And, after each boy had been named from one of the dead Cayugas, he gave me a string of wampum to confirm it, while the chant of condolence rose from the seated chiefs and sachems, a never-ending repetition of brave histories, and prophecy of brave deeds from the beginning of all things through the stilled centuries into the far future locked in silence.
Hour after hour I stood with bent head and arms folded on my breast. Sometimes I prayed as I stood, that evil be averted from these wards of our King; sometimes I grew hot with anger at the men who could so vilely misuse them.
Dreaming there amid the scented birch-smoke, the chant intoning with the mourning pines, sombre visions took shape within my brain. I could not lay these ghosts, awful spectres of ruin and death crowding around a pallid, flabby, toothless creature of silks and laces, my Lord Dunmore, smirking at Terror wearing the merciless mask of Butler.
Around me the ceremony of condolence seemed to change to the sinister and grotesque Honnonouaroria or Dream Feast, with its naked demons hurling fire-brands; I swayed where I stood, then stumbled back out of the scented smoke which had nigh stupefied me. I opened my eyes dizzily. My ears were ringing with the interminable chant:
"Sah-e-ho-na,
Sah-e-ho-na."
I crossed my arms and waited, careful to keep out of the sweet smoke which had stolen away my senses and set me dreaming of horrors.
The sun hung above the pines; a slender purple cloud belted it, a celestial belt in pledge of promised storms, gathering somewhere beyond the world's green rim.
I watched the cloud growing; the sun died out through a golden smother from which plumes of vapour swept over the heavens, thickening till all the sky was covered with painted fleece. And, as I watched the storm's banners hanging from midheaven, the chant ended, and, in silence, three chiefs arose and moved towards me through the smoke. One by one they spoke to me, naming themselves: Yellow Hand, Tamarack, the ancient sachem robed in scarlet, and lastly the war-chief, Sowanowane.
It was Tamarack who continued: