came, Mahaska issued orders for a halt. She had paid no attention to Gi-en-gwa-tah after their conversation the night before, and he had ridden on almost unnoticed, keeping close to the white captive. The mingled wrath, indignation and sorrow which filled his mind it were not in the power of words to describe. But all the while his pity for the unfortunate captive rose more strongly than those harsher feelings. He was horrified by Mahaska’s base treachery; every instinct of his honorable nature rose up against it. He knew that his expostulations would only increase the dangers that menaced the captive, and might, indeed, lead to her instant death. He foresaw that when they reached the tribe, Mahaska’s will might not be disputed, and that any arguments he could employ would be treated with disdain by the chiefs, so completely were they under the control of the imperious woman. For the first time he fully realized the extent of Mahaska’s power. He now only became fully conscious of the terrible uses she would make of it. Warfare and strife were the rightful inheritance of his savage nature, but uprightness and truth were equally well rooted there, and he shrunk in abhorrence from the unscrupulous path along which she intended to lead his people. There was but one way open to him—he might be able to effect Adèle’s escape. He would bend all his energies to accomplish that, and thus save any further open conflict with his wife.
When the second evening came, the Indians proposed to encamp for the night. Adèle became so exhausted by the hard journey, that her guard was obliged to support her on her horse. She had sunk into a state of passive misery, from which, at intervals, a keen pang would rouse her as some recollection of her husband or child intruded like the sudden thrust of a dagger. Mahaska rode all day a little in advance of her prisoner. She was in one of her most agreeablehumors, conversing gayly with those about her, and ever and anon her clear laugh would ring on the air, mocking Adèle with recollections of the time when that sound had been full of pleasure to her ear.
Gi-en-gwa-tah had on the previous evening effected a reconciliation with Mahaska. Not that she forgave him for venturing to oppose her, or had, in the least, resigned her revengeful determination; but, like Catharine De Medicis, she loved to bestow her softest smiles and blandest words upon those whose destruction she was plotting.
Once or twice during the journey, the chief had found an opportunity to make a slight sign to Adèle which filled her heart with a hope, only to die out in new agony as the hours wore on and the distance lengthened between her and all prospect of deliverance.
“We will rest here to-night,” Mahaska said, as she dismounted from her horse. “Let the tent be spread, but, before the dawn, all must be ready for departure.”
Mahaska’s prudence would not allow a fire to be kindled, although there was no probability that their pursuers could be anywhere within the neighborhood, but she was determined to run no risks where her hapless captive was concerned. Adèle was taken off her horse and seated upon a pile of blankets near Mahaska’s tent. The moonlight was sufficient to make every object distinctly visible, and, as she sat there in the vacancy of her despair, she could see the woman moving briskly about, superintending every arrangement, doubling the usual number of sentinels, appointing a portion of her guard to watch near her place of repose, and employing every means of security that vigilance, sharpened by revenge, could devise.
They placed food before the captive; but at first she turned from it with sickly loathing, and again Gi-en-gwa-tah passed her, and she heard him whisper rapidly in broken French:
“Let the pale-face eat—she will need much strength before the dawn comes.”
She could not repress one start; he moved on with a warning gesture, and seated himself with his back toward her at a considerable distance. She took up the piece of bark upon which the food had been spread, and ate eagerly of thecorn-bread and dried venison; she had been so many hours without food, that the supper brought back an increase of strength, and the new hope which stirred her heart added sudden vitality to her frame.
While she was sitting there, Mahaska approached and stood looking down upon her with an icy smile.
“This is not like the castle to which the Governor’s wife is accustomed, and in which my mother pined herself to death,” she said, with cruel sarcasm; “Mahaska hopes to receive the lady in her own palace before many days.”
Adèle made no answer; she was looking in the woman’s face, wondering if it could indeed be real—if she saw before her the girl in whose arms she had so often slept in peace and affection, with whom she had shared every hope and joy, and whose happiness had been the chief study of her young life.
