William Shakespeare - "The Tempest"

Joseph Conrad - "The Mirror of the Sea"

Unkown - "The United States Copyright Act of 1976"

Joel Chandler Harris - "Uncle Remus His Songs and His Sayings"

To Have and To Hold:

M >> Mary Johnston >> To Have and To Hold:




There was revelry in the village; for hours after the night came,
everywhere were bright firelight and the rise and fall of laughter
and song. The voices of the women were musical, tender, and
plaintive, and yet they waited for the morrow as for a gala day. I
thought of a woman who used to sing, softly and sweetly, in the
twilight at Weyanoke, in the firelight at the minister's house. At
last the noises ceased, the light died away, and the village slept
beneath a heaven that seemed somewhat deaf and blind.



CHAPTER XXXI IN WHICH NANTAUQUAS COMES TO OUR RESCUE


A MAN who hath been a soldier and an adventurer into far and
strange countries must needs have faced Death many times and in
many guises. I had learned to know that grim countenance, and to
have no great fear of it. And beneath the ugliness of the mask that
now presented itself there was only Death at last. I was no babe to
whimper at a sudden darkness, to cry out against a curtain that a
Hand chose to drop between me and the life I had lived. Death
frighted me not, but when I thought of one whom I should leave
behind me I feared lest I should go mad. Had this thing come to
me a year before, I could have slept the night through; now- now-

I lay, bound to the log, before the open door of the lodge, and,
looking through it, saw the pines waving in the night wind and the
gleam of the river beneath the stars, and saw her as plainly as
though she had stood there under the trees, in a flood of noon
sunshine. Now she was the Jocelyn Percy of Weyanoke, now of the
minister's house, now of a storm-tossed boat and a pirate ship, now
of the gaol at Jamestown. One of my arms was free; I could take
from within my doublet the little purple flower, and drop my face
upon the hand that held it. The bloom was quite withered, and
scalding tears would not give it life again.

The face that was, now gay, now defiant, now pale and suffering,
became steadfastly the face that had leaned upon my breast in the
Jamestown gaol, and looked at me with a mournful brightness of
love and sorrow. Spring was in the land, and the summer would
come, but not to us. I stretched forth my hand to the wife who was
not there, and my heart lay crushed within me. She had been my
wife not a year; it was but the other day that I knew she loved me -

After a while the anguish lessened, and I lay, dull and hopeless,
thinking of trifling things, counting the stars between the pines.
Another slow hour, and, a braver mood coming upon me, I thought
of Diccon, who was in that plight because of me, and spoke to
him, asking him how he did. He answered from the other side of
the lodge, but the words were scarcely out of his mouth before our
guard broke in upon us commanding silence. Diccon cursed them,
whereupon a savage struck him across the head with the handle of
a tomahawk, stunning him for a time. As soon as I heard him move
I spoke again, to know if he were much hurt; when he had
answered in the negative we said no more.

It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night
was far gone; already we could smell the morning, and it would
come apace. Knowing the swiftness of that approach, and what the
early light would bring, I strove for a courage which should be the
steadfastness of the Christian, and not the vainglorious pride of the
heathen. If my thoughts wandered, if her face would come athwart
the verses I tried to remember, the prayer I tried to frame, perhaps
He who made her lovely understood and forgave. I said the prayer
I used to say when I was a child, and wished with all my heart for
Jeremy.

Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpet's call, the village
awoke. From the long, communal houses poured forth men,
women, and children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a
commotion arose through the length and breadth of the place. The
women made haste with their cooking, and bore maize cakes and
broiled fish to the warriors who sat on the ground in front of the
royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed, brought without, and
allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side by side with our
captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head, seized the
Indian girl who brought him his platter of fish, and pulling her
down beside him kissed her soundly, whereat the maid seemed not
ill pleased and the warriors laughed.

