CHAPTER XXII
More than five months had passed; months of great trouble and anxiety to many. The woods, blazing in their autumnal crimson when last we saw them, had worn and soiled in a short fortnight the glorious vestments of the autumn, and cast them to the earth, and now they had put on the green garments of the summer, and robed themselves in the tender hues of youth.
It was under a large tree, on a high bank commanding the whole prospect round for many and many a mile, and in the eastern part of the province of New York, that three redmen were seated in the early summer of 1758. A little distance in advance of them, and somewhat lower down the hill, was a small patch of brush, composed of fantastic-looking bushes, and one small blasted tree. It formed, as it were, a sort of screen to the Indians' resting place from all eyes below, and yet did not in the least impede their sight as it wandered over the wide forest world around them. From the elevation on which they were placed the eye of the redman, which seems, from constant practice, to have gained the keenness of the eagle's sight, could plunge into every part of the woods around, where the trees were not actually contiguous. The trail, wherever it quitted the shelter of the branches; the savanna, wherever it broke the outline of the forest; the river, where it wound along on its course to the ocean; the military road from the banks of the Hudson to the head of Lake Horicon; the smallest pond, the little stream, were all spread out to view as if upon a map.
Over the wide, extensive prospect the eyes of those three Indians wandered incessantly, not as if employed in searching for some definite object, the direction of which, if not the precise position, they knew, but rather as if they were looking for anything which might afford them some object of pursuit or interest. They sat there nearly two hours in the same position, and during the whole of that time not more than four or five words passed between them. But at length they began to converse, though at first in a low tone, as if the silence had its awe, even for them. One of them pointed with his hand toward a spot to the eastward, saying: "There is something doing there."
In the direction to which he called the attention of his companions was seen spread out in the midst of the forest and hills a small but exquisitely beautiful lake, seemingly joined on to another of much greater extent by a narrow channel. Of the former, the whole extent could not be seen, for every here and there a spur of the mountains cut off the view, and broke in upon the beautiful, waving line of the shore. The latter was more distinctly visible, spread out broad and even, with every little islet, headland, and promontory marked clear and definite against the bright, glistening surface of the waters. Near the point where the two lakes seemed to meet, the Indians could descry walls, and mounds of earth, and various buildings of considerable size--nay, even what was probably the broad banner of France, though it seemed but a mere whitish spot in the distance, was visible to their sight.
At the moment when the Indian spoke, coming from a distant point on the larger lake, the extreme end of which was lost to view in a sort of blue, indistinct haze, a large boat or ship might be seen, with broad white sails, wafted swiftly onward by a cold northeasterly wind. Some way behind it another moving object appeared, a boat likewise, but much more indistinct, and here and there, nearer inshore, two or three black specks, probably canoes, were darting along upon the bosom of the lake like waterflies upon the surface of a still stream.
"The palefaces take the warpath against each other," said another of the Indians, after gazing for a moment or two.
"May they all perish!" said the third. "Why are our people so mad as to help them? Let them fight, and slay, and scalp one another, and then the redman tomahawk the rest."
The other two uttered a bitter malediction in concert with this fierce but not impolitic thought, and then, after one of their long pauses, the first who had spoken resumed the conversation, saying: "Yet I would give one of the feathers of the white bird to know what the palefaces are doing. Their hearts are black against each other. Can you not tell us, Apukwa? You were on the banks of the Horicon yesterday, and must have heard the news from Corlear."
"The news from Albany matters much more," answered Apukwa. "The Yengees are marching up with a cloud of fighting men, and people know not where they will fall. Some think Oswego, some think Ticonderoga. I am sure that it is the place of the singing waters that they go against."
"Will they do much in the warpath," asked the brother of the Snake, "or will the Frenchman make himself as red as he did last year at the south of Horicon?"
"The place of the singing waters is strong, brother," replied Apukwa, in a musing tone, "and the Frenchmen are great warriors; but the Yengees are many in number, and they have called for aid from the Five Nations. I told the Huron who sold me powder, where the eagles would come down, and I think he would not let the tidings slumber beneath his tongue. The great winged canoes are coming up Corlear very quick, and I think my words must have been whispered in the French chiefs ear to cause them to fly so quickly to Ticonderoga."
A faint, nearly suppressed smile came upon the lips of his two companions as they heard of this proceeding; but the younger of the three inquired: "And what will Apukwa do in the battle?"
"Scalp my enemies," replied Apukwa, looking darkly round.
"Which is thine enemy?" asked the brother of the Snake.