“Can you, indeed, be Katharine!” she exclaimed, involuntarily, giving expression to her thoughts.
“The pale-face mistakes,” returned Mahaska, with a warning quiver in her voice; “I am Mahaska, queen of the Senecas, a prophetess among the Six Nations. If the whites gave her another name, she flung it in the dirt with every thing else that was theirs.”
“But you were once my friend,” cried Adèle, nerved by desperation to make one last effort to touch her heart. “I loved you as a sister—I shared every hope, every enjoyment with you; surely, all recollection of the old time can not have died out of your soul, Katharine?”
“It has not!” she exclaimed, with sudden passion; “Mahaska never forgets! You came between me and all that makes life endurable—you trailed the venom of your smile over every hope of my heart—you usurped my place in the house of my father—you made me an outcast, an alien, and then dared to insult me by offering your pity to her you called the ‘poor half-breed!’”
“Had you been my own sister, I could not have loved you more fondly,” returned Adèle. “Oh, Katharine, give up those cruel thoughts—even now, I will forget the past and be your friend—”
Mahaska interrupted her with a laugh.
“Queen Mahaska can not express her gratitude for the honor Madame De Laguy offers her,” she said.
“Oh, Katharine, do not mock me with such cruel words Theremustbe some tenderness left in your heart! I implore you, by the pious teaching we learned together in the convent for the love of the Virgin, whom they taught us to venerate, to show mercy.”
“The superstitions of the pale-face found no resting-place in Mahaska’s mind,” she replied. “I am an Indian, the faith of the red-men is mine. I once was Katharine the half-breed but now am Mahaska, queen of the Senecas!”
“By your father’s memory—”
“He broke my mother’s heart that yours might fill her home; forced me out of his heart to give you a place there; do not rousethatrecollection.”
Adèle wrung her hands in anguish.
“You have a husband,” she cried, “perhaps a child; oh by the love you bear that little one, have mercy on my poor babe!”
Mahaska clenched her hands in the loose sleeves of her robe and cried in a terrible voice:
“Yes, I have a son, and thanks to you and yours, his father is anIndian! Your cowardly prayers can not touch my heart! I tell you, before three days are gone, the winds shall bear the smoke of your funeral-pile toward the husband and child of whom you boast.”
Adèle sunk back in her seat and covered her face with the folds of her mantle. Mahaska stood for an instant, regarding her with fierce joy. Then she turned to move away. When Adèle heard the rustle of her robes and comprehended that she was leaving her without a word, she flung out her hands and cried:
“Stay, stay—hear me yet!”
Mahaska paused and looked down upon her with the same scornful smile wreathing her lips.
“Let the pale-face speak quickly, Mahaska has no time to waste in hearing complaints.”
“Your nation is at peace with the French,” said Adèle, eagerly; “this act will break off all friendship between you—”
“Does the pale-face threaten?” demanded Mahaska, with a calmness more appalling than her rage.
“No, no! But you would not be guilty of an art of treachery—”
“Enough!” interrupted she. “The Six Nations are no longer at peace with the cowardly Frenchmen; they are weary of being cajoled and treated like slaves; the hate that fills their queen’s heart now inspires the tribes. We are your enemies and fear not!”
Adèle let her hands drop in her lap. She had exhausted every appeal, every argument, but the woman only remained the more merciless and immovable.
“I can say no more,” she sobbed, brokenly; “kill me then. But at least show me one mercy—end my sufferings at once.”
Mahaska caught her wrist, fairly hissing in her face:
“You shall die by inches! Would that you had a hundred lives! I have the heart to crush each with unheard of torture! There is no hope—no release! You shall be my slave. There is no degradation I will not heap upon you—no outrage you shall not endure! Death shall be long in coming; every torture, every groan shall be reported to your false husband, and crush him with its agony.”