In the usual order of things, the meal over, tobacco should have
followed. But now not a pipe was lit, and the women made haste
to take away the platters and to get all things in readiness. The
werowance of the Paspaheghs rose to his feet, cast aside his
mantle, and began to speak. He was a man in the prime of life, of a
great figure, strong as a Susquehannock, and a savage cruel and
crafty beyond measure. Over his breast, stained with strange
figures, hung a chain of small bones, and the scalp locks of his
enemies fringed his moccasins. His tribe being the nearest to
Jamestown, and in frequent altercation with us, I had heard him
speak many times, and knew his power over the passions of his
people. No player could be more skillful in gesture and expression,
no poet more nice in the choice of words, no general more quick to
raise a wild enthusiasm in the soldiers to whom he called. All
Indians are eloquent, but this savage was a leader among them.

He spoke now to some effect. Commencing with a day in the
moon of blossoms when for the first time winged canoes brought
white men into the Powhatan, he came down through year after
year to the present hour, ceased, and stood in silence, regarding his
triumph. It was complete. In its wild excitement the village was
ready then and there to make an end of us who had sprung to our
feet and stood with our backs against a great bay tree, facing the
maddened throng. So much the best for us would it be if the
tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back to throw, if the
knives that were flourished in our faces should be buried to the
haft in our hearts, that we courted death, striving with word and
look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting their
former purpose in the lust for instant vengeance. It was not to be.
The werowance spoke again, pointing to the hills with the black
houses upon them, dimly seen through the mist. A moment, and
the hands clenched upon the weapons fell; another, and we were
upon the march.

As one man, the village swept through the forest toward the rising
ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men
bounded ahead to make preparation; but the approved warriors and
the old men went more sedately, and with them walked Diccon
and I, as steady of step as they. The women and children for the
most part brought up the rear, though a few impatient hags ran past
us, calling the men tortoises who would never reach the goal. One
of these women bore a great burning torch, the flame and smoke
streaming over her shoulder as she ran. Others carried pieces of
bark heaped with the slivers of pine of which every wigwam has
store.

The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the
low red hills. Above us were the three long houses in which they
keep the image of Okee and the mummies of their kings. These
temples faced the crimson east, and the mist was yet about them.
Hideous priests, painted over with strange devices, the stuffed
skins of snakes knotted about their heads, in their hands great
rattles which they shook vehemently, rushed through the doors and
down the bank to meet us, and began to dance around us,
contorting their bodies, throwing up their arms, and making a
hellish noise. Diccon stared at them, shrugged his shoulders, and
with a grunt of contempt sat down upon a fallen tree to watch the
enemy's manoeuvres.

The place was a natural amphitheatre, well fitted for a spectacle.
Those Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level spread
themselves over the rising ground, and looked down with fierce
laughter upon the driving of the stakes which the young men
brought. The women and children scattered into the woods beyond
the cleft between the hills, and returned bearing great armfuls of
dry branches. The hollow rang to the exultation of the playgoers.
Taunting laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of the
rattles, and the furious beating of two great drums combined to
make a clamor deafening to stupor. And above the hollow was the
angry reddening of the heavens, and the white mist curling up like
smoke.

I sat down beside Diccon on the log. Beneath it there were
growing tufts of a pale blue, slender-stemmed flower. I plucked a
handful of the blossoms, and thought how blue they would look
against the whiteness of her hand; then dropped them in a sudden
shame that in that hour I was so little steadfast to things which
were not of earth. I did not speak to Diccon, nor he to me. There
seemed no need of speech. In the pandemonium to which the
world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was
that he and I were to die together.

The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood properly
arranged. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light
the pile ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it
blaze more fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and
slowly dragged it across my wrists. The beating of the drums
suddenly ceased, and the loud voices died away. To Indians no
music is so sweet as the cry of an enemy; if they have wrung it
from a brave man who has striven to endure, so much the better.
They were very still now, because they would not lose so much as
a drawing in of the breath.

Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await
them. When they were nearly upon us I turned to him and held out
my hand.

He made no motion to take it. Instead he stood with fixed eyes
looking past me and slightly upwards. A sudden pallor had
overspread the bronze of his face. "There's a verse somewhere," he
said in a quiet voice, - "it's in the Bible, I think, - I heard it once
long ago, before I was lost: 'I will look unto the hills from whence
cometh my help' - Look, sir!"

