I lay and wagged my head like an old man who hears of warlocks and witch charms, and knows the tales to be true. The stupefying simplicity of it! If you want a thing, take it. Pierre wanted to follow me, so he killed his guard and came. That was all there was of it. I looked at him long, my head still wagging. He had done this sort of thing before. I had never understood it. It was this that I meant when I had called Pierre, dull of wit as he seemed, the most useful of my men.
I lay all day on my pallet, and Outchipouac served me with his own hands.
"It is thus that we treat those whom we delight to honor," he said, and he held the gourd to my lips and wiped my face with a square of linen that some trader had left in camp. He would give me no solid food, but dosed me with brewed herbs and great draughts of steaming broth. The juggler looked into the lodge and would have tried his charms on me, but Outchipouac sent him away.
A storm rose toward night, and I heard the knocking of the rain on the skin roof above me, and thought of the woman traveling northward in the Iroquois canoes. Starling was with her. I lay with tight-clenched hands.
The storm swelled high. I asked that the mat be dropped from before the door that I might see the lightning, and while I watched it Outchipouac slipped in. He felt me over, and patted my moist skin approvingly. Then he sat by my side and began to talk.
His talk at first was a chant, a saga, a recitation of the glories of his ancestors. The Malhominis had been a proud race,—now they were dwindled to this village of eighty braves. He crooned long tales of famine, of tribal bickerings, of ambuscade and defeat; his voice rustled monotonously like wind in dried grass.
Then his tone rose. He spoke of the present, its possibilities. The Iroquois league was a scourge, a pestilence. Could it be abolished, the western nations would return to health. Security would reign, and tribal laws be respected. The French would be friends, partners,—never masters,—and a golden age would descend upon the west. It was the gospel that I had cried in the wilderness, but phrased in finer imagery than mine. I felt the wooing of his argument, even as I had wooed others, and I listened silently and watched the lightning's play.
But I dreaded the moment when his argument should leave theory and face me in the concrete. The change came suddenly, as in music a tender melody will merge abruptly into a summons to arms. He called me to witness. The Iroquois were at the gates. They outnumbered the Malhominis, but the Sacs, the Chippewas, and the Winnebagoes were all within a day's journey, and would come at my call. The time for the alliance of which I had told them was at hand. My body was crippled but my brain was whole. To-morrow he, the chief, at my bidding, and with my watchword, would send runners through the tribes. Within the week a giant force could be gathered and an attack made. The Iroquois camp would be exterminated, and then I, at the head of the force, could march where I willed. Never had the western tribes followed a white man, but I had called their hearts from their bodies, and they would go.
But one thing I was to remember. He, Outchipouac, the chief, was my brother in arms. He had rescued me, clothed me, furnished me the means of war. My victories were his victories. These were his conditions. All Iroquois slaves that might be captured were to belong to the Malhominis to be incorporated in their tribe. The other tribes could divide the plunder, but the Malhominis needed new blood for adoption. I must agree to that.
He stopped. I was too sick of mind to speak, and my distemper was not of my wound. I had builded for this moment for two years, and now that it had come I was going to turn my back on it. More, I was going to refuse aid to a man who had succored me, had shown me genuine kindness. Self-pity is contemptible, but I felt it now.