“Yonder is her tent—she is still watching.”
“Follow me, Johnson,” said Brant; “we must pacify the old tigress before she shows her teeth.”
“But I am not in fault.”
“Make her believe it then!”
“But she will not dare——”
“She would dare everything! But you are in no danger—only be ready to receive every sort of invective that a woman’s tongue can invent, or the fury of a she-panther give birth to.”
They moved towards the tent; Brant seized his companion by the arm and drew back, for that moment the heavy matting which fell before the tent was flung suddenly aside, and Queen Esther stood before them—not fierce and wild, as Sir John had expected to find her, but with the sharp, cool look of a person so used to adventure that nothing could surprise her. Though a tall woman, she was scarcely imposing in her person, for a life of sharp action had made her nerves steel, and her muscles iron; of flesh she had only enough to bind these tough threads of vitality together. The rest was all intellect and stern passion.
As if in scorn of all those wild or gentle vanities, which are beautiful weaknesses in the sex, both in the wigwam and drawing-room, Esther allowed no bright color or glittering ornament to soften the grey of a stern old age, which hung about her like a garment; her doe-skin robe, soft, pliant, and of a dull buff color, had neither embroidery of wampum or silk; her leggings were fringed with chipped leather; and over her shoulders was flung a blanket of fine silver-grey cloth, gathered at the bosom by a small stiletto, with a handle of embossed platina, and a short, keen blade that glittered like the tongue of a viper, and worn as a Roman woman arranged her garments in the time of the Cæsars. Her hair was white as snow, silvery as moonlight, and so abundant, even at eighty years of age, that it folded around her head in a single coil, like a turban. The high, narrow forehead, the aquiline nose, curved with time, like the beak of an eagle, and the sharp, restless eyes, stood out from beneath this woof of hair stern and clear, as if chiselled from stone. The very presence of old age rendered this woman majestic.
She paused a moment in the entrance of her tent; a torch burnt within, sending its resinous smoke around her, as she appeared clearly revealed, with a background of dull crimson—for the tent was lined with cloth of this warm tint, and she stood against it, like a grey ghost breaking out from the depths of a dusky sunset.
“Are you friends or enemies?” she inquired, shading her eyes from the smoky torch-light with a hand that looked like a dead oak-leaf.