CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH CHATÉMUC FINDS THE INSPIRATION WHICH
HE LACKED
“’TWAS as I said it would be, my Chatémuc,” exclaimed Membré, mournfully, as the friar and his convert retired from the immediate presence of royalty. “As long as yonder temple protects its hellish fire, the ears of this great monarch will be deaf to words of mine. Mother of God, ’tis sad! He has a noble face! I would that I might live to shrive him of the many sins his haughty pride begets!”
Chatémuc gave vent to what might have been a pious groan, though it sounded to a listening group of sun-worshippers like the grunt of an ill-tempered man. The half-civilized Mohican had good reasons for his discontented mood. His unexpected discovery of a race of native Americans taller, better proportioned, and seemingly more muscular than his kinsmen of the North, had touched his sullen pride. Furthermore, Chatémuc felt that he had been made a victim, at the very foot of the throne, of a cleverly designed conspiracy. De Sancerre had spoken a few words to Noco, and the latter had addressed the King himself. In his native tongue the Great Sun had issued an order which had been translated by Noco into Spanish, and which de Sancerre had turned into French for the benefit—or, rather, for the disturbance—of Chatémuc. The royal behest had been uncompromising in its curt simplicity. The Brother of the Sun had ordered Noco to act as hostess to Katonah during the latter’s sojourn within his domain. Annoyed as the Mohican had been at this command, he had reluctantly recognized the futility of an open protest against the disposition made, without his consent, of his sister. He had retired with the Franciscan from the group surrounding the King’s litter, with a burning desire in his heart to make mischief. Quick to read the mind of Chatémuc, the gray friar, whose open zeal as a proselyter had been changed, by the Great Sun’s stubborn indifference to the awful significance of the crucifix, into the craft of a schemer, was now pouring into the Mohican’s ears words emphasizing the glories of martyrdom, and picturing the bliss which awaited those who perished for the cause of Mother Church. The Franciscan and his convert had withdrawn to a sunny slope a few yards to the eastward of the flower-strewn hillock upon which the Brother of the Sun maintained the pomp of royalty.
Had the eyes and ears of Chatémuc and Membré been open at that moment to pleasant impressions, they would have found many sources of delight in their surroundings. They gazed upon a multicolored scene whose most striking features they had never, in their many years of forest-travel, looked upon before. Bright-hued flowers, trees gay with the blossoms of spring, birds whose brilliant plumage suggested the possibility that a rainbow, shattered into small bits, had found wings for the remnants of its glory, and, over all, a blue canopy across which floated white, fleecy playthings of the breeze, whispered in vain their story of love and peace to the zealous friar and his attentive tool.
From the westward came the inspiring shouts of the home-going multitude and the noise of kettle-drums helping the army to keep perfect time as it marched, a snow-white phalanx, toward the City of the Sun. From their coigne of vantage Membré and the Mohican could see that a monarch who had snubbed the former and enraged the latter harbored no present intention of following his subjects and his army toward his city. In fact, it soon became apparent that the Brother of the Sun was about to regale his guests with a somewhat pretentious feast. Upon litters, undecorated and simple in construction, servants belonging to the lowest social caste—slaves in fact, if not by law—bore from the city food designed to give a substantial foundation to the Great Sun’s fête champêtre. Bustling women brought rudely-constructed wooden benches to the grass-carpeted banquet-hall whose decorations were the flowers of spring and whose roof was the smiling sky.
