CHAPTER XXXIII.
In the meantime, and at the very moment when the renegade was urging his extraordinary proposals to the young Virginian, a scene was passing in the hut of Wenonga, in which one of Roland's fellow-prisoners was destined to play an important and remarkable part. There, in the very tent in which he had struck so daring a blow for the rescue of Edith, but in which Edith appeared no more, lay the luckless Nathan, a victim not so much of his own rashness as of the excessive zeal, not to say folly, of his coadjutors. And thither he had been conducted but a few hours before, after having passed the previous night and day in a prison-house less honoured, but fated, as it proved, to derive peculiar distinction from the presence of such a guest.
His extraordinary appearance, partaking so much of that of an Indian juggler arrayed in the panoply of legerdemain, had produced, as was mentioned, a powerful effect on the minds of his captors, ever prone to the grossest credulity and superstition; and this was prodigiously increased by the sudden recurrence of his disease,—a dreadful infliction, whose convulsions seem ever to have been proposed as the favourite exemplars for the expression of prophetic fury and the demoniacal orgasm, and were aped alike by the Pythian priestess on her tripod and the ruder impostor of an Indian wigwam. The foaming lips and convulsed limbs of the prisoner, if they did not "speak the god," to the awe-struck barbarians, declared at least the presence of the mighty fiend who possessed his body; and when the fit was over, though they took good care to bind him with thongs of bison-hide, like his companions, and led him away to a place of security, it was with a degree of gentleness and respect that proved the strength of their belief in his supernatural endowments. This belief was still further indicated, the next day, by crowds of savages who flocked into the wigwam where he was confined, some to stare at him, some to inquire the mysteries of their fate, and some, as it seemed, with credulity less unconditional, to solve the enigma of his appearance before yielding their full belief. Among these last were the renegade and one or two savages of a more sagacious or sceptical turn than their fellows, who beset the supposed conjuror with questions calculated to pluck out the heart of his mystery.
But questions and curiosity were in vain. The conjuror was possessed by a silent devil; and whether it was that the shock of his last paroxysm had left his mind benumbed and stupefied, whether his courage had failed at last, leaving him plunged in despair, or whether, indeed, his frigid indifference was not altogether assumed to serve a peculiar purpose, it was nevertheless certain that he bestowed not the slightest attention upon any of his questioners, not even upon Doe, who had previously endeavoured to unravel the riddle by seeking the assistance of Ralph Stackpole,—assistance, however, which Ralph, waxing sagacious of a sudden, professed himself wholly unable to give. This faithful fellow, indeed, professed to be just as ignorant of the person and character of the young Virginian; swearing, with a magnanimous resolve, to assume the pains and penalties of Indian ire on his own shoulders, that "the hoss-stealing" (which, he doubted not, would be held the most unpardonable feature in the adventure,) "was jist a bit of a private speculation of his own,—that there was nobody with him,—that he had come on his expedition alone, and knew no more of the other fellers than he did of the 'tarnal tempers of Injun hosses,—not he!" In short, the skeptics were baffled, and the superstitious were left to the enjoyment of their wonder and awe.
At nightfall, Nathan was removed to Wenonga's cabin, where the chief, surrounded by a dozen or more warriors, made him a speech in such English phrases as he had acquired, informing the prisoner, as before, that "he, Wenonga, was a great chief and warrior, that the other, the prisoner, was a great medicine-man; and, finally, that he, Wenonga, required of his prisoner, the medicine-man, by his charms, to produce the Jibbenainosay, the unearthly slayer of his people and curse of his tribe, in order that he, the great chief, who feared neither warrior nor devil, might fight him, like a man, and kill him, so that he, the aforesaid destroyer, should destroy his young men in the dark no longer."
Not even to this speech, though received by the warriors with marks of great approbation, did Nathan vouchsafe the least notice; and the savages despairing of moving him to their purpose at that period, but hoping perhaps to find him in a more reasonable mood at another moment, left him—but not until they had again inspected the thongs and satisfied themselves they were tied in knots strong and intricate enough to hold even a conjuror. They, also, before leaving him to himself, placed food and water at his side, and in a way that was perhaps designed to show their opinion of his wondrous powers; for as his arms were pinioned tightly behind his back, it was evident he could feed himself only by magic.