I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In
front of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the summit, - no trees,
only the red earth, with here and there a low growth of leafless
bushes. Behind it was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the
sunrise, stood the figure of a man, - an Indian. From one shoulder
hung an otterskin, and a great bow was in his hand. His limbs
were bare, and as he stood motionless, bathed in the rosy light, he
looked like some bronze god, perfect from the beaded moccasins
to the calm, uneager face below the feathered headdress. He had
but just risen above the brow of the hill; the Indians in the hollow
saw him not.

While Diccon and I stared our tormentors were upon us. They
came a dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung
upon my arms, while a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it
from me. An arrow whistled over our heads and stuck into a tree
behind us. The hands that clutched me dropped, and with a yell the
busy throng turned their faces in the direction whence had come
the arrow.

The Indian who had sent that dart before him was descending the
bank. An instant's breathless hush while they stared at the solitary
figure; then the dark forms bent forward for the rush straightened,
and there arose a loud cry of recognition. "The son of Powhatan!
The son of Powhatan!"

He came down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority
of his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that
surged this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood,
hemmed round, but no longer in the clutch of our enemies. "It was
a very big wolf this time, Captain Percy," he said.

"You were never more welcome, Nantauquas," I answered, -
"unless, indeed, the wolf intends making a meal of three instead of
two."

He smiled. "The wolf will go hungry to-day." Taking my hand in
his he turned to his frowning countrymen. "Men of the
Pamunkeys!" he cried. "This is Nantauquas' friend, and so the
friend of all the tribes that called Powhatan 'father.' The fire is not
for him nor for his servant; keep it for the Monacans and for the
dogs of the Long House! The calumet is for the friend of
Nantauquas, and the dance of the maidens, the noblest buck and
the best of the weirs" -

There was a surging forward of the Indians, and a fierce murmur
of dissent. The werowance, standing out from the throng, lifted his
voice. "There was a time," he cried, "when Nantauquas was the
panther crouched upon the bough above the leader of the herd;
now Nantauquas is a tame panther and rolls at the white men's
feet! There was a time when the word of the son of Powhatan
weighed more than the lives of many dogs such as these, but now I
know not why we should put out the fire at his command! He is
war chief no longer, for Opechancanough will have no tame
panther to lead the tribes. Opechancanough is our head, and
Opechancanough kindleth a fire indeed! We will give to this one
what fuel we choose, and to-night Nantauquas may look for the
bones of the white men!"

He ended, and a great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have
cast themselves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young
chief, who had stood motionless, with raised head and unmoved
face, during the werowance's bitter speech. Now he flung up his
hand, and in it was a bracelet of gold carved and twisted like a
coiled snake and set with a green stone. I had never seen the toy
before, but evidently others had done so. The excited voices fell,
and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs alike, stood as though
turned to stone.

Nantauquas smiled coldly. "This day hath Opechancanough made
me war chief again. We have smoked the peace pipe together - my
father's brother and I - in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with
the wide marshes and the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in
the forest have been many; evil tales have they told;
Opechancanough has stopped his ears against their false singing.
My friends are his friends, my brother is his brother, my word is
his word: witness the armlet that hath no like; that
Opechancanough brought with him when he came from no man
knows where to the land of the Powhatans, many Huskanawings
ago; that no white men but these have ever seen. Opechancanough
is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two hundred
warriors that are as tall as Susquehannocks, and as brave as the
children of Wahunsonacock. He comes to the temples to pray to
Kiwassa for a great hunting. Will you, when you lie at his feet, that
he ask you, 'Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief, of
the Panther who is one with me again?' "

There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence, in
which they fell back, slowly and sullenly; whipped hounds, but
with the will to break that leash of fear.

"Hark!" said Nantauquas, smiling. "I hear Opechancanough and his
warriors coming over the leaves."

The noise of many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward
the hollow from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the
priests and the conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee
to the royal worshiper, and at their heels went the chief men of the
Pamunkeys. The werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed
with the wind; he listened to the deepening sound, and glanced at
the son of Powhatan where he stood, calm and confident, then
smoothed his own countenance and made a most pacific speech, in
which all the blame of the late proceedings was laid upon the
singing birds. When he had done speaking, the young men tore the
stakes from the earth and threw them into a thicket, while the
women plucked apart the newly kindled fire and flung the brands
into a little near-by stream, where they went out in a cloud of
hissing steam.

