The officer did so, to disclose inner wrappings of doe-skin, likewise thonged. These gave place to yet a third wrapping—this time of soft, thick grey fur that drew from Moon an exclamation of astonishment. It was a white beaver pelt. The Indians, no less than the whites, were watching with intense interest, and from them came a chorus of grunts at sight of the white beaver. Then, as Moon drew this open, to disclose the heart of the whole business, white men and red stared in silence—the one in puzzled wonder, the other in comprehension.
The message from the Star Woman was a short, heavy arrow with fine thin head of barbed iron. The arrow was painted red. The insolent message of Moses Deakin had been answered, significantly enough, by a war-arrow.
“What’s it mean?” demanded Moon, fingering it.
Deakin caught his breath for sheer rage, unable to speak. He knew well enough that all his dreaming had crashed down in this instant, with this response displayed to all eyes; he had hoped for a very different sort of message. Perhaps he had thought that, under its influence, the Indians would rise to his aid. Now, in those bronzed features circled around him, he saw only a stolid hostility. Big Bear had lost his medicine and the Anglais had overcome him; also the Star Woman had doomed him to death. The chiefs would shun this doomed creature, leave him to meet the fate which the dreaded Star Woman had decreed for him. That fate was death.
All this Moses Deakin beheld in the ring of faces, while Moon frowned down at the arrow and the white beaver pelt. Then, suddenly, the bloodshot eyes of Moses Deakin dilated. His face under the matted beard purpled, his brow pulsed with knotted veins, and his shoulders heaved up.
“Ready, Crawford!” burst from him, as the sea-rotted hemp burst away from his mighty arms. “Blood and wounds—got ’un!”
With one hand he seized Moon by the neck, drawing him close, and the other great paw gripped the knife in Moon’s hand. Crawford, despite bound arms, shot to his feet.
No one save the watching, impassive Indians realized what was happening. The company men saw only Deakin seizing their skipper, while Crawford leaped up and darted to the piled fusils and began to kick them into the water. Then indeed the men sprang up cursing and shouting—but the brazen voice of Deakin bellowed out and held them motionless.
“One move, ye dogs, and your skipper dies!”
Lieutenant and men huddled there, staring, all adread, and no wonder. There seemed something frightful and unearthly about this shaggy, blood-smeared figure that had suddenly burst his bonds and uprisen like some prehistoric monster, holding or rather hugging, bear-fashion, the frantically writhing Captain Moon—gripping the man’s whole throat in one gnarled paw, lifting him from his feet, glaring above him at the staring men. The Indians sat motionless, still tense from the sight of that war-arrow, holding themselves aloof.