We were kicked and harried through the village to the Dancing-Place; but a messenger stayed us at the last minute, and our guards flogged us back into the Council-House. We were fed perfunctorily and given water to drink, then left to our own devices whilst the guards played a gambling game with peach-stones. So the morning dragged by until the sun was beginning to decline toward the west and a second messenger disturbed the wrangling players.
We were yanked to our feet and pushed outside. Thousands of Indians lined the narrow, dirty streets between the bark houses and lodges. They greeted us with a silence so intent that it was as arresting as a shout. Not a finger was laid upon us, not a voice was raised. Yet the fierce anticipation which gleamed in every face was more threatening than definite gestures.
The guards hustled us along; and as we passed, the hordes of savages closed in behind us and flowed in a mighty, barbaric stream at our heels. Ahead of us opened the flat expanse of the Dancing-Place, with the two lonely stakes, flanked by piles of freshly gathered firewood, standing like portents of evil against the dark-green background of the pines which walled the rear of the amphitheater.
Ta-wan-ne-ars looked eagerly in every direction, but she whom he sought was not present nor were there visible any of her carrion crew of priests. Only the sinister faces of the negro, Tom, and Bolling, with his tangle of red hair, stirred recollections in that alien, hostile mass. They, too, were under the spell of the gathering, a spell which seemed to have for its object the compression of the combined malevolence of the ferocious throng.
Our guards bound us to the stakes as they had the day before, and Ta-wan-ne-ars, with a significant glance at me, rallied them with the searching wit of his race.
"The Cahnuaga dogs are not used to taking captives," he commented. "They do not know what to do unless their white masters tell them. They are women. They should be tilling the field. They do not know how to torment real warriors."
When they were passing the thongs under his arm-pits, the Seneca bent forward and fastened his teeth in the forearm of an incautious guard. The blood spurted and the man yelped with pain. Ta-wan-ne-ars laughed.
"Unarmed and bound, yet I can hurt you," he cried. "Truly, you are women. The warriors of the Great League scorn you."
Strangely enough, they made no retaliation upon him; but, having securely fastened us to the stakes, withdrew and stood somewhat apart from the encompassing crowds.
The silence continued for more than an hour, when a lane was opened opposite to us and Murray and de Veulle sauntered forward.