And then the chiefs rose in reply. The Hurons spoke first, and though they hedged their meaning by look and word I could feel the sentiment swaying toward our side. They brought up many minor points and gave belts in confirmation. Kondiaronk's clan were openly friendly, openly touched by Cadillac's speech, and when one of the Baron's band took the cue and gave a wampum necklace, "to deter the French brothers from unkind thoughts," I felt that the worst of the day was over, and welcomed the Ottawa speakers with a relaxation of the tension that had held me, for I had been upon the rack. Mind and ear had been taxed to miss no word or intonation, for a slighted syllable might lose our cause. The speeches had droned like flies at midday, but all the verbiage had been heavy with significance. I spoke French, Huron, and Ottawa in turn, and through it all I listened, listened for the opening of the door.
For Cadillac had told me that Madame de Montlivet had asked if she might come in for a moment and listen to the council, and he had referred the matter to me. It had seemed a strange request, but I could see no reason for refusing it. The woman had seen Indians in camp and field; it was perhaps no wonder that she wished to see the machinery of their politics. It was agreed that Dubisson should bring her in for a short time.
Yet when she did come in I could not look at her. Longuant had just finished speaking, and I had all my mind could handle to do him justice as I wished. He spoke as the moderate leader who desired that his people leave the hatchet unlifted if they could do so with safety. He gave a robe stained with red to show that his people remembered the French who had died for them.
I knew, as I repeated Longuant's speech, that I was doing it well, helping it out with trick and metaphor. And I also knew, with a shrug for my childishness, that my wits were working more swiftly than they had, because the woman was listening. I saw the whole scene with added vividness and significance because her eyes rested on it, too. Once I glanced up and looked at her briefly. Day had slipped into dusk, and the bare, shadow-haunted room was lighted with torches stuck in the crannies of the log walls. The flaring light lapped her like a waving garment and showed her daintily erect, silk-clad, elate and resolute, a flower of a carefully tended civilization. And then my eyes went back where they belonged, to the lines of warriors robed like senators, attentive and august, full of wisdom where the woman knew nothing, yet blank as animals to the treasures of her mind. The contrast thrilled through me like a violin note. I heard my tongue use imagery that I did not know was in me. The woman waited till I was through, and I could feel that she was listening. Then she turned with Dubisson and they went out of the door.
Longuant was the last of our garrison Indians to speak, and when he finished it remained to Cadillac to sum up the situation. He picked out the oldest men from each delegation and stood before them. Yet, though he spoke to all, it was at Longuant that he looked.
"Listen," he said. "Hast ever seen the moon in the lake when the evening is clear and the weather calm? It appears in the water, yet nothing is truer than that it is in the sky. Some among you are very old; but know, that were you all to return to early youth and take it into your heads to fish up the moon in the lake, you would more easily succeed in scooping that planet up in your nets than in effecting what you are ruminating now. In vain do you fatigue your brains. You cannot live with the bear and share your food with the wolf. You must choose. Be assured of this; the English and French cannot be in the same place without killing one another."
There was more in the same vein. Only one nation could hold the country for the fur trade. If the French were that nation the Indians would be protected, their fighting men would be given arms, their families would be cared for, the great father at Quebec would reward them as brothers. He gave the Hurons and Ottawas each a war belt to testify to his intention.
Here was the crisis. But each tribe took the belt and kept it. I could scarcely forbear glancing at Cadillac. But I dared not be too elated, for we had yet the Senecas to deal with. Cadillac turned to them and asked their mission among us. He did it briefly, and I hoped they would answer with equal bluntness, for I dreaded this part of the council. All of the Iroquois nations were trained rhetoricians, and I would need a long ear to catch their verbal quibbles and see where their sophistry was hiding.
Cannehoot, their oldest chief, spoke for them all. He made proposal after proposal with belts and tokens to seal them. His speech was moderate, but his ideas crowded; it was hard to keep them in sequence.
They had come to learn wisdom of us. They gave a belt.