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The False-Faces are laughing in the ravine where the water is being painted with firelight. I acquaint you that the False-Faces are coming up out of the ravine!" The witch-drums boomed and rattled in the silence that followed his words.
Then, through the silence, a loud voice cried: "Little Rosebud Woman, the False-Faces thank you! She raised her head and laid a hand on each cheek. At the word the lynx rose and looked up into her face, then turned and paced slowly across the circle, green eyes glowing. The young girl loosened the braids of her hair; a thick, dark cloud fell over her bare shoulders and breasts.
And I call on the seven kindred clans of the Wolf, and the two kindred clans of the Turtle, and the four kindred clans of the Bear throughout the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy, throughout the clans of the Lenni-Lenape, throughout the Huron-Algonquins and their clans! "And I call on the False-Faces of the Spirit-water and the Water of Light!"
He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip. "Where is she?" I asked. "She has gone to bed. She would eat nothing. We must take her back with us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts." "Yes," I said, slowly. "But before we leave I must see the False-Faces." "Did Schuyler make that a point?" "Yes, Sir George."
With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and passed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening there together long after he had disappeared. "That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint," whispered my cousin. "He was painted for the secret rites of the False-Faces." "He could have slain us as we sat," I said, bitterly humiliated.
She who Dreams has come from her three sisters the Woman of the Thunder-cloud, the Woman of the Sounding Footsteps, the Woman of the Murmuring Skies!" And, joining hands, they cried, sweetly: "Come, O Little Rosebud Woman! Ke-neance-e-qua! O-gin-e-o-qua! Woman of the Rose!" And all together the False-Faces cried: "Welcome to Ta-lu-la, the leaping waters! Here is I-é-nia, the wanderer's rest!
"I want that officer to find the False-Faces' council-fire and listen to every word said, and report to me. I want him to use every endeavor to find this woman, Magdalen Brant, and use every art to persuade her to throw all her influence with the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras for their strict neutrality in this coming war. The service I require may be dangerous and may not. I do not know.
"You see, the General believes that this young girl can sway the False-Faces to peace or war.
And, their arms empty of blossoms, they danced away, laughing while the False-Faces clattered their wooden masks and swung their torches till the flames whistled.
But this I know; if the False-Faces are to decide for war or peace, they will sway the entire confederacy, and perhaps every Indian in North America; for though nobody knows who belongs to the secret sect, two-thirds of the Mohawks are said to be numbered in its ranks; and as go the Mohawks, so goes the confederacy." "How is it you know all this?" I asked, amazed.
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