"Jubal, relight your lamp; I have come far to see you. You know me,
Jubal. Monsieur le chef?"
"Pardonnez moi," croaked the hag, as she struck the light. Then came in quavering tones:
"Entrez."
What a brushing of soft wings and gleaming of eyes! The hut was literally filled with living creatures.
"These are my children," the old woman said, with a horrible quaking laugh, as she pointed to the perches. Rows of pert ravens stood upon tip-toe along the bars looking with bright eyes upon the strangers; while here and there an owl opened his crooked beak and said Too whit, Too whoo. A strange creature, with wolfish head and limbs, crouched by the hearth; but after three or four furtive glances at the intruders, he skulked back into a dark corner of the cabin. From this retreat he continued to glare with shy, treacherous eyes.
The old woman was short, and stooped; but her eyes were wonderfully bright. Nay, when she looked from the dark corner, phosphorescent jets seemed to break from them.
"Come, mother, toss the cup and tell me what Fortune has in store for me this time," said the chief, who had seated himself upon a low, creaking stool in the corner.
"I will," she replied; "why should I not when I am honoured so much as to receive a visit from le grand chef de Metis." And hobbling away, she took from a nook a large cup without a handle, black on the outside and white within. Tea was brewed which the Rebel chief drank, leaving naught but the dregs. Then Jubal muttered some words, which her visitors could not understand, and threw up the cup. She had no sooner done this than the crows began to chatter and caw, and the owls to cry; and each time that the cup ascended, they all raised themselves upon their feet and elevated their wings. When the cup came into her hand from the ceiling the third time, she looked toward the perches and said:
"Peace children." Then turning to the dark, oily chief, she said, "Listen, O Monsieur, while I read. Here are bands of men hurrying across the prairie into the gorges, and concealing themselves in the wood. There is the flash of sabres, and the smoke of cannon. Everywhere a bloody war is raging; and Indians are tearing away men, and women, and children from their homes to captivity.
"Ah! what is this I see here? A girl. Monsieur woos her, but she is turned away. The maiden flies; Monsieur follows, and he overtakes the maiden. Then he bears her away with guards around her, through a deep valley, till he reaches a hut. Now he hands her over to an ugly hag—and the name of that hag is Jubal. Is it not so, Monsieur?" and the crone, turning from the cup, looked with a hideous grin in the face of the Rebel chief.