the council had sat long. when it rose the sky was pink with dawn, and the velvety black pall that had edged the clearing had changed into ranked trees and underbrush. the swampy floor beneath lay dull, save where some lost pool gleamed suddenly silver. azure mists curled softly upward. to the east, beyond the edge of the woods, the broad meadow glittered with the sparkling dew-jewels left by the parting night. far to the left a gleam of broken silver showed where the thames river rolled.
the spot, as tecumseh had said, was between the indian and the british lines. it lay just behind the apex of an obtuse angle, one leg of which ran along the edge of a fringe of beech trees wherein the british were entrenched. the other leg bordered the narrow marsh where the indians waited. neither woods nor swamp were deep nor dense. behind them the light gleamed through glades that gave upon the open country.
jack made no attempt to escape. he knew it would be useless. besides, he was minded to play the game out. he had come for his wife, and, now that day had come, he could not hope to find her save by tecumseh’s aid. this he determined to invoke;[299] and this, in spite of the deadly peril, he welcomed the chance to invoke. after all, he had come to ohio by tecumseh’s invitation. he had some rights which even a savage must respect. almost eagerly he stepped toward the place where tecumseh waited.
abruptly the red chief raised his hand and the iron arms of the two braves caught jack and dragged him back. at another gesture they stepped before him, screening him from the sight of an officer, clad in the red coat of the british, who was striding into the circle.
swiftly the officer came on, and jack saw that he was brito telfair. close to tecumseh he halted, and without salutation or formality he spoke.
“is tecumseh a coward that he needs the help of squaws?” he demanded, hotly. “will he keep the daughter of delaroche here during the battle? or will he send her away?”
tecumseh’s face darkened. his hand sprang to the hatchet at his belt. if brito saw it, he did not heed.
“in an hour a wagon with wounded starts to the rear,” he said. “send the girl with it. if we win today you can find her again and protect her. if we lose she will be safe. send her away, i beg of you.”
abruptly the man’s voice broke. “you needn’t fear me,” he said. “i can’t leave here, and you[300] know it. but—but a battle is no place for a woman! send her where she will be safe.”
tecumseh’s lips moved. “i will consider,” he promised. “go now and return within an hour. perhaps i will let the star maiden go.”
brito nodded and turned away. as he went jack felt the iron grip of the braves tighten upon his arms, forcing him forward.
he went willingly enough. he had learned that alagwa was there, in the camp, and he swore to himself that not tecumseh nor brito nor all the devils from h—l should prevent his reaching her.
coolly he faced the red chieftain. “the great chief came to me far in the south,” he said, deliberately. “he called me and i came a long trail to meet him. he did not wait for me, and i have followed him here to receive from him the star maiden, my kinswoman, the daughter of delaroche. will the great chief send for her?”
long tecumseh stared the young man in the face. at last his lips moved. “the young white chief is brave,” he said.
jack shrugged his shoulders. he had spoken as he did in the hope of startling his captor. he had no intention of pushing the pretense too far. “the white chief seeks his wife,” he said, deliberately. “he believes she is in tecumseh’s camp. he comes to demand her.”
tecumseh’s face grew even grimmer. “does the[301] white chief come for that alone?” he asked. “or does he come to spy out the camp of his foes? make answer, te-pwe, he who speaks true.”
jack looked the chief in the eyes. he knew that deception was useless and he was in no mood to try it. “tecumseh may judge for himself,” he said. “let the great chief do with me as he will. but first let him tell me whether my wife is with him and whether she is safe.”
tecumseh’s brows went up. “why need the white chief seek his wife,” he demanded. “what wrong has he done her that she has fled from him?”
jack shrugged his shoulders. “i have done her no wrong,” he said. “why she has left me i do not know. i was ill and when i recovered she had gone with emissaries sent by tecumseh. perhaps she went because he sent for her. perhaps she went because her ears were filled with lies. much i have guessed but little do i know. perhaps the great chief knows better than i why she went.”
tecumseh did not answer at once. his fierce eyes bored into jack’s as though they would read the young man’s soul. jack thought his expression was softer, but when he spoke his voice was as chill as ever.
