IX

HIAWATHA AND THE PEARL-FEATHER

ONCE Nokomis was standing with Hiawatha beside her upon the shore of the Big-Sea-Water, watching the sunset, and she pointed to the west, and said to Hiawatha: "There is the dwelling of the Pearl-Feather, the great wizard who is guarded by the fiery snakes that coil and play together in the black pitch-water. You can see them now." And Hiawatha beheld the fiery snakes twist and wriggle in the black water and coil and uncoil themselves in play. Nokomis went on: "The great wizard killed my father, who had come down from the moon to find me. He killed him by wicked spells and by sly cunning, and now he sends the rank mist of marshes and the deadly fog that brings sickness and death among our people. Take your bow, Hiawatha," said Nokomis, "and your war-club and your magic mittens. Take the oil of the sturgeon, Nahma, so that your canoe may glide easily through the sticky black pitch-water, and go and kill this great wizard. Save our people from the fever that he breathes at them across the marshes, and punish him for my father's death."

Swiftly Hiawatha took his war-club and his arrows and his magic mittens, launched his birch canoe upon the water and cried: "O Birch Canoe, leap forward where you see the snakes that play in the black pitch-water. Leap forward swiftly, O my Birch Canoe, while I sing my war-song," and the canoe darted forward like a live thing until it reached the spot where the fiery serpents were sporting in the water.

"Out of my way, O serpents!" cried Hiawatha, "out of my way and let me go to fight with Pearl-Feather, the awful wizard!" But the serpents only hissed and answered: "Go back, Coward; go back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!"

Then Hiawatha took his bow and sent his arrows singing among the serpents, and at every shot one of them was killed, until they all lay dead upon the water.

"Onward, my Birch Canoe!" cried Hiawatha; "onward to the home of the great wizard!" and the canoe darted forward once again.

It was a strange, strange place that Hiawatha had entered with his birch canoe! The water was as black as ink, and on the shores of the lake dead men lit fires that twinkled in the darkness like the eyes of a wicked old witch. Awful shrieks and whistling echoed over the water, and the heron flapped about the marshes to tell all the evil beings who lived there that Hiawatha was coming to fight with the great wizard.

Hiawatha sailed over this dismal lake all night long, and at last, when the sun rose, he saw on the shore in front of him the wigwam of the great magician, Pearl-Feather. The canoe darted ahead faster and faster until it grated on the beach, and Hiawatha fitted an arrow to his bowstring and sent it hissing into the open doorway of the wigwam.

"Come out and fight me, Pearl-Feather!" cried Hiawatha; "come out and fight me if you dare!"

Then Pearl-Feather stepped out of his wigwam and stood in the open before Hiawatha. He was painted red and yellow and blue and was terrible to see. In his hand was a heavy war-club, and he wore a shirt of shining wampum that would keep out an arrow and break the force of any blow.

"Well do I know you, Hiawatha!" shouted Pearl-Feather in a deep and awful voice. "Go back to Nokomis, coward that you are; for if you stay here, I will kill you as I killed her father."

"Words are not as sharp as arrows," answered Hiawatha, bending his bow.

Then began a battle even more terrible than the one among the mountains when Hiawatha fought with Mudjekeewis, and it lasted all one summer's day. For Hiawatha's arrows could not pierce Pearl-Feather's shirt of wampum, and he could not break it with the blows of his magic mittens.

At sunset Hiawatha was so weary that he leaned on his bow to rest. His heavy war-club was broken, his magic mittens were torn to pieces, and he had only three arrows left. "Alas," sighed Hiawatha, "the great magician is too strong for me!"

Suddenly, from the branches of the tree nearest him, he heard the woodpecker calling to him: "Hiawatha, Hiawatha," said the woodpecker, "aim your arrows at the tuft of hair on Pearl-Feather's head. Aim them at the roots of his long black hair, for there alone can you do him any harm." Just then Pearl-Feather stooped to pick up a big stone to throw at Hiawatha, who bent his bow and struck Pearl-Feather with an arrow right on the top of the head. Pearl-Feather staggered forward like a wounded buffalo. "Twang!" went the bowstring again, and the wizard's knees trembled beneath him, for the second arrow had struck in the same spot as the first and had made the wound much deeper. A third arrow followed swiftly, and Pearl-Feather saw the eyes of Death glare at him from the darkness, and he fell forward on his face right at the feet of Hiawatha and lay there dead.

Then Hiawatha called the woodpecker to him, and as a mark of gratitude he stained the tuft of feathers on the woodpecker's head with the blood of the dead Pearl-Feather, and the woodpecker wears his tuft of blood-red feathers to this day.

Hiawatha took the shirt of wampum from the dead wizard as a sign of victory, and from Pearl-Feather's wigwam he carried all the skins and furs and arrows that he could find, and they were many. He loaded his canoe with them and sped homeward over the pitch-water, past the dead bodies of the fiery serpents until he saw Chibiabos and Kwasind and Nokomis waiting for him on the shore. All the Indians assembled and gave a feast in Hiawatha's honor, and they sang and danced for joy because the great wizard would never again send sickness and death among them. And Hiawatha took the red crest of the woodpecker to decorate his pipe, for he knew that to the woodpecker his victory was due.