The stolid indifference to all sublunary matters which had distinguished Nathan throughout the scene, vanished the moment he found himself alone. In fact, the step of the savage the last to depart was yet rustling among the weeds at the Black-Vulture's door, when, making a violent effort, he succeeded in placing himself in a sitting posture, and glared with eager look around the apartment, which was, as before, dimly lighted by a fire on the floor. The piles of skins and domestic utensils were hanging about, as on the preceding night; and indeed, nothing seemed to have been disturbed, except the weapons, of which there had been so many when Edith occupied the den, but of which not a single one now remained. Over the fire,—the long tresses that depended from it swinging and fluttering in the currents of smoke and heated air,—was the bundle of scalps, to which Braxley had so insidiously directed the gaze of Edith, and which was now one of the first objects that met Nathan's eyes.
Having reconnoitered every corner and cranny, and convinced himself that there was no lurking savage watching his movements, he began straightway to test the strength of the thong by which his arms were bound; but without making the slightest impression on it. The cord was strong, the knots were securely tied; and after five or six minutes of struggling in which he made the most prodigious efforts to tear it asunder, without hesitating at the anguish it caused him, he was obliged to give over his hopes, fain could he have, like Thomson's demon in the net of the good Knight, enjoyed that consolation of despair,—to
"Sit him felly down, and gnaw his bitter nail."
He summoned his strength, and renewed his efforts again and again, but always without effect; and being at last persuaded of his inability to aid himself, and leaned back against a bundle of skins, to counsel with his own thoughts what hope, if any, yet remained.
At that instant, and while the unuttered misery of his spirit might have been read in his haggard and despairing eyes, a low whining sound, coming from a corner of the tent, but on the outside, with a rustling and scratching, as if some animal were struggling to burrow its way betwixt the skins and the earth, into the lodge, struck his ear. He started, and he stared round with a wild but joyous look of recognition.
"Hist, hist!" he cried, or rather whispered, for his voice was not above his breath; "hist, hist! If thee ever was wise, now do thee show it!"
The whining ceased, the scratching and rustling were heard a moment longer; and, then, rising from the skin wall, under which he had made his way, appeared—no bulky demon, indeed, summoned by the conjuror to his assistance—but little dog Peter, his trusty, sagacious, and hitherto inseparable friend, creeping with stealthy step, but eyes glistening with affection, towards the bound and helpless prisoner.
"I can't hug thee, little Peter!" cried the master, as the little animal crawled to him, wagging his tail, and, throwing his paws upon Nathan's knee, looked into his face with a most meaning stare of inquiry; "I can't hug thee, Peter! Thee sees how it is! the Injuns have ensnared me. But where thee is, Peter, there is hope. Quick, little Peter!" he cried, thrusting his arms out from his back; "thee has teeth, and thee knows how to use them—thee has gnawed me free before—Quick, little Peter, quick! The teeth is thee knives; and with them thee can cut me free!"
The little animal, whose remarkable docility and sagacity have been instanced before, seemed actually to understand his master's words, or, at least, to comprehend, from his gestures the strange duty that was now required of him; and, without more ado, he laid hold with his teeth upon the thong round Nathan's wrists, tugging and gnawing at it with a zeal and perseverance that seemed to make his master's deliverance, sooner or later, sure; and his industry was quickened by Nathan, who all the while encouraged him with whispers to continue his efforts.
"Thee gnawed me loose, when the four Shawnees had me bound by their fire, at night, on the banks of the Kenhawa. (Does thee remember that, Peter?) Ay, thee did, while the knaves slept; and from that sleep they never waked, the murdering villains—no, not one of them! Gnaw, little Peter, gnaw hard and fast; and care not if thee wounds me with thee teeth; for, truly, I will forgive thee, even if thee bites me to the bone. Faster, Peter, faster! Does thee boggle at the skin, because of its hardness? Truly, I have seen thee a hungered, Peter, when thee would have cracked it like a marrow-bone! Fast, Peter, fast; and thee shall see me again in freedom!"
With such expressions Nathan inflamed the zeal of his familiar, who continued to gnaw for the space of five minutes or more, and with such effect, that Nathan, who ever and anon tested the brute's progress by a violent jerk at the rope, found, at the fourth or fifth effort, that it yielded a little, and cracked, as if its fibres were already giving way.
"Now, Peter! tug, if thee ever tugged!" he cried, his hopes rising almost to ecstacy: "A little longer, one bite more, a little, but a little longer, Peter, if thee loves thee master! Yea, Peter, and we will walk the woods again in freedom! Now, Peter, now for the last bite!"
But the last bite Peter, on the sudden, betrayed a disinclination to make. He ceased his toil, jostled against his master's side, and uttered a whine, the lowest that could be made audible.