“ten years and more ago,” he said, “when the chief delaroche lay dying i gave him my word that if the need ever came i would put his daughter in the care of his kinsmen in the far south and not in[302] that of his english kinsmen. years went by and the call came. the chief brito demanded her. he was a redcoat chief, an ally of tecumseh, and you were an enemy. he was a strong man and a warrior and you were a boy. had it not been for my word to my friend i would have given her to him gladly. but the word spoken to the dead comes not back. therefore i sought you out and bade you come for the girl. i waited long, but you did not come. once more i tried to keep my word to my friend. i sent the girl south, into your lines. i thought she would find you and she did. for days she travelled with you. i had kept my word to my dead friend.”
the day was brightening fast. the sky had grown brilliant with pink, and scarlet, and saffron. the sun thrust himself above the rim of the world and sent long lances of light shimmering through the damp air. the trees burned red against the horizon; the wet underbrush glistened like precious stones.
tecumseh’s voice changed. for the moment it had grown softer, but now it grew chill as death. “then suddenly,” he said, “she came back to me. she thought that i had sent for her. i had not. those who told her so were liars bought by the gold of brito. nevertheless i had kept my word and i was free to give her where i would. gladly would i have given her to brito. but she said she was your wife, wedded to you by the white man’s law. she[303] said she would die before she would go to brito. she begged me to protect her.
“i did protect her. i did not understand. so i protected her until i could understand. she had not left you merely because she thought i had sent for her. do i not know her and her sex? she loved you and she would not have left you at my call. a thousand times i might have called and she would not have come. some other cause she had. what was it?”
jack shook his head. “i do not know,” he said. “some talk there was about a letter that came to me at the instant of my marriage. i know nothing of it. i do not even remember that it came. when i fell, stricken by my old wound, i dropped it and an enemy of mine picked it up and read something from it. i do not know what it was—what it could have been. i do not even know that alagwa heard it. i speak of it only because i know of no other cause. has she not told you why she left?”
“she has told me nothing. she denied that you had wronged her. she swore that your heart was good toward her. but i did not believe her. when a woman loves she will go down to the gates of h—l to bring up lies to shield her beloved. i did not believe her. but she was the daughter of my friend and to me it fell to right her wrongs, to do justice on her foes. i would not give her to the redcoat chief so long as you lived. i would not slay unjustly.[304] therefore i gave orders to take you alive that i might question you. others also i sought to capture, learning little by little what part they had in my daughter’s wrongs. one by one i have gathered up the threads and woven them into the bow-string of my vengeance. at the last you have come into my hand like a bird to a trap. now, all is ready. tomorrow may be tecumseh’s last on earth. but tonight he has power and will do justice.”
the speaker gestured and a warrior who stood by handed a blanket to jack. “wrap yourself,” ordered the chief, “and sit beside the fire. hide your face and speak not till i give you leave.”
greatly wondering, jack obeyed. nothing that tecumseh said gave him hope, though the fact that the chief had said anything at all carried some little comfort. very clearly tecumseh would have been glad to give alagwa to brito, and very dearly he had only to take jack’s forfeited life to make it easy to carry out his wishes. on the other hand if he meant to kill he could do so with fewer words. with mingled hope and fear the american waited.
the crackling of brush beneath a hurrying tread came to his ears and he looked up.
through the woods a slim, young girl was coming swiftly. a moment more and alagwa stepped into the circle of the clearing and bowed before the great chief. “my father has sent for me,” she said. “i have come.”
[305]jack’s heart beat fiercely within him. this was not his comrade of the trails nor was it she whom he had seen for a few brief moments on that eventful night eight months before. gone were the mannish garments in which he had best known her. gone also was the white woman’s dress in which she had looked so fair. in their place she wore the doeskin garb of an indian maid, draped about the shoulders with a blanket. the strained look of anxiety had gone from her eyes, giving place to a sorrow too deep for words. jack’s heart throbbed with desire to leap to his feet and catch her in his arms. but, mindful of tecumseh’s words, he waited.
the great chief did not delay. “a year ago,” he said, “alagwa came to tecumseh, leaving the american chief to whom he had sent her. tecumseh would have given her to his ally brito. but she swore that she was married and that she loved her husband. tecumseh would not take back his gift to the american chief unless it were flung in his teeth. alagwa would tell him nothing. therefore he has found out for himself. little by little he has learned all her story. tonight he is ready to do justice. daughter of delaroche! tecumseh’s hatchet lies beneath your hand to strike whom you will. the young white chief is in his power. shall he slay him?”
the girl’s face whitened. she took a step backward,[306] catching at her heart. “jack!” she whispered. “jack! he is here?”
“he is here. what shall tecumseh do with him? shall he send him to the stake?”
the girl’s lips parted; her eyes widened with horror. then she dropped upon her knees at tecumseh’s feet. “no! no!” she gasped. “oh! god! not that! tecumseh will not, shall not, do that. if ever tecumseh loved alagwa let him hear her prayer. let the young white chief go and send alagwa to the stake in his place.”