It was well for the good feeling that de Sancerre had done so much to strengthen between the children of the sun and moon that the slaves made ready the feast with great despatch, for the inopportune attempt of Zenobe Membré to convert the King at one stroke from the religion of his ancestors to a faith whose mysteries a sign-language was impotent to explain had cast a damper upon the group surrounding royalty. While it was true that the Great Sun had not taken offence at the inexplicable demonstration made by the zealous friar, he had become thoughtful and silent after the retreat of Membré and the Mohican. To relieve the situation, Henri de Tonti, a soldier unfitted either by disposition or habit for delicate feats of diplomacy, made no effort. Upon his scarred and unsymmetrical countenance rested an expression of sullen discontent as he stood, with folded arms, pretending to watch the preparations for a feast for which he had no heart. His jealousy of de Sancerre increased as he saw that, through the aid of Noco’s tongue, the courtier was tempting back again the smile of friendly interest to the black-eyed monarch’s face. Undecided whether to flee to the hillock where her brother stood or to place herself in Noco’s charge, according to the King’s command, Katonah lingered irresolutely by de Sancerre’s side, while her heart beat fast with the dread of an impending peril whose source she could not divine.
Presently the activity of the slaves ceased for a moment, and the master of ceremonies—“le maître d’hôtel” as de Sancerre dubbed him under his breath—approached the throne with arms stretched upward above his head, and announced in one word that the preparations for the banquet had been completed.
“Cahani!” exclaimed the Great Sun, seating himself upon a bench in front of the royal litter, and motioning to de Sancerre to take the place at his right hand. “Cahani! Sit down!”
At the monarch’s left stood Noco, duenna and interpreter, a useful creature at that moment, but unfitted by birth to eat meat with her sovereign. The Brother of the Sun smiled upon Katonah, and graciously offered her the second place of honor by his side. What the maiden’s rank among the Mohicans might be made no difference at this juncture. She had been honored by the Great Sun’s gracious recognition, and from that instant was looked up to as a princess by the ceremonious sun-worshippers, who held that their monarch’s nod might serve as a patent of nobility to a stranger from an alien land. Among themselves, the road from the lowest social status to the highest was a hard one. To enter the circle of the nobility, a low-caste man and wife among the children of the sun must strangle one of their own offspring, having proved, by this heroic sacrifice, their superiority to the humble rank to which birth had consigned them.
On the royal bench beyond Katonah sat the restless and dissatisfied de Tonti, silently protesting against the turn which events had taken, but just now impotent to change their course. The Italian veteran had walked far since breaking his fast, and had undergone the exhausting conflict of many antagonistic emotions. Hunger and thirst combined for the moment to postpone the withdrawal of his followers from the too-hospitable grasp of the sun-worshippers, but the observant captain realized the immediate necessity of a consultation with de la Salle before proceeding further with negotiations which the impulsiveness of de Sancerre might twist into an awkward shape. De Tonti had started out that morning to visit, he had imagined, an insignificant tribe of friendly Indians, and, behold, he had come upon a powerful nation, equipped with an army of gigantic warriors and endowed with a civilization whose outward manifestations were extremely impressive. Distrustful of de Sancerre, and knowing well the extremes to which Zenobe Membré’s zeal as a proselyter might carry him, the Italian soldier scented danger in their present environment. He determined, therefore, to withdraw his followers from the feast at an early moment, to reject the Great Sun’s proffer of hospitality for the night—which, he felt sure, would be extended to them—and to return to de la Salle’s camp by the river as quickly as circumstances permitted.
On the small plateau below the hillock upon which the Great Sun and his guests sat in state a hundred dusky noblemen had ranged themselves along the benches, awaiting, in solemn silence, the signal from their monarch which should reawaken the activity of the serving-women and inaugurate a banquet bidding fair to last until sundown. The Great Sun had raised his sceptre of painted feathers to indicate to his master of ceremonies that the time had come for the serving of the first course, when the royal eye lighted upon Zenobe Membré and the Mohican, who still stood upon a hillock beyond the furthest line of benches, plunged in deep converse.
“Go to your friend who sings the praises of his god, the Moon,” exclaimed the King, turning to Noco, who stood behind him awaiting his pleasure, and pointing his tawdry sceptre toward the Franciscan, “and say to him that the Brother of the Sun invites him to meat and drink. Have my people make a place for him, and for his captive who leans upon his voice. Go quickly, and return to me at once.”