She thrust the wretched creature wildly from her and went away without another word, leaving Adèle crouched upon the ground, so overcome by horror that she could not even comfort her misery by a prayer. She sat upon the earth motionless, until one of the savages approached and made signs that she was to enter the tent. She comprehended that Mahaska did not intend to lose sight of her even for an instant; there was no possibility of release from the panther’s lair.
She crept into the tent and lay down upon the greensward that covered the earth which it shadowed like a carpet, but sleep, worn out as she was, would not come to her relief.
There she lay, listening to every sound, while the moments appeared like hours, and it seemed to the hapless creature that death in its most terrible form would not be so hard to bear as the agony of that suspense. She could only lie there in passive immobility, trying to murmur broken prayers, at times roused into keener torture by the thought of her husband andchild, seeming to hear their voices call her, springing up on the furs with a wild belief that it was real, then sinking back overwhelmed with fresh agony by the consciousness of her own delirious fancies.
So the night dragged on, but what time passed, whether moments or hours, the girl could not tell.
When the camp grew quiet, Gi-en-gwa-tah saw Mahaska start softly away toward the forest. Once he might have thought that she had gone to consult her spirits, but the events of the past few days had blotted out his superstitious belief; he determined to follow her.
Mahaska walked on under the forest-boughs until she reached a little natural clearing, and paused. The moonlight made the place clear as day. He saw her glance narrowly about, as if she were not certain of its being the place which she sought. Suddenly her eye caught some white fragment fluttering on a blasted oak, and the chief saw by her face that it was a signal which she had expected. She took her whistle from her bosom and sounded a low call. This was answered from a neighboring thicket, and soon Gi-en-gwa-tah saw a man, gliding from the underbrush, approach her. The watchful and now excited chief crept slowly toward the log where Mahaska had seated herself. He paused within sound of their voices, concealed perfectly by a clump of bushes. He could see the man’s face now, and recognized the half-breed, Rene, whom he had seen in Quebec.
“I have had no opportunity of speaking with you until to-night,” Mahaska was saying in French.
“You have ridden fast, day and night,” he returned; “I had difficulty in keeping in advance of you, but this was our last meeting-place, so I thought I should meet you here.”
“Do you know who is with me?” she asked.
“A prisoner I could see, but nothing more.”
She laughed.
“A prisoner, indeed! Go back to the English General and tell him queen Mahaska has indeed shaken off all faith with the French: she carries with her the wife of the Governor of Canada!”
The spy gave a start of mingled fear and astonishment her reckless daring.
“The French will be mad!” he exclaimed.
“Ay, ay!” she said. “But let them come! I am ready to meet them.”
“Do you mean to demand a heavy ransom?” he asked.
“A ransom!” she repeated; “forher! Man, there isn’t gold enough in all France, to buyherransom!”
She checked herself suddenly and added in a calmer tone:
“Never mind what I mean, Rene, but listen to what I bid you do. Go back to the English General and tell him what has happened; tell him that my prisoners are my own and he can not interfere; but my people will now be with him to a man. The next battle he fights, tell him to call for as many warriors from the Six Nations as he may wish.”
The spy bowed respectfully. One could see in his wicked, crafty face, how his petty soul was overawed by the woman’s boldness.
“Rene will do his errand well,” he said; “the queen has always been content with him?”
“Yes, yes! You will tell the General that before long the queen hopes to see him; she has many things to tell, many plans to reveal which are for his ear alone. Tell him this, that soon she will reign alone among the Indians, and then—but no matter.”
Gi-en-gwa-tah was listening breathlessly to her words; the spy looked at her in surprise.
“But the queen has a husband, a great chief.”
“Bah! the power that made can unmake; Mahaska will soon sweep the traitor from her path—his days are on the wane.”
Even in that terrible moment, bitter sorrow was the prominent feeling in the chief’s mind as he heard those words.
“Has the queen any other message for the General? Would she like more presents for her palace?”
