The Hidden Children Part 67

General Sullivan laughed again, playing with the polished gorget at his throat.

"Do you never take any credit for your accomplishments, Mr. Loskiel?"

he inquired.

"How can I claim credit for that which was not of my own and proper plotting, sir?"

"Oh, it can be done," said the General, laughing more heartily. "Ask some of our brigadiers and colonels, Mr. Loskiel, who desire advancement every time that heaven interposes to save them from their own stupidities! Well, well, let it go, sir! It is on a different matter that I have summoned you here--a very different business, Mr.

Loskiel--one which I do not thoroughly comprehend.

"All I know is this: that we Continentals are warring with Britain and her allies of the Long House, that our few Oneida and Stockbridge Indians are fighting with us. But it seems that between the Indians of King George and those who espouse our cause there is a deeper and bloodier and more mysterious feud."

"Yes, General."

"What is it?" he asked bluntly.

"A religious feud--terrible, implacable. But this is only between the degraded and perverted priesthood of the Senecas and our Oneidas and Mohicans, whose Sachems and Sagamores have been outraged and affronted by the blasphemous mockeries of Amochol."

"I have heard something of this."

"No doubt, sir. And it is true. The Senecas are different. They belong not in the Long House. They are an alien people at heart, and seem more nearly akin to the Western Indians, save that they share with the Confederacy its common Huron-Iroquois speech. For although their ensigns sit at the most sacred rite of the Confederacy, perhaps not daring in Federal Council to reveal what they truly are, I am convinced, sir, that of the Seneca Sachems the majority are at heart pagans. I do not mean non-Christians, of course; they are that anyway; but I mean they are degenerated from the more n.o.ble faith of the Iroquois, who, after all, acknowledge one G.o.d as we do, and have become the brutally superst.i.tious slaves of their vile and perverted priests.

"It is the sp.a.w.n of Frontenac that has done this. What the Wyoming Witch did at Wyoming her demons will do hereafter. Witchcraft, the frenzied wors.h.i.+p of goblins, ghouls, and devils, the sacrifice to Biskoonah, all these have little by little taken the place of the grotesque but harmless rites practiced at the Onon-hou-aroria. Amochol has made it sinister and terrible beyond words; and it is making of the Senecas a swarm of fiends from h.e.l.l itself.

"This, sir, is the truth. The orthodox priesthood of the Long House shudders and looks askance, but dares not interfere. As for Sir John, and Butler, and McDonald, what do they care as long as their Senecas are inflamed to fury, and fight the more ruthlessly? No, sir, only the priesthood of our own allies has dared to accept the challenge from Amochol and his People of the Cat. Between these it is now a war of utter extermination. And must be so until not one Erie survives, and until Amochol lies dead upon his proper altar!"

The General said in a low voice:

"I had not supposed that this business were so vital."

"Yes, sir, it is vital to the existence of the Iroquois as a federated people who shall remain harmless after we have subdued them, that Amochol and his acolytes die in the very ashes they have so horribly profaned. Amherst hung two of them. The nation lay stunned until he left this country. Had he remained and executed a dozen more Sachems with the rope, the world, I think, had never heard of Amochol."

The General looked hard at me:

"Can you reach Amochol, Mr. Loskiel?"

"That is what I would say to you, sir. I think I can reach him at Catharines-town with my Indians and a detachment from my own regiment, and crush him before he is alarmed by the advance of this army. I have spoken with my Indians, and they believe this can be accomplished, because we have learned that on the last day of this month the secret and debased rites of the Onon-hou-aroria will be practiced at Catharines-town; and every Sorcerer will be there."

"Do you propose to go out in advance on this business?"

"It must be done that way, sir, if we can hope to destroy this Sorcerer. The Seneca scouts most certainly watch this encampment from every hilltop. And the day this army stirs on its march to Catharines-town and Kendaia, the news will run into the North like lightning. You, sir, can hope to encounter no armed resistance as you march northward burning town after town, save only if Butler makes a stand or attempts an ambuscade in force.

"Otherwise, no Seneca will await your coming--I mean there will be no considerable force of Senecas to oppose you in their towns, only the usual scalping parties hanging just outside the smoke veil. All will retire before you. And how is Amochol to be destroyed at Catharines-town unless he be struck at secretly before your advance is near enough to frighten him?"

"What people would you take with you?"

"My Indians, Lieutenant Boyd, and thirty riflemen."

