The fire was lower, but Ta-wan-ne-ars did not need to warn me when the Keepers reappeared. It was as if a mist of evil preceded them. My senses were alert, and I saw the first feathered head emerge from the trail and each one of the six who followed their leader. I counted every step of their approach until the yellow paint which streaked the ribs of the one nearest to me glimmered in the light of the embers.
"Hah-yah-yah-eeee-eee-ee-e!"
Ta-wan-ne-ars sounded the war-whoop as he fired, and instinctively I aimed my piece at those ocher-tinted ribs and pressed the trigger. The report of my musket carried on the echoes which had been roused by the Seneca's. Corlaer's discharged as I bounded to my feet.
The Cahnuagas yelled in surprize; three of them were thrashing out their lives on the rocks. But the four survivors did not hesitate. The French called them "Praying Indians," and perhaps they did pray occasionally for Black Robe, to placate him sufficiently in order that they might practise their own horrid rites in secret. They fought now like the devils they really were.
One of them was on me immediately, bounding over the boulders with screeches that split the night. His knife and hatchet cut circles around my head—then chopped at my bowels. His activity was extraordinary, and he fought better than I, for he knew his weapons and they were strange to me.
It was the realization of this which saved me. Fending awkwardly with knife or hatchet against a foe whose handling of them was the result of lifelong training, I was at a disadvantage. I could not hope to beat him by his own methods.
So I changed the tomahawk to my left hand, and grasped the knife by the hilt as if it were a sword, thrusting with it point first instead of slashing as the Indian did. And now my skill at fence was in my favor.
The Cahnuaga's knife was no longer than mine. We were on equal terms—or rather the advantage inclined toward me. Bewilderment showed in the Indian's face. He did not understand this fighting with passes and parries and swift, stabbing assaults. I touched him in the thigh, and he struck at my knife-arm with his hatchet; but my tomahawk was ready to meet him.
He side-stepped to attack me from a new quarter, but I pivoted on my heel as I had often done in the salle des armes, and he retreated, circling warily in search of an opportunity to return to the style of fighting he preferred. My chance came the next time he charged me, goaded into desperation by these strange tactics. I aimed a smashing blow at his head with the tomahawk, and, as he lifted his own hatchet to guard, I thrust for his belly, parried his knife and ripped him open.
His death-yell was in my ears as I leaped over his body and looked to see how my comrades were doing. Ta-wan-ne-ars had just knifed his man and was running to the help of Peter, who had two assailants on his hands. As Ta-wan-ne-ars came up, the Dutchman closed with one, dashed the defending weapons aside and grasped the struggling savage in his powerful arms. The last Cahnuaga turned to flee, but Ta-wan-ne-ars did not even attempt to pursue him. Without any appearance of haste the Seneca balanced his tomahawk, drew back his arm and hurled it after the fugitive. The keen blade crushed the man's skull before he had passed from the circle of firelight, and Ta-wan-ne-ars sauntered across and scalped him.