CHAPTER X
IN WHICH THE CROSS IS CARRIED TO A CITY OF
IDOLATERS
“I HAVE learned something of these proud pagans, Chatémuc. They are worshippers of fire; fruit ripe to pluck, to the greater glory of Mother Church.”
The Mohican grunted in acquiescence as he strode forward, a copper-colored giant by the side of the gray-garbed, undersized Franciscan.
Beneath budding trees and along a flower-haunted trail went de la Salle’s envoys to the children of the sun. It was high noon, and the god of the idolaters shone down upon those who would dethrone him as a deity with a kindly radiance behind which no malice lurked. Mayhap the warm-hearted luminary had grown weary of the human sacrifices offered up by his deluded worshippers, and was pleased to see the gentle Membré carrying a cross, symbol of a faith which demands for its altars no gifts but contrite hearts, toward a blood-stained city in which a savage cult still lay as a curse upon a race endowed by nature with many kindly traits.
Between Membré, the friar, and Chatémuc, the Mohican, had long existed a cordial friendship, based, in part, upon hardships and dangers shared together, but more especially upon the relationship existing between them of a missionary to a convert. Of the many native Americans who had become good children of Mother Church under the inspiring influence of the magnetic Franciscan none had been more faithful to his adopted religion than the stately Mohican, whose proud, reserved, but inherently enthusiastic temperament derived warmth and inspiration from the friar’s exalted soul. Of late years much of Zenobe Membré’s success as a proselyter had been due to long and earnest consultations held in the wilderness with Chatémuc, an Indian understanding Indians, and a Roman Catholic who spoke French.
Just in front of the Mohican and the Franciscan walked Katonah by the side of de Sancerre; a forest belle attended by a courtly swain. Used as he was to the startling contrasts which the exodus of Europeans to the New World had begotten in such abundance, the friar had been struck by the incongruity of this pair, who laughed and chatted just beyond him with a gayety born of the sunshine and the spring.
At the head of the little procession strode the soldierly Henri de Tonti, attended on either hand by a long-limbed child of the sun. The Italian veteran looked like a pygmy beside his tall, white-garbed, black-haired guides, who stalked along on his flanks with a stately grace which had aroused the enthusiastic admiration of de Sancerre, a cosmopolite who had in his time looked upon many well-formed warriors both in the Old World and the New.
“They worship fire, Chatémuc,” repeated the Franciscan, earnestly, after a moment’s silence. “Their god is the sun, and they have a priesthood whose duty it is to keep alive in their temple a blaze of logs, first lighted, generations back, by the sun itself.”
The Mohican turned and looked down at the friar with a gleam of mingled astonishment and inquiry in his melancholy eyes. The grunt to which he gave vent the Franciscan well understood.
“You are amazed at my knowledge of their customs, my Chatémuc,” remarked the Franciscan, smilingly. “But have I not heard many wild and horrid tales in the years through which I’ve borne the cross to outlands such as this? ’Tis strange, indeed, how rumor flies through forests, over lakes, and makes the mountains rear their tops in vain. ’Tis thus the saints work miracles for us, that we may bear the Word to savage lands. As feeble men, we could do naught, my son; but with the pioneers of Mother Church march all the hosts of heaven, and when the day is darkest and the heathen shout for joy, there comes a wonder, some marvel on the earth, some sudden splendor of the midnight sky, and the cross, triumphant, gains another tribe! Oh, Chatémuc, the glory of it all!”
The gray eyes of the Franciscan gazed upward at the set face of the seemingly stoical Indian, whose religious enthusiasm was rapidly rising to fever-heat under the intoxicating influence of the fanatical friar’s carefully-chosen words—words whose effect upon the devout Mohican Zenobe Membré was not now testing for the first time.
“But their fire, father? It always burns?” asked Chatémuc, presently, in a low voice.
“Day and night, year after year, from generation to generation, they keep alive this idolatrous blaze, a flame lighted in hell and carried to these pagans by Satan’s self. And while it burns, my Chatémuc, ’twill be impossible to lure their souls to Christ.”
The searching gaze of the friar scanned closely the phlegmatic face of the Mohican. Not a muscle in Chatémuc’s copper-colored countenance moved, but a dangerous gleam had begun to flash in his eyes as they rested now and again upon the white-robed sun-worshippers striding on ahead of him.
“They guard the fire by day and night?”
“’Tis never left alone, my son,” answered the Franciscan, fully satisfied with the effect that his words had had upon Chatémuc.
The native American is not a rash and impulsive being. Courageous Chatémuc was, beyond many of his race; but he was, nevertheless, an Indian, and inclined to attain his ends by craft and subtlety rather than by reckless daring. It was not until the French had introduced the native American to the civilizing influence of brandy that the latter abandoned, at times, in his warfare the methods of a snake, and fought, now and then, like a lion.