“but he wronged you.”
“he wronged me not. he was ever good and kind. he wronged me not.” the words were a wail. “believe me, great chief!”
relentlessly tecumseh faced her down. “why then did you leave him?” he demanded.
“because he loved me not. he never pretended to love me. he married me to save my good name. i—i—” the girl gasped, then went proudly on—“i loved him and i thought his heart was free. so i married him. then at the moment came a letter from his home by the far southern seas. he read it, his eyes widened with horror, and he fell senseless. as i bent over him a man standing near caught up the letter and read from it that the maid he had loved was free and was calling for him. then i knew why he looked at me as he did. he did not mean to do it. he was too good, too kind, too[307] noble. he would never have looked at me so again. but i had learned the truth. he had no place for me in his life or his heart. the surgeon at the fort said he would soon recover. i thought you had sent for me. so i left him to come to you. nothing else was left. but he did me no wrong. he did me no wrong. he did me no wrong—” the girl’s voice died away in inarticulate murmurs.
the woods had grown very still. the dead leaves rustled along the ground and the saplings murmured as they trembled in the caress of the vagrant breeze. but no man moved or spoke.
crouching upon the ground alagwa waited, looking up at tecumseh with beseeching eyes.
jack groaned as he watched the anguish that marred the exquisite oval of her face, stealing the color from her cheeks and leaving them pallid against the brown background of the woods. but he was very sure that tecumseh was not acting without a cause, and he dared not speak lest he should spoil some well-laid plan.
slowly tecumseh spoke. “alagwa knew not the writing of the white man,” he said. “lately she has learned it, but then she knew it not. how knows she that the man read with a true tongue? how knows she that he did not lie? was he so great a friend of hers?”
alagwa sprang to her feet. her hands tightened till the knuckles gleamed white in the morning light.[308] “friend!” she gasped. “he was no friend. he was an enemy. it was he who murdered wilwiloway.” she paused; then—“did—did he lie? oh! god! did he lie?”
“perhaps!” tecumseh pointed to a place on his left. “let my daughter sit beside me and hide her face in her blanket and keep silence till tecumseh bids her speak.”
alagwa sat down. as she did so her eyes fell on the draped figure at the great chief’s right. from its folds two eyes gleamed at her, signalling a message of comfort and of love. telepathy was far in the future—its very name was yet unborn—but the girl read the message and was comforted.
then she straightened up with a gasp. williams, under guard, had come through the woods and stood before the great chief. jack remembered that he had been missing since the massacre at the river raisin.
the man’s face was drawn and pale. clearly, his captivity had not been light. round him he glanced with quick, furtive eyes, seeking hope and finding none.
long tecumseh stared him in the eyes. at last he stretched out his hand, holding a soiled and deeply creased letter. “this was taken from you when you were captured,” he said. “read it aloud. and take care you read it true.”
williams’s eyes narrowed. despite the chilliness[309] of the dawn, beads of perspiration crept out upon his forehead. furtively he looked around him, as if fearing to see some accuser. then he took the letter and stared at it.
“read!” thundered the chieftain. “read! and read true!”
williams moistened his dry lips. at last he spoke. “i don’t know how to read,” he mumbled.
jack leaned forward, every nerve tense. he did not need to be told that the letter was the one he had lost, the one from which williams had read the words that had sent his bride of an hour fleeing into the night. some disclosure was coming; he read it in the trader’s frightened eyes and in tecumseh’s deadly mien. what would it be? his blood ran cold as he waited.
chill as death came the great chief’s voice. “surely the white man errs,” he said. “a year ago he read from this very letter a message from a maid dwelling in the far south.”
williams’s courage deserted him. his whole figure seemed to crumple. clearly he remembered that the shawnees were alagwa’s friends. “i didn’t read nothin’,” he whined. “i was only jokin’. that fellow jack done me a dirty trick and he hit me when i wasn’t lookin’ and i wanted to get even. i reckoned he had a sweetheart down south and i made up something about her and let on that it was in the letter. i didn’t mean no harm. i reckoned[310] he’d get well and read the letter and make it all right with the girl. how was i to know she’d run off right away?”
