"He is here!" cried the excited Oneidas. "He wears the antlers!"
Tahioni stretched out his hand; it was trembling when he touched the red foot sewed on my hunting shirt.
"What is his name, O Thiohero, whom you have raised up among the Oneida? Who mourn a great man dead?"
A deep silence fell among them; for what their prophetess had done meant that she must have knowledge that a great man and chief among the Oneida lay dead somewhere at that very moment.
Slowly the girl turned her head from one to another; a veiled look drowned her gaze; the young men were quivering in the imminence of a revelation based upon knowledge which could be explained only by sorcery.
Then the Little Maid of Askalege took a dry stick from the pretended fire, crumbled it, touched her lips with the powder in sign of personal and intimate mourning.
"Spencer, Interpreter and Oneida Chief, shall die this week in battle," she said in a dull voice.
A murmur of horror and rage, instantly checked and suppressed, left the Oneidas staring at their prophetess.
"Therefore," she whispered, "I acquaint you that we have chosen this young man to take his place; we lift the antlers; we give him the same name,—Hahyion!"[38]
"Haih! Hahyion!" shouted the Oneidas with up-flung hands.