All in Manitou mercy done,
Great Wahcondah wills it!"
CHAPTER XV.
The Manitou Eye.
The song had hardly begun when Sprigg could hear a huge stir in the cave, as if the call had awakened a multitude of living things from the slumber of the night. The hubbub was neither boisterous nor loud, yet it seemed to come, not only from near at hand, but from far and wide. It was an infinite mingling of confused, indistinct sounds, like the inarticulate murmurs rising from innumerable voices—talking, singing and shouting, intermixed with laughter and with the cries of beasts and birds.
On hearing the commotion around him, the boy had risen to his feet, and now, with strained eyes, was vainly striving to pierce the red mist in which he was enveloped. Before the song was ended, the multitude, from whom the hubbub rose, were evidently in rapid motion, and all in the same direction, sweeping past him so that he felt as if he were standing upon a rock, in the midst of a wide and swiftly flowing river, on whose waters rested an impenetrable fog. Closely intermingled with the voice-like sounds were now to be distinguished a variety of other noises, resembling the sharp, light clattering of cloven hoofs, the muffled pattering of hairy paws, or the wind-like whirring of fluttering wings.
As the song closed, Sprigg felt something placed in his hand, which, becoming visible the moment it came in contact with him, proved to be a coronal of bright green plumes, such as we have seen described in the interview between Jervis Whitney and Nick of the Woods. It was then remarked that his headpiece possessed the magic property of rendering the person who wore it—fairy or human—invisible to mortal eyes. Nor was this all; It had also the power of making the sights and sounds of Fairyland as clearly perceptible to the senses of the mortal who should chance to get it as to the fairies themselves, whether the wee folks were willing or not, he should pry into their mysteries.