Part 27 (2/2)
”The Toad-woman herself--and all her sp.a.w.n.”
”The Senecas?”
”And the others,” he said in a low voice.
A sudden and terrible misgiving a.s.sailed me. I swallowed, and then said slowly:
”Two scalps were taken late last night by Murphy and Elerson. And the scalps were not of the Mohawk. Not Oneida, nor Onondaga, nor Cayuga.
Mayaro!” I gasped. ”So help me G.o.d, those scalps are never Seneca!”
”Erie!” he exclaimed with a mixture of rage and horror. And I saw his sinewy hand quivering on his knife-hilt. ”Listen, Loskiel! I knew it!
No one has told me. I have sat here all the day alone, making my steel bright and my paint fresher, and singing to myself my people's songs.
And ever as I sat at the lodge door, something in the summer wind mocked at me and whispered to me of demons. And when I rose and stood at gaze, troubled, and minding every river-breeze, faintly I seemed to scent the taint of evil. If those two scalps be Erie, then where the Cat-People creep their Sorcerer will be found.”
”Amochol,” I repeated under my breath. And s.h.i.+vered.
For, deep in the secret shadows of that dreadful place where this vile hag, Catharine Montour, ruled it in Catharines-town, dwelt also all that now remained of the Cat-Nation--Eries--People of the Cat--a dozen, it was rumoured, scarcely more--and demons all, serving that horrid warlock, Amochol, the Sorcerer of the Senecas.
What dreadful rites this red priest and his Eries practiced there, none knew, unless it were true that the False Faces knew. But rumour whispered with a thousand tongues of horrors viewless, nameless, inconceivable; and that far to the westward Biskoonah yawned, so close indeed to the world's surface that the waters boiling deep in h.e.l.l burst into burning fountains in the magic garden where the red priest made his sorcery, alone.
These things I had heard, but vaguely, here and there--a word perhaps at Johnson Hall, a whisper at Fort Johnson, rumours discussed at Guy Park and Schenectady when I was young. But ever the same horror of it filled me, though I believed it not, knowing full well there were no witches, sorcerers, or warlocks in the world; yet, in my soul disturbed concerning what might pa.s.s deep in the shadows of that viewless Empire.
”Mayaro,” I said seriously, ”do you go instantly to the fort and view those scalps.”
”Were the braids fastened at the roots with tree-cat claws?”
”Aye!”
”No need to view them, then, Loskiel.”
”Are they truly Erie?”
”Cats!” He spat the word from his lips and his eyes blazed.
”And--Amochol!” I asked unsteadily.
”The Cat People creep with the Seneca high priest, mewing under the moon.”
”Then--he is surely here?”
”Aye, Loskiel.”
”G.o.d!” said I, now all a-quiver; ”only to slay him! Only to end this demon-thing, this poison sp.a.w.n of the Woman-Toad! Only to glimpse his scarlet rags fairly along my rifle sight!”
”No bullets touch him.”
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