“you cur!” heedless of tecumseh’s possible wrath jack hurled himself at the trader. but before his gripping fingers could fasten upon the other’s throat the two braves stepped between, forcing him backward. a second later alagwa slipped to his side and clasped his hand in hers.
absorbed in the scene none saw brito telfair come through the woods to the edge of the clearing and stand there, watching the scene with gleaming eyes.
meanwhile tecumseh was speaking. “tecumseh does not kill prisoners,” he said. “he challenges any white man to say that he has ever taken vengeance on the helpless. he has spared even snakes in the grass, lying and treacherous. but, like the chiefs of all nations, tecumseh punishes murder.” he turned to williams. “you dog,” he grated. “a year ago you murdered wilwiloway, friend of tecumseh. you shot him down without cause, in cold blood, when he was making the peace sign. for that i have doomed you. i have let you live only that you might say what you have said today. now you die.” he waved his hand to the guards. “take him away,” he ordered. “let his end be swift.”
the guard closed in, but the doomed man flung[311] himself at jack’s feet. “for god’s sake don’t let them kill me!” he screamed. “for god’s sake!” he clutched at jack’s feet. “here’s your letter,” he jabbered, forcing it into the other’s hand. “you can show it to her and make everything right. but for god’s sake save me. you’re a white man, not an injun. save me! don’t let these devils murder me.”
jack’s fury died. the indefinable bond between white and white, the bond that has lifted the race above all other races of the world, tugged at him. after all, williams was a white man; murderer though he was, he was a white man. forgetful that he too was a prisoner, a detected spy, jack turned to the chief.
but before he could speak tecumseh raised his hand. “tecumseh does justice,” he said. “he does it both to his foes and to his friends. the wrong this man did to alagwa has been healed. but the wrong he did to wilwiloway has not been paid. he is a murderer; he will die for it.” he waved his hand. “take him away,” he ordered.
the guards plucked williams from the ground and marched away with him.
then brito came forward, jauntily. he glanced at jack, and triumph shone in his eyes.
“great is tecumseh’s justice,” he said. “confidently i appeal to it.”
not a muscle in the chief’s face changed. “let[312] the servant of the white king speak,” he directed, calmly.
brito’s eyes grew steely. “the hour that tecumseh fixed has passed,” he said. “i came back to receive his word. i find with him an american dog, dressed in the coat of the king’s soldiers. either he comes as a spy, whose life is forfeit, or he comes to offer tecumseh the price of treachery, to buy him to desert the king and join the americans. which is it? if he comes as a spy i demand in the king’s name that tecumseh surrender him to me to be dealt with as a spy. if he comes to buy tecumseh let the red chief declare himself now.”
brito spoke boldly. whatever his faults he was no coward. unflinchingly he gazed into tecumseh’s eyes.
jack’s heart sank. every word that brito said was true. by all the laws of war his life was forfeit. if the englishman had not appeared tecumseh might have spared him for alagwa’s sake. but would he dare to spare him now and let himself rest under the imputation of treachery that brito had hurled into his teeth? jack doubted it greatly. but he strove to meet his enemy’s eyes composedly and not to betray the terror with which he waited.
he had not long to wait. deliberately the red chief ignored brito’s accusation. coolly he answered. “captain telfair asks justice,” he said, slowly. “he shall have it. but the american chief[313] shall have it also. he came to tecumseh’s camp to demand his wife. tecumseh will not slay him or let him be slain. he has need of him. he will send him back to his own people with a message to the chief of the seventeen fires.”
hand in hand jack and alagwa waited. they spoke no words; they needed to speak none. they looked each other in the eyes and were content.
tecumseh went on slowly. “tecumseh kept his word once to his dead friend,” he said. “he is under no pledge to give the star maiden to the american chief again. but”—the chief paused: slowly his eyes traversed the startled group—“but he may take her himself if he dares and if he can. the star maiden shall go now, at once, in the british chief’s wagon, to the rear. there she will wait.”
the chieftain paused and pointed upward to the sun, which was just climbing above the tops of the trees. then he faced jack.
“the day passes swiftly,” he said. “go back to your general and tell him that tecumseh sends him greeting as one brave man to another and challenges him to combat. tell him that the redcoats and red men are united and wait to give him battle. tell him that—tell him what you will. you can tell him nothing but what tecumseh wishes him to know. but tell him to hasten. your way to the star maiden lies across my lines. till sunset tecumseh[314] will protect her. afterwards, you must protect her yourself. if you pass our lines you may clasp her in your arms before the sun sets. i have spoken! go!”
brito had listened in silence. he attempted no protest. he made no further accusation of treachery. instead, he bowed. “i am stationed at the very center of the british part of our lines, my dear cousin,” he said; “i will await you there. fail not—or it will be i who will clasp the star maiden in my arms this night.”