“No, the house is well supplied, Rene. My people believe those gifts came from the Great Spirit. What would they think if they knew you were one of his messengers?”
She laughed as she spoke. How the last spark of faith had gone out in Gi-en-gwa-tah’s mind; he comprehended all her falsity.
For some time longer she conversed with the spy, but asthey rose to go, Gi-en-gwa-tah crept away through the bushes, anxious to reach the camp before Mahaska.
His course was clear. Her treachery and deception must be exposed to the tribes at the first opportunity, but he could not think of that now; he had another work to perform. He must save the wife of his ally; that very night she must be removed beyond the reach of Mahaska’s vengeance. Silently as he glided away, some sound reached Mahaska’s ear. She touched the spy’s arm warningly, and both bent their keen eyes in the direction to which she pointed.
Mahaska caught sight of the retreating form and recognized the chief.
“It is Gi-en-gwa-tah!” exclaimed the spy; “he has overheard us.”
“It matters not,” she replied; “this only seals his fate; an hour after our arrival at the lake village, you should hear his death-song if you could be near.”
She waved a careless adieu to the spy and walked rapidly away toward the camp. She soon entered the tent—threw off the fur cloak she had worn during the evening, flung her coronet of feathers upon it and lay down on the bed. Once she drew near Adèle, but the sleepless captive closed her eyes to avoid the sight; and, apparently satisfied that her victim was sleeping, Mahaska turned away for repose. A drinking cup had been set near her bed, for she never slept without a cooling draught within reach of her hand. Before lying down, she quaffed a deep draught and covered herself up with furs.
Adèle heard the sound of her breathing, and ere long she was sleeping heavily. Then, there was a grating upon the side of the tent—a warning whisper reached her ear; a face appeared at an aperture close by the ground, and in the moonlight she recognized the features of the chief, Mahaska’s husband.
“Let the pale-face rise,” he whispered.
He caught her hand when she moved, suddenly, and drew her toward him.
“The queen will not wake,” he said; “her cup was drugged from the medicine-flask. The pale-face must put on the queen’s own fur mantle and coronet, and walk out of the tentand go slowly down the hill. She will find Gi-en-gwa-tah there.”
The chief disappeared and Adèle rose to perform his bidding. It seemed to her that she did not move; she was unconscious of feeling any great eagerness; her limbs felt half-paralyzed; the shock of a new hope had fairly benumbed her faculties.
She saw that Mahaska had not stirred. Then she put the coronet on her head, threw the mantle over her shoulder, and gathering the folds about her face passed out of the tent. At the entrance a sudden thought occurred to her; she crept back to her bed, heaped some loose furs together on the spot she had occupied, so that if Mahaska awoke, it would appear as if some one were lying among them; this done, she passed out into the moonlight.
The guards were dozing near the tent, but as it was almost a nightly occurrence, when in camp, for Mahaska to walk abroad, sometimes for hours, when the tall form passed them, wrapped in the rich mantle and crowned with the familiar diadem, they did not move, and the fugitive walked on. At length she reached the trysting-place at the foot of the hill. She then beheld the chief waiting under the trees, mounted upon his horse. Without a word, he raised her in front of his saddle and dashed off through the wilderness.
“The pale-face must have courage,” he said, after a time; “before many hours she shall be with her friends. Gi-en-gwa-tah left signs along the path which will guide them. When the day breaks, let the lady watch; she will see her companions coming.”
It was long before Adèle could feel that she had escaped—that she was on the path to freedom and safety. She could not weep; a low prayer went up from her inmost soul—that was all. She tried to speak a few broken words of thankfulness, but the chief checked her with grave kindness.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah understands the pale-face; let her be silent—he has sad thoughts in his heart.”
On, on, they sped through the great forest. The morn waned, the dawn broke, the sun rose and lighted the wilderness with its golden gleams.
