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They were not accustomed to converse, much less to take their breakfast, with a Sorceress of Amochol, and though this dread fact did nothing alter their appetites, it discouraged any freedom of conversation.
And far into the July morning I talked with the Sagamore of Amochol and of Catharines-town; and he listened while he sat tirelessly polishing his scