United States or Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Welcome, O Woman of the Rose!" Then the grotesque throng of the False-Faces parted right and left; a lynx, its green eyes glowing, paced out into the firelight; and behind the tawny tree-cat came slowly a single figure a young girl, bare of breast and arm; belted at the hips with silver, from which hung a straight breadth of doeskin to the instep of her bare feet.
Many had hideous false-faces, and a few horribly tall skeletons had heads of pumpkins containing lighted candles. The marshals were pierrots and clowns on long stilts, who towered in a ghostly way above the crowd. They were cheerful, fantastic revellers, singing the maddest and silliest of songs, with singular refrains and repetitions.
Raving and frothing, she burst into a torrent of prophecy, which silenced every tongue and held every Indian fascinated. "Look!" whispered Mount. "The Oneidas are drawing their hatchets! The Tuscaroras will follow! The Iroquois will declare for war!" Suddenly the False-Faces raised a ringing shout: "Kree! Ha-ha! Kre-e!" And a hideous creature in yellow advanced, rattling his yellow mask.
You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks! It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their prophetess; let her dream for them.
She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a moment since. "Do you know," she said, "that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The smoke we saw was a secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces for a council.
Word Of The Day