Adèle recognized many a vine-wreathed rock and picturesquenook which, during the previous day, she had seen vanish into distance with a feeling of despair; now she watched them fade with hope growing stronger in her soul, for they put space between her and the danger which had menaced her life.
The officer who commanded Adèle’s escort had sent intelligence with all speed back to the Governor, and on the next day the frenzied husband had reached the scene of his wife’s capture. Without an hour’s delay, he was rushing through the wilderness in pursuit of her, but he dared not even hope; he felt instinctively in whose hands she had fallen, and almost sunk under the horror of the thought.
It was after midday, but the horse of the chief still kept gallantly on his way, as if he understood the danger from which he was bearing his charge.
They reached a sudden rise in the path, when the forest gave place for a little distance to a natural opening. Looking down the slope, Adèle saw a band of horsemen approaching. Even at that distance, she recognized her husband, and stretched out her hands with a cry of such exquisite happiness, that the chief looked down upon her with sad envy. The horseman rushed up; in another moment Adèle was clasped in Gaston’s arms.
When the first burst of thankfulness was over, Adèle’s broken words made him understand all the chief had done. The Governor turned toward Gi-en-gwa-tah, who sat on his horse gravely watching them, and tried to express his gratitude.
The chief checked him.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah has acted aright,” he said; “the French were the friends of the Six Nations; bad counsels have led them astray, but Gi-en-gwa-tah can not endure treachery. He has brought back the Governor’s wife; let him take good care of her.”
He turned his horse to go; Adèle cried out with eager words of thankfulness.
“Let the Governor make his way on with all speed,” said the chief; “long before this the queen is on his track.”
He urged his horse on, and the Governor’s band turned back upon their homeward route in all haste.
It was sunset, and the chief paused a few moments to rest his weary horse.
He foresaw clearly the peril in which he had placed himself by the act he had committed, but it did not shake his firmness—he had acted as his conscience urged—he hoped, too, that the chiefs would yield to the justice of his report, and the queen would submit herself to their decision; for he now saw clearly that he must dispossess her from power to save the ruin of his tribe.
It was not till morning that Mahaska learned what had happened. The potion had worked well, and all through the night she had remained in deep, dreamless slumber. Her fury burst forth like a torrent, and when told that the chief was gone, she understood every thing. After the first spasm of passion she calmed herself, and, followed by her retinue, started off in pursuit; but they rode all day without discovering any trace of the fugitives, beyond the occasional footprints of their horse.
In the glory of the sunset the band galloped toward the spot where Gi-en-gwa-tah had paused. When Mahaska saw him she grasped her tomahawk as if to hurl it at his head; but, his calm courage checked her presumption, and she dashed toward him, crying out:
“What has Gi-en-gwa-tah done with the pale-face?”
He evinced no emotion at her sudden approach, and answered, quietly:
“She is safe with the Governor-chief. Gi-en-gwa-tah has kept the queen from doing a great wrong and bringing much harm upon her people!”
“Coward!” shrieked Mahaska. “Dog! you shall die with all the tortures reserved for her! Secure him—bind him, hand and foot, and drag the traitor before his chiefs.” Her guard sprung forward to obey her order, but the chief lifted his musket and called out:
“Gi-en-gwa-tah is your chief. The first brave who touches him, dies. He will go before his people—they shall judge him—not you, who are slaves of this woman.”
“They shall, indeed!” cried Mahaska; “he is a dog, and shall die a dog’s death.”
The chief turned upon her like a lion at bay.
“Let the woman beware; Gi-en-gwa-tah has borne in silence long enough; for her own sake, for her child’s sake, let her pause and think, before her craft is exposed.”
“Let him speak—who will heed his lies? What he means to say has been already revealed to Mahaska; he will dispute her power—he will say that the prophet does not direct her—that the Great Spirit did not fill her dwelling with gifts—let him speak—the queen laughs!”
