An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag, Catrine.
"A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks! It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!"
"And I of peace!" came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh echoes of the hag's shrieking appeal. "Take heed, you Mohawks, and you Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this council-fire!"
"The Oneidas are women!" yelled the hag.
Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked, something did strike the ground--something that coiled and hissed and rattled--a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.
"Mohawks and Cayugas!" she cried; "are you to judge the Oneidas?--you who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?"
There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes. The lynx growled.
"Quiet!" she said, soothingly. "The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One has gone."
It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.
"Will you be swept away by this young witch's magic?" shrieked Catrine Montour.