"Both," answered the medicine man, bitterly; "and every true Honontkoh should do as I do; follow them closely, and slay every man that flies, be his nation what it may. So long as he be white it is enough for us. He is an enemy. Let us blunt our scalping knives on the skulls of the palefaces. Then when the battle is over we can take our trophies to the conqueror and say, 'We have been on thy side!'"
"But will he not know?" suggested the younger man. "Will he listen so easily to the song?"
"How should he know?" asked Apukwa, coldly. "If we took him redmen's scalps he might doubt; but all he asks is white men's scalps, and we will take them. They are all alike, and they will have no faces under them."
This ghastly jest was highly to the taste of the two hearers, and bending down their heads together, the three continued to converse for several minutes in a whisper. At length one of them said: "Could we not take Prevost's house as we go? How many brothers did you say would muster?"
"Nine," answered Apukwa, "and our three selves make twelve." Then, after pausing for a moment or two in thought, he added: "It would be sweet as the strawberry, and as easy to gather; but there may be thorns near it. We may tear ourselves, my brothers."
"I fear not," answered the brother of the Snake. "So that I but set my foot within that lodge, with my rifle in my hand and my tomahawk in my belt, I care not what follows."
"The boy is to die," answered Apukwa. "Why seek more in his lodge at thine own risk?"
The other did not answer, but after a moment's pause he asked: "Who is it has built the lodge still farther to the morning?"
"One of the workers of iron," answered Apukwa, meaning the Dutch. "He is a great chief, they say, and a friend of the Five Nations."
"Then no friend of ours, my brother," answered the other speaker; "for though it be the children of the Stone who have shut the door of the lodge against us and driven us from the council fire, the Five Nations have confirmed their saying, and made the Honontkoh a people apart. Why should we not fire that lodge, too, and then steal on to the dwelling of Prevost?"
"Thy lip is thirsty for something," said Apukwa. "Is it the maiden thou wouldst have?"
The other smiled darkly, and, after remaining silent for a short space, answered: "They have taken from me my captive, and my hand can never reach the Blossom I sought to gather. The boy may die, but not by my tomahawk; and when he does die I am no better, for I lose that which I sought to gain by his death. Are Apukwa's eyes misty, that he cannot see? The spirit of the Snake would have been as well satisfied with the blood of any other paleface, but that would not have satisfied me."
"But making Prevost's house red will not gather for thee the Blossom," answered Apukwa.
The third and younger of the Indians laughed, saying: "The wind changes, Apukwa, and so does the love of our brother. The maiden in the lodge of Prevost is more beautiful than the Blossom. We have seen her thrice since this moon grew big, and my brother calls her the Fawn, because she has become the object of his chase."
"Thou knowest not my thought," said the brother of the Snake, gravely; "the maiden is fair, and she moves round her father's lodge like the sun. She shall be the light of mine, too; but the brother of the Snake forgets not those who disappoint him; and the boy Prevost would rather see the tomahawk falling than know that the Fawn is in my lodge."
The other two uttered that peculiar humming sound by which the Indians sometimes intimate that they are satisfied, and the conversation which went on between them related chiefly to the chances of making a successful attack upon the house of Mr. Prevost. Occasionally, indeed, they turned their eyes toward the boats upon Lake Champlain, and commented upon the struggle that was about to be renewed between France and England. That each party had made vast preparations was well known, and intelligence of the extent and nature of these preparations had spread far and wide amongst the tribes, with wonderful accuracy as to many of the details, but without any certain knowledge of where the storm was to break.
All saw, however, and comprehended, that a change had come over the British government; that the hesitating and doubtful policy which had hitherto characterized their military movements in America was at an end, and that the contest was now to be waged for the gain and loss of all the European possessions on the American continent. Already it was known amongst the Five Nations, although the time for the transmission of the intelligence was incredibly small, that a large fleet and armament had arrived at Halifax, and that several naval successes over the French had cleared the way for some great enterprise in the north. At the same time, the neighborhood of Albany was full of the bustle of military preparation, and a large force was already collected under Abercrombie for some great attempt upon the lakes; and from the west, news had been received that a British army was marching rapidly toward the French forts upon the Ohio and the Monongahela. The Indian natives roused themselves at the sound of war, for though some few of them acted regularly in alliance with one or the other of the contending European powers, a greater number than is generally believed cared little whom they attacked, or for whom they fought, or whom they slew, and were, in reality, but as a flock of vultures, spreading their wings at the scent of battle, and ready to take advantage of the carnage, whatever was the result of the strife.