He stood confounded by her words; he was at a loss to understand how she could have penetrated the secret he had discovered, and stunned by the matchless audacity with which she avowed it.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah may well look troubled,” she said; “he can not doubt the queen’s power, in spite of his lies.”
“He does doubt it!” he cried. “He knows that she is false—that the gifts which fill her home came from the English—he will tell all at the council—”
She interrupted him with a fearful denunciation, and again cried out:
“Secure him! Obey, or every guard shall hang before to-morrow’s sunset.”
The guards rushed forward again—the chief leveled the foremost with a blow of his musket, but he was speedily overpowered by numbers and soon bound hand and foot.
“Guard his horse,” cried Mahaska; “death to him who allows the traitor to escape! Now, on toward the lake!”
They paused neither for rest nor food till they came in sight of Senaca lake—Mahaska was so eager for revenge that she could hardly breathe till the moment arrived. Once only did the chief condescend to address argument or rebuke for the baseness and enormity of her conduct. She was riding near him for the moment, urging on the band to renewed exertions, when he turned toward her, saying:
“Mahaska has done a wicked thing; she is not worthy to be a queen among a brave people—Gi-en-gwa-tah can die—but his memory will be a curse that shall drag her down.”
“The dog snarls no longer!” she exclaimed, with a bitter laugh; “he begins to beg now; let him show his teeth to the last.”
“Gi-en-gwa-tah has no fear,” he answered; “Mahaska has not made the people wholly blind.”
“Gi-en-gwa-tah shall teach them to see,” she retorted; “they will listen to his voice—they will drive Mahaska into the forest at his bidding.”
“Let the queen wait,” he replied, with a calmness which galled her beyond endurance.
“The queen will bandy no words with a traitor,” she cried; “let the dog without a name be silent.”
His savage nature was on fire at the indignity with which he had been treated; he shook his pinioned hands, exclaiming:
“Mahaska is mad, and she will drive her people to destruction.”
“She will not betray them, as Gi-en-gwa-tah has done!” replied the woman.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah did that which was right; he does not need to be taught by a woman.”
“But he shall die by a woman’s hand!” she cried. “His death-shrieks will be sweet in his son’s ears!”
“He can die with a war-cry on his lips that his son shall remember,” he answered, proudly; “but his time is not yet; his people now, more than ever, need his counsel.”
“Gi-en-gwa-tah’s power is like a broken reed,” she said; “Mahaska rules the Senecas and soon shall rule the Six Nations, for it is the prophet’s will. She tells him that heshalldie and he shall!”
“Would the queen murder the father of her child?”
“Mahaska’s child is the gift of the Great Spirit!” she exclaimed; “he has no other father.”
“Mahaska speaks lies! She is false as an adder!”
“And her bite is more deadly. The chief shall feel it soon!”
“He does not fear! Let the band hasten on; Mahaska shall see how her people will receive her.”
“And Gi-en-gwa-tah shall hear their cries of hate,” she answered; “they will tear him limb from limb when Mahaska tells them all.”
“Gi-en-gwa-tah will speak for himself; he does not need a squaw to be his mouthpiece.”
He smiled scornfully at her passion.
“On!” she shrieked to her guards. “The queen can notbreathe the same air with that dog—on with him to judgment!”
They answered with a fierce shout, in which the chief seemed to hear his death-warrant, but he did not quail.
“These dogs are not chiefs,” he said; “they are only slaves that the squaw has bought with the gifts the English gave her. The chiefs will allow them no voice; they will be driven out of the tribe for their insults to its chief.”
They answered with menacing murmurs. Mahaska’s first impulse was to put him to death on the spot, but she waited; it was better to taste her revenge to the full. He should be punished in the presence of the whole tribe, as a warning to all who might ever after dare her displeasure. Thus she would confirm her power, and in his death, by decree of the council, would she make the chiefs confess her supremacy. After that, her word would be law, and even the council would be harmless.