“How large a guard, my father, do they keep around their fire?” asked the Mohican, presently.
“That I do not know, my son. But bear this in mind, good Chatémuc: against a soldier fighting for the cross the powers of hell cannot prevail. Remember, Chatémuc, that unless that blaze is turned to ashes in their sight, my prayers and exhortations will be of no avail. We’ll leave them pagans as we found them, unless their sacred fire no longer burns.”
The vibrant notes in the friar’s rich voice rekindled the light in the Indian’s gloomy eyes.
“Either the fire or a Mohican shall die, my father!” exclaimed the warrior, in low, earnest tones. “Chatémuc, your son in Christ, has sworn an oath.”
Meanwhile the high spirits of Louis de Sancerre had cast their spell upon Katonah, a maiden whose ready smile seldom changed to laughter. But on this bright spring day, treading a flower-bedecked path by the side of a man whose delicately chiselled face was to her eyes a symbol of all the joy of life, it was not hard for the Mohican maiden to affect a gayety uncharacteristic of a race lacking in vivacity.
“They are splendid fellows,” remarked de Sancerre, gazing at the stalwart messengers from the Brother of the Sun. “With ten thousand men like these, Turenne could have marched around the world. But our mission to them is one of peace. I must teach them the steps of the menuet.”
“And what is that?” asked Katonah, glancing over her shoulder to see whether Chatémuc’s rebuking eye was fixed upon her. To her great satisfaction she discovered that her brother seemed to be absorbed in the words of the gray friar.
“The menuet, ma petite? ’Twas made for you. ’Tis a coupée, a high step and a balance. Your untrammelled grace, Katonah, would hurt the eyes of mesdames at Versailles.”
Little of this the Indian maiden understood, but she realized intuitively that her cavalier had been paying her an honest compliment. Her quick ear, more sensitive to the changes in his voice than to all other sounds, had learned to detect and dread a sarcastic note in his tones that often cut her to the heart. But on this gay noontide of a day at the close of what the sun-worshippers called the Moon of Strawberries, Louis de Sancerre was a joyous, frank, vivacious man who paid the beautiful savage at his side acceptable homage with his eyes and in whose words she could find nothing to wound her pride.
“When we reach this sun-baked centre of idolatry, ma petite,” remarked De Sancerre, presently, “we must make an effort to remain side by side. Though I should pass a thousand years in harems of the Turks, I could not forget the face of that old hag who came to haunt me by my lonely couch. ’Tis her you are to find—for the greater glory of our Mother Church. But bear this in mind, petite, that I must have some speech with her before the friar seizes on her tongue and makes her Spanish eloquent for Christ. I’d ask her of a miracle, before good Membré goes to work with his.”
For Katonah the glory of the day had passed. The gleam of happiness died slowly in her eyes, and the smile which lingered still upon her lips had lost its joyousness. Not only had the mocking echo returned to de Sancerre’s voice, but he had recalled to the girl’s mind the story that he had told her, earlier in the day, of a Spanish maiden whose name had come to him so strangely in the dark hours of the night. It was, then, the memory of a maiden over-sea which had led the Frenchman’s footsteps toward the city of the sun! The misery in Katonah’s heart crept into her voice.
“I’ll serve you as I can,” she said, gently, her eyes avoiding his. “But,” and she lowered her tones until her words became a warning made in whispers—“but I say to you, monsieur, beware of Chatémuc! Stay not by my side. I’ll serve you as I can, but leave me when we reach the town. Believe me when I say ’tis safer so.”
“Ma foi, ma petite,” exclaimed de Sancerre, petulantly, turning his head to cast a glance behind him at Chatémuc, “your warning, though well meant, was hardly fair to him! Your brother is too good a friend of Mother Church to harbor hatred of a Catholic like me, who only yesternight vowed three long candles to the Virgin-mother—after that ugly crone had left my side at last.”
“You smile, and speak light words,” murmured Katonah, deprecatingly. “But I say to you, beware of Chatémuc. He loves the faith, but hateth you, monsieur. I know not why. ’Tis strange!”
She gazed at the Frenchman’s face with a frank admiration which brought a self-conscious smile to the courtier’s lips. Flicking a multicolored insect from the tattered velvet of his sleeve, de Sancerre exclaimed:
“Ah, my Katonah! ’Tis those who know me best who love me best. Your brother is a stranger, who cannot read my heart. But, hark! what have we here?”
The noise of kettle-drums and the howling of a great throng arose in front of them. Their stately guides withdrew from de Tonti’s side and stalked sedately to the rear of the little group of strangers, leaving the Italian captain to lead his followers to the imminent outskirts of the town.
“Listen to the drums, petite!” exclaimed de Sancerre, gayly. “We’ll dance a menuet in yonder city, or I am not a moonbeam’s favorite son!”