"Hah!" cried Nathan, as, at the same instant, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the wigwam, "thee speaks the truth, and the accursed villains is upon us! Away with thee, dog—thee shall finish thee work by and by!"
Faithful to his master's orders, or perhaps to his own sense of what was fitting and proper in such a case, little Peter leaped hastily among the skins and other litter that covered half the floor and the sleeping-berths of the lodge, and was immediately out of sight, having left the apartment, or concealed himself in its darkest corner. The steps approached; they reached the door: Nathan threw himself back, reclining against his pile of furs, and fixed his eye upon the mats at the entrance. They were presently parted; and the old chief Wenonga came halting into the apartment,—halting, yet with a step that was designed to indicate all the pride and dignity of a warrior. And this attempt at state was the more natural and proper, as he was armed and painted as if for war, his grim-countenance hideously bedaubed on one side with vermillion, and the other with black; a long scalping-knife, without sheath or cover, swinging from his wampum belt; while a hatchet, the blade and handle both of steel, was grasped in his hand. In this guise, and with a wild and demoniacal glitter of eye, that seemed the result of mingled drunkenness and insanity, the old chief stalked and limped up to the prisoner, looking as if bent upon his instant destruction. That his passions were up in arms, that he was ripe for mischief and blood, was, indeed, plain and undeniable; but he soon made it apparent that his rage was only conditional and alternative, as regarded the prisoner. Pausing within three or four feet of him, and giving him a look that seemed designed to freeze his blood, it was so desperately hostile and savage, he extended his arm and hatchet,—not, however, to strike, as it appeared, but to do what might be judged almost equally agreeable to nine-tenths of his race,—that is, to deliver a speech.
"I am Wenonga!" he cried, in his own tongue, being perhaps too much enraged to think of any other, "I am Wenonga, a great Shawnee chief. I have fought the Longknives, and drunk their blood: when they hear my voice they are afraid; they run howling away, like dogs when the squaws beat them from the fire—who ever stood before Wenonga? I have fought my enemies, and killed them. I never feared a white man: why should I fear a white man's devil? Where is the Jibbenainosay, the curse of my tribe?—the Shawneewannaween, the howl of my people? He kills them in the dark, he creeps upon them while they sleep; but he fears to stand before the face of a warrior! Am I a dog? or a woman? The squaws and the children curse me, as I go by: they say I am the killer of their husbands and fathers; they tell me it was the deed of Wenonga, that brought the white man's devil to kill them; 'if Wenonga is a chief, let him kill the killer of his people!' I am Wenonga; I am a man; I fear nothing: I have sought the Jibbenainosay. But the Jibbenainosay is a coward; he walks in the dark, he kills in the time of sleep, he fears to fight a warrior! My brother is a great medicine-man; he is a white man, and he knows how to find the white man's devils. Let my brother speak for me; let him show me where to find the Jibbenainosay; and he shall be a great chief, and the son of a chief: Wenonga will make him his son, and he shall be a Shawnee!"
"Does Wenonga, at last, feel he has brought a devil upon his people?" said Nathan, speaking for the first time since his capture, and speaking in a way well suited to strike the interrogator with surprise. A sneer, as it seemed, of gratified malice crept over his face, and was visible even through the coat of paint that still invested his features; and to crown all, his words were delivered in the Shawnee tongue, correctly and unhesitatingly pronounced; which was itself, or so Wenonga appeared to hold it, a proof of his superhuman acquirements.
The old chief started, as the words fell upon his ear, and looked around him in awe, as if the prisoner had already summoned a spirit to his elbow.
"I have heard the voice of the dead!" he cried. "My brother is a great
Medicine! But I am a chief;—I am not afraid."
"The chief tells me lies," rejoined Nathan, who, having once unlocked his lips, seemed but little disposed to resume his former silence;—"the chief tells me lies: there is no white-devil hurts his people!"
"I am an old man, and a warrior,—I speak the truth!" said the chief, with dignity; and then added, with sudden feeling,—"I am an old man: I had sons and grandsons—young warriors, and boys that would soon have blacked their faces for battle[12]—where are they? The Jibbenainosay has been in my village, he has been in my wigwam—there are none left—the Jibbenainosay killed them!"
[Footnote 12: The young warriors of many tribes are obliged to confine themselves to black paint, during their probationary campaigns.]
"Ay!" exclaimed the prisoner, and his eyes shot fire as he spoke, "they fell under his hand, man and boy—there was not one of them spared—they were of the blood of Wenonga!"