I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. "Art sure it is
not a dream, Nantauquas?" I said. "I think that Opechancanough
would not lift a finger to save me from all the deaths the tribes
could invent."

"Opechancanough is very wise," he answered quietly. "He says that
now the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that
he holds dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath
spoken against him at the Englishmen's council fire. He says that
for five suns Captain Percy shall feast with Opechancanough, and
that then he shall be sent back free to Jamestown. He thinks that
then Captain Percy will not speak against him any more, calling
his love to the white men only words with no good deeds behind."

He spoke simply, out of the nobility of his nature, believing his
own speech. I that was older, and had more knowledge of men and
the masks that they wear, was but half deceived. My belief in the
hatred of the dark Emperor was not shaken, and I looked yet to
find the drop of poison within this honey flower. How poisoned
was that bloom God knows I could not guess!

"When you were missed, three suns ago," Nantauquas went on, "I
and my brother tracked you to the hut beside the forest, where we
found only the dead panther. There we struck the trail of the
Paspaheghs; but presently we came to running water, and the trail
was gone."

"We walked up the bed of the stream for half the night," I said.

The Indian nodded. "I know. My brother went back to Jamestown
for men and boats and guns to go to the Paspahegh village and up
the Powhatan. He was wise with the wisdom of the white men, but
I, who needed no gun, and who would not fight against my own
people, I stepped into the stream and walked up it until past the
full sun power. Then I found a broken twig and the print of a
moccasin, half hidden by a bush, overlooked when the other prints
were smoothed away. I left the stream and followed the trail until
it was broken again. I looked for it no more then, for I knew that
the Paspaheghs had turned their faces toward Uttamussac, and that
they would make a fire where many others had been made, in the
hollow below the three temples. Instead I went with speed to seek
Opechancanough. Yesterday, when the sun was low, I found him,
sitting in his lodge above the marshes and the colored river. We
smoked the peace pipe together, and I am his war chief again. I
asked for the green stone, that I might show it to the Paspaheghs
for a sign. He gave it, but he willed to come to Uttamussac with
me."

"I owe you my life," I said, with my hand upon his. "I and Diccon"
-

What I would have said he put aside with a fine gesture. "Captain
Percy is my friend. My brother loves him, and he was kind to
Matoax when she was brought prisoner to Jamestown. I am glad
that I could pull off this wolf."

"Tell me one thing," I asked. "Before you left Jamestown, had you
heard aught of my wife or of my enemy?"

He shook his head. "At sunrise, the commander came to rouse my
brother, crying out that you had broken gaol and were nowhere to
be found, and that the man you hate was lying within the guest
house, sorely torn by some beast of the forest. My brother and I
followed your trail at once; the town was scarce awake when we
left it behind us, - and I did not return."

By this we three were alone in the hollow, for all the savages, men
and women, had gone forth to meet the Indian whose word was
law from the falls of the far west to the Chesapeake. The sun now
rode above the low hills, pouring its gold into the hollow and
brightening all the world besides. The little stream flashed
diamonds, and the carven devils upon the black houses above us
were frightful no longer. There was not a menace anywhere from
the cloudless skies to the sweet and plaintive chant to Kiwassa,
sung by women and floating to us from the woods beyond the
hollow. The singing grew nearer, and the rustling of the leaves
beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased, and
Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was
thrust through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, that was
neither painted nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row
of pearls; his mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and
sleek as satin. The face of this barbarian was dark, cold, and
impassive as death. Behind that changeless mask, as in a safe
retreat, the supersubtle devil that was the man might plot
destruction and plan the laying of dreadful mines. He had dignity
and courage, - no man denied him that. I suppose he thought that
he and his had wrongs: God knows! perhaps they had. But if ever
we were hard or unjust in our dealings with the savages, - I say not
that this was the case, - at least we were not treacherous and dealt
not in Judas kisses.