Without further delay, the monarch gave the impatiently-awaited signal for the serving of the feast, and the hunger of his guests was suddenly confronted by a throng of antagonists, any one of which was fashioned to appease, in short order, the appetite of a European. The coarser meats, the buffalo steaks and the clumsily cooked venison, were relieved by fish prepared for the table with some skill, and by old corn made palatable in a variety of ways. To Henri de Tonti’s great satisfaction, he found that the cuisine of the sun-worshippers was the most admirable which he had encountered in his long years of pilgrimages from one native tribe to another.
It was with a great deal of reluctance that the Franciscan friar, followed by Chatémuc, had accepted the invitation extended to him from the Great Sun through Noco’s overworked tongue. She had delivered her message to the friar in her mongrel Spanish, and the Franciscan’s knowledge of Latin had enabled him to grasp the general tenor of her words. He had been endeavoring to throw upon the embers of the Mohican’s religious enthusiasm sufficient fuel to beget a flame that should result in immediate action of an heroic nature. But while the Franciscan dwelt upon the glories of martyrdom and the splendor of the rewards awaiting a servant of the Church who gave his life for the faith, fatigue and hunger, having possessed themselves of Chatémuc’s earthly tabernacle, formed a powerful alliance against that self-abnegation which the priest labored earnestly to arouse in the Mohican’s soul.
“To eat meat with these children of Satan, who worship the very fires of hell, is, I fear, to commit a grave sin,” remarked the friar, gazing upward at Chatémuc dubiously, as they followed Noco toward the lower benches. Being a hungry barbarian, not a devout and learned controversialist, the Mohican could vouchsafe in answer to this nothing more satisfactory than a grunt, a guttural comment upon the delicate point raised by the agitated friar which might mean much or nothing.
Seated at the very outskirts of the picturesque throng, Zenobe Membré bent his tonsured head and told his beads for a time, watching Chatémuc furtively as the Mohican indulged freely in roasted meats, half-cooked fish, and various preparations made from last year’s corn.
“How proudly yonder temple rises toward the sky, my Chatémuc,” muttered the friar, glancing toward the City of the Sun. “Great will be the glory of the hand chosen by the saints to pull it to the ground.”
Chatémuc chewed a morsel of tough venison and said nothing, but his eyes rested with a hostile gleam upon the Great Sun a hundred yards beyond him, beside whom sat Katonah, seemingly removed from her brother by the breadth of a mighty nation. Suddenly by the Mohican’s side appeared a serving-woman, who placed upon the bench at his right hand a gourd containing a fermented liquor made of the leaves of the cassia-tree. The increasing loquacity of the banqueters beyond the friar and his companion proved that the beverage, which had now reached them, possessed exhilarating properties. If the Franciscan had needed further evidence of the enlivening influence of the seductive liquor, which had come late to the feast as an ally to good-fellowship, the change in Chatémuc’s face would have offered it. After emptying his gourd twice—for the Mohican liked the cinnamon flavor of the drink—Chatémuc, flashing a glance of hatred at the Great Sun, looked down at the attentive friar at his side.
“The fire of hell shall burn no more beyond,” he said, jerking his hand toward the distant city, behind which the weary sun had begun to creep. “The oath I swore to you shall be no idle boast.”
Having observed that the Mohican liked the wine she offered him, the woman delegated to serve the friar and his comrade refilled the latter’s gourd for the third time. Chatémuc swallowed the fiery liquor eagerly, and turned to speak a final word to the priest.
At that instant Zenobe Membré’s eyes were fixed upon the royal group beyond him. The Great Sun had arisen and stood waving his feathered sceptre energetically, while he gazed down at Noco, to whom he seemed to be talking with some excitement. Gazing up at the King, with a satirical smile upon his delicate face, sat de Sancerre, while de Tonti had sprung to his feet with an expression of anger upon his countenance.
When the friar turned to address Chatémuc, he discovered that the Mohican had left his side and had been lost to sight in the long shadows of the stealthy twilight.