She understood. Wrapped in her white cloak, she curtsied low before Onanguissé. Then she turned to me. "Tell him," she said, "that my heart is wiser than my tongue; the one is dumb, but the other answers. Say to him that I see his face, and it tells me that he has lived wisely and with honor. I am now of his family. I, too, will strive to live wisely, that he need not be shamed. Say to him that I will not forget." She stopped with her glance upon the old chief, and her eyes held something I had not seen in them before. With me, their self-reliance had sometimes been hard, almost provocative, as if the spirit behind them defied the world to break it down. But as she met this kindness—this kindness that was instinctive, and not a matter of prudence or reason—all hardness vanished, and her dignity was almost wistful. I thought of my mother, the saddened head of a great house, who had seen the ruin of home and heart, but whose spirit would not die. Something in this woman's face, as she stood silent, suddenly gave me back the vision of my mother as I had seen her last. I looked with my heart beating hard. The hush lasted fully a moment, then the woman drew her cloak closer, curtsied again, and walked back to her green lodge.
I turned to the chief, and would have translated what had been said, but after the first phrase, he motioned me to silence. "She has taken my robe. She has become of my family. That is sufficient." He lifted his calumet, and went to give orders for the feasting.
So the priest and I stood alone. He looked at me, and shook his head. His mouth was smiling, but I saw him brush at his eyes. "You have married a woman of great spirit, monsieur," he said, with a touch of his hand on my sleeve. "They are rare,—most rare." He stopped. "Yet the roedeer is not made for the paddock," he said impersonally.
I laughed, and it sounded exultant. I felt the blood hammer in my temples. "Nor can the thrush be tamed to sit the finger like the parrakeet," I completed. "I understand that, Father Nouvel."
The wedding feast followed. Madame de Montlivet, the priest, Onanguissé, and I sat in a semicircle on the ground, and slaves served us with wooden trenchers of food. We each had our separate service, like monks in a refectory, but we were not treated with equal state, for the woman drank from a copper-trimmed ladle, made from the polished skull of a buffalo, while my cup was a dried gourd. We ate in ceremonial silence, and were sunk in our own thoughts. There was food till the stomach sickened at its gross abundance: whitefish, broth, sagamité, the feet of a bear, the roasted tail of a beaver. I watched the slaves bring the food and bear it away, and I said to myself that I was sitting at my wedding feast,—a feast to celebrate a false marriage.
After the feast, the calumet was danced before us. Still there was silence between the woman and myself as we sat side by side. I wondered if she realized that this strange dance was still further confirmation of what we had done; that it was part of the ceremony of our marriage. It was a picture as unreal, as incomprehensible, as the fate we had invited. The sun was westering, and shone full upon the dancing braves. Their corded muscles and protruding eyes made them ghastly as tortured wretches of some red-lit inferno. There was no laughter nor jesting. The kettle-drum rumbled like water in a cave, and the chant of the singers wailed, and died, and wailed again. And this was for my wedding. I looked down at the woman's hand that bore my ring, and saw that the strong, nervous fingers were gripped till they were bloodless. What was she thinking? I tried to meet her look, but it was rapt and awed. A wave of heat ran through me; the wild music beat into my blood. This savage ritual that I had looked at with alien eyes suddenly took to itself the dignity of the terrible wilderness that bound us. The pageantry of its barbarism seized upon me; it was a fitting setting for one kind of marriage,—not a marriage of flowers and dowry, but the union of two great, stormy hearts who, through clash and turmoil, had found peace at last. But ours was a mock marriage, and we had not found peace. My breath choked me. I leaped to my feet, and begged Onanguissé to end the ceremony, and let me do my share. I knew what was my part as bridegroom, and Pierre and Labarthe were waiting with their arms laden. I distributed hatchets, Brazil tobacco, and beads from Venice. Then I turned to Onanguissé.
"We go to the land of the Malhominis, to the wild rice people. They live toward the south-west?"
He nodded. "Across La Baye des Puants as the wild goose flies. Then down till you find the mouth of the wild rice river. But why go till another sunrise?"
I hesitated. But I thought of the shadowing Huron, and decided that I could elude him best at night. "We are in haste," I told Onanguissé, and I pointed the men toward their work.
But before I myself had time to step toward the canoes, I felt the woman's touch upon my arm. Though, in truth, it was odd that I felt it, for the movement was light as the brushing of a grass stalk.