I stepped forward, and met him on the spot where the fire had
been. For a minute neither spoke. It was true that I had striven
against him many a time, and I knew that he knew it. It was also
true that without his aid Nantauquas could not have rescued us
from that dire peril. And it was again the truth that an Indian
neither forgives nor forgets. He was my saviour, and I knew that
mercy had been shown for some dark reason which I could not
divine. Yet I owed him thanks, and gave them as shortly and
simply as I could.

He heard me out with neither liking nor disliking nor any other
emotion written upon his face; but when I had finished, as though
he suddenly bethought himself, he smiled and held out his hand,
white-man fashion. Now, when a man's lips widen I look into his
eyes. The eyes of Opechancanough were as fathomless as a pool at
midnight, and as devoid of mirth or friendliness as the staring orbs
of the carven imps upon the temple corners.

"Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy," he said, and his voice
was like his eyes. "Opechancanough thinks that Captain Percy will
never listen to them again. The chief of the Powhatans is a lover of
the white men, of the English, and of other white men, - if there
are others. He would call the Englishmen his brothers, and be
taught of them how to rule, and who to pray to" -

"Let Opechancanough go with me to-day to Jamestown," I said.
"He hath the wisdom of the woods; let him come and gain that of
the town."

The Emperor smiled again. "I will come to Jamestown soon, but
not to-day nor to-morrow nor the next day. And Captain Percy
must smoke the peace pipe in my lodge above the Pamunkey, and
watch my young men and maidens dance, and eat with me five
days. Then he may go back to Jamestown with presents for the
great white father there, and with a message that Opechancanough
is coming soon to learn of the white men."

I could have gnashed my teeth at that delay when she must think
me dead, but it would have been the madness of folly to show the
impatience which I felt. I too could smile with my lips when
occasion drove, and drink a bitter draught as though my soul
delighted in it. Blithe enough to all seeming, and with as few
inward misgivings as the case called for, Diccon and I went with
the subtle Emperor and the young chief he had bound to himself
once more, and with their fierce train, back to that village which
we had never thought to see again. A day and a night we stayed
there; then Opechancanough sent away the Paspaheghs, - where
we knew not, - and taking us with him went to his own village
above the great marshes of the Pamunkey.



CHAPTER XXXII IN WHICH WE ARE THE GUESTS OF AN EMPEROR


I HAD before this spent days among the Indians, on voyages of
discovery, as conqueror, as negotiator for food, exchanging blue
beads for corn and turkeys. Other Englishmen had been with me.
Knowing those with whom we dealt for sly and fierce heathen,
friends to-day, to-morrow deadly foes, we kept our muskets ready
and our eyes and ears open, and, what with the danger and the
novelty and the bold wild life, managed to extract some merriment
as well as profit from these visits. It was different now.

Day after day I ate my heart out in that cursed village. The feasting
and the hunting and the triumph, the wild songs and wilder dances,
the fantastic mummeries, the sudden rages, the sudden laughter,
the great fires with their rings of painted warriors, the sleepless
sentinels, the wide marshes that could not be crossed by night, the
leaves that rustled so loudly beneath the lightest footfall, the
monotonous days, the endless nights when I thought of her grief,
of her peril, maybe, - it was an evil dream, and for my own
pleasure I could not wake too soon.

Should we ever wake? Should we not sink from that dream
without pause into a deeper sleep whence there would be no
waking? It was a question that I asked myself each morning, half
looking to find another hollow between the hills before the night
should fall. The night fell, and there was no change in the dream.

I will allow that the dark Emperor to whom we were so much
beholden gave us courteous keeping. The best of the hunt was
ours, the noblest fish, the most delicate roots. The skins beneath
which we slept were fine and soft; the women waited upon us, and
the old men and warriors held with us much stately converse,
sitting beneath the budding trees with the blue tobacco smoke
curling above our heads. We were alive and sound of limb, well
treated and with the promise of release; we might have waited,
seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content. We did not
so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were
growing green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and
cold black earth and naked forest, it rose like an exhalation. We
knew not what it was, but we breathed it in, and it went to the
marrow of our bones.

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