CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMBASSADRESS AND THE MOTHER.
Before the winter set in Mahaska conceived the project of making a visit around among the several powerful tribes constituting the Six Nations, hoping by the influence of her presence to increase still more her power and to aid the furtherance of the ambitious projects which had formed in her wily brain. She was accompanied on her journey by Gi-en-gwa-tah and several of the principal chiefs, escorted by her body-guard, and all the state and pomp which she commanded was freely displayed.
Among all the Nations she was received with every demonstration of respect; all sorts of festivities were instituted in her honor and her counsels were listened to with profound attention.
Her plans in regard to the English alliance were working well. The delegates had returned with highly favorable reports, and Mahaska wrote to the Governor, that, come when it might, the next struggle would see the Six Nations in alliance with the British.
She managed artfully to hold consultations with the chiefs concerning this matter during every absence of Gi-en-gwa-tah, and succeeded in establishing the impression that he was weak and vacillating, at the same time that his ambition was inordinate and could not endure to witness the success of men superior to himself. Yet, while she was thus undermining his future, the noble savage was aiding in every way to extend her power. The freshness of his love came back at the sight of her beauty and the admiration she excited, and he forgot entirely the glimpses he had of late caught of the terrible spirit that lay hidden under that gracious exterior.
Nothing could surpass the graciousness of the queen during her journey. She knew only too well how to assume the appearance of generosity. She made beautiful presents to the chiefs and their wives, scattered her profuseness right and left, and, as she quitted each tribe in succession, was followed by the love and wonder of their untutored minds. She seemed to them like a being suddenly descended among them from a higher sphere. They were never weary of gazing upon her beauty. She dazzled their eyes with her rich attire and the costly goods which had been the price of her treachery toward the French.
The snow began to fall heavily when Mahaska returned to her tribe and again established herself in her palace by the Seneca lake. Her friend, the English Governor, had furnished her with new gifts and her dwelling was now replete with every article of comfort and luxury. She had instructed the Indian women who performed the duties of servants in many things which relieved her from the coarseness of savage life, and the sumptuous table spread in her house would have done credit to the most civilized household.
A year had passed—it had swept Mahaska far into the darkness of her new career, and left many a stain of blood upon her soul which blotted out the last trace of her youth forever. But a change came which, had she been a woman of ordinary womanly instincts, would have subdued her fierce nature. She sat in her palace crowned with the priceless blessing of maternity. And her daring soul did soften under its tender influence.
Love for her child became for the time the one redeeming feeling of her life, yet, like all emotions in her nature, it received a sort of ferocity from its very strength. She pictured to herself a grand future for her boy; he should be skilled in all the arts and knowledge of the whites, while hatred toward his grandfather’s race would be the only faith she impressed upon his soul.
The day her child was a month old she had made the occasion one of high festival among the people, and she sat with her babe upon her knees listening to the rejoicings that went up from the revelers without. Gi-en-gwa-tah was absent at the birth of his child and had not yet returned, but his arrival was daily expected. Mahaska was full of savage joy in his absence, for the child had been all hers for a time at least. She could not bear the idea of witnessing his love for it, and dreaded with intense selfishness that the time might come when her boy would give affection in return, to the brave savage that had been forced into her life.