There was in sight one more object that interested me—not with friendly interest did I regard it—but with disgust and indignation.
Not seated in the council ring, nor standing among the idle groups, but apart from all, I beheld Hissoo-royo the renegade. Savage as were the red warriors, fiend-like as they appeared with their paint-smeared visages, not one looked so savage or fiend-like as he.
The features of this man were naturally bad: but the paint—for he had adopted this with every other vile custom of barbarian life—rendered their expression positively ferocious. The device upon his forehead was a death’s-head and cross-bones—done in white chalk—and upon his breast appeared the well-imitated semblance of a bleeding scalp—the appropriate symbols of a cruel disposition.
There was something unnatural in a white skin thus disfigured, for the native complexion was not hidden: here and there it could be perceived forming the ground of the motley elaboration—its pallid hue in strange contrast with the deeper colours that daubed it! It was not the canvas for such a picture.
Yet there the picture was—in red and yellow, black, white, and blue; there stood the deep-dyed villain.
I saw not his rival; I looked for him, but saw him not. Perhaps he was one of those who stood around?—perhaps he had not yet come up? He was the son of the head-chief—perhaps he was inside the lodge? The last was the most probable conjecture.
The great calumet was brought forward and lit by the fire; it was passed around the circle, from mouth to mouth—each savage satisfying himself with a single draw from its tube.
I knew that this was the inauguration of the council. The trial was about to proceed.