"Wenonga is a great chief!" cried the Indian: "he is childless; but childless he has made the Long-knife."
"The Long-knife, and the son of Onas!" said Nathan.
The chief staggered back, as if struck by a blow, and stared wildly upon the prisoner.
"My brother is a medicine-man,—he knows all things!" he exclaimed. "He speaks the truth: I am a great warrior; I took the scalp of the Quakel[13]—"
[Footnote 13: Quakels—a corruption of Quakers, whom the Indians of Pennsylvania originally designated as the sons of Onos, that being one of the names they bestowed upon Penn.]
"And of his wife and children—you left not one alive!—Ay!" continued
Nathan, fastening his looks upon the amazed chief, "you slew them all!
And he that was the husband and father was the Shawnees' friend, the
friend even of Wenonga!"
"The white-men are dogs and robbers!" said the chief: "the Quakel was my brother; but I killed him. I am an Indian—I love white-man's blood. My people have soft hearts; they cried for the Quakel: but I am a warrior with no heart. I killed them: their scalps are hanging to my fire-post! I am not sorry; I am not afraid."
The eyes of the prisoner followed the Indian's hand, as he pointed, with savage triumph, to the shrivelled scalps that had once crowned the heads of childhood and innocence, and then sank to the floor, while his whole frame shivered as with an ague-fit.
"My brother is a great medicine-man," iterated the chief: "he shall show me the Jibbenainosay, or he shall die."
"The chief lies!" cried Nathan, with a sudden and taunting laugh: "he can talk big things to a prisoner, but he fears the Jibbenainosay!"
"I am a chief and warrior. I will fight the white-man's devil!"
"The warrior shall see him then," said the captive, with extraordinary fire. "Cut me loose from my bonds, and I will bring him before the chief."
And as he spoke, he thrust out his legs, inviting the stroke of the axe upon the thongs that bound his ankles.
But this was a favour, which, stupid or mad as he was, Wenonga hesitated to grant.
"The chief," cried Nathan, with a laugh of scorn, "would stand face to face with the Jibbenainosay, and yet fears to loose a naked prisoner!"
The taunt produced its effect. The axe fell upon tho thong, and Nathan leaped to his feet. He extended his wrists. The Indian hesitated again. "The chief shall see the Jibbenainosay!" cried Nathan; and the cord was cut.
The prisoner turned quickly round; and while his eyes fastened with a wild but joyous glare upon his jailer's, a laugh that would have become the jaws of a hyena lighted up his visage, and sounded from his lips. "Look!" he cried, "thee has thee wish! Thee sees the destroyer of thee race,—ay, murdering villain, the destroyer of thee people, and theeself!"
And with that, leaping upon the astounded chief with rather the rancorous ferocity of a wolf than the enmity of a human being, and clutching him by the throat with one hand, while with the other he tore the iron tomahawk from his grasp, he bore him to the earth, clinging to him as he fell, and using the wrested weapon with such furious haste and skill that, before they had yet reached the ground, he had buried it in the Indian's brain. Another stroke, and another, he gave with the same murderous activity and force; and Wenonga trode the path to the spiritland, bearing the same gory evidences of the unrelenting and successful vengeance of the white-man that his children and grand-children had borne before him.
"Ay, dog, thee dies at last! at last I have caught thee!"
With these words, Nathan, leaving the shattered skull, dashed the tomahawk into the Indian's chest, snatched the scalping-knife from the belt, and with one grinding sweep of the blade, and one fierce jerk of his arm, the gray scalp-lock of the warrior was torn from the dishonoured head. The last proof of the slayer's ferocity was not given until he had twice, with his utmost strength, drawn the knife over the dead man's breast, dividing skin, cartilage, and even bone, before it, so sharp was the blade and so powerful the hand that urged it.
Then, leaping to his feet, and snatching from the post the bundle of withered scalps—the locks and ringlets of his own murdered family,—which he spread a moment before his eyes with one hand, while the other extended, as if to contrast the two prizes together, the reeking scalp-lock of the murderer, he sprang through the door of the lodge, and fled from the village; but not until he had, in the insane fury of the moment, given forth a wild, ear-piercing yell, that spoke the triumph, the exulting transport, of long-baffled but never-dying revenge. The wild whoop, thus rising in the depth and stillness of the night, startled many a wakeful warrior and timorous mother from their repose. But such sounds in a disorderly hamlet of barbarians were too common to create alarm or uneasiness; and the wary and the timid again betook themselves to their dreams, leaving the corse of their chief to stiffen on the floor of his own wigwam.