"Is that not too few?"

"In all swift and secret marches, sir, a few do better service than many--as you have taught your own people many a time."

"That is quite true. But they never seem to learn the lesson. I am somewhat astonished that you have seemed to learn it, and lay it practically to heart." He smiled, drummed on the table with a Faber pencil, then, knitting his brows, drew to him a sheet of paper and wrote on it slowly, pausing from time to time in troubled reflection.

Once he glanced up at me coldly, and:

"Who is to lead this expedition?" he asked bluntly.

"Why, Lieutenant Boyd, sir," said I, wondering.

"Oh! You have no ambitions then?"

"Mr. Boyd ranks me," I said, smiling. "Who else should lead?"

"I see. Well, sir, you understand that a new commission lies all neatly folded for you in Catharines-town. Even such a modest man as you, Mr.

Loskiel, could scarce doubt that," he added laughingly.

"No, sir, I do not doubt it."

"That is well, then. Orders will be sent you in due time--not until General Clinton's army arrives, however."

He looked at me pleasantly: "I have robbed you of the sleep most justly due you. But I think perhaps you may not regret this conference.

Good-night, sir."

I saluted and went out. An orderly with a torch lighted me to my quarters. Inside the bush-hut a.s.signed to the Mohican and myself, the red torch-light flickered over the rec.u.mbent Sagamore, swathed in his blanket, motionless. But even as I looked one of his eyes opened a little way, glimmering like a jewel in the ruddy darkness, then closed again.

So I stretched myself out in my blanket beside the Sagamore, and, thinking of Lois, fell presently into a sweet and dreamless sleep.

At six o'clock the morning gun awoke me with its startling and annoying thunder. The Sagamore sat up in his blanket, wearing that half-irritated, half-shamed expression always to be seen on an Indian's countenance when cannon are fired. An Indian has no stomach for artillery, and hates sight and sound of the metal monsters.

For a few moments I bantered him sleepily, then dropped back into my blanket. What cared I for their insolent morning gun! I snapped my fingers at it.

And so I lolled on my back, half asleep, yet not wholly, and soon tired of this, and, wrapping me in my blanket and drawing on ankle moccasins, went down to the Chemung where its crystal current clattered over the stones, and found me a clear, deep pool to flounder in.

Before I plunged, noticing several fine trout lying there, I played a scurvy trick on them, tickling three big ones; and had a fourth out of water, but was careless, and he slipped back.

Some Continental soldiers who had been watching me, mouths agape, went to another pool to try their skill; but while I would not boast, it is not everybody who can tickle a speckled trout; and after my bath the soldiers were still at it, and d.a.m.ning their eyes, their luck, and the pretty fish which so saucily flouted them.

So I flung 'em a big trout and went back to camp whistling, and there found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely renewing their paint.

Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a ba.s.s-wood leaf, and when they were done and smelling most fragrant, we all made a delicious feast, with corn bread from the ovens and salt pork and a great jug of milk from the army's herd.

At eight o'clock another gun was fired. This was the daily signal, I learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And another gun fired at ten o'clock meant "March." With all these guns, and a fourth at sundown, I saw an unhappy time ahead for my Indians. Truly, I think the sound makes them sick. They all pulled wry faces now, and I had my jest at their expense, ours being a most happy little family, so amiably did the Mohican and Oneidas foregather; and also, there being among them a Sagamore and a Chief of the n.o.ble Oneida clan, I could meet them on an equality of footing which infringed nothing on military etiquette.

There were doubtless many interpreters in camp, but few, if any, I suppose, who had had the advantage of such training as I under Guy Johnson, who himself, after Sir William's death, was appointed Indian Superintendent under the Crown for all North America, Guy Johnson knew the Iroquois. And if he lacked the character, personal charm, and knowledge that Sir William possessed, yet in the politics and diplomacy of Indian affairs his knowledge and practice were vast, and his services most valuable to his King.

Under him I had been schooled, and also under the veteran deputies, Colonel Croghan, Colonel Butler, and Colonel Claus; and had learned much from old Cadwallader Colden, too, who came often to Guy Park, as did our good General Philip Schuyler in these peaceful days.

So I knew how to treat any Indian I had ever seen, save only the outlandish creatures of the Senecas. Else, perhaps, I had sooner penetrated the villainy of the Erie. Yet, even my own Indians had not been altogether certain of the traitor's ident.i.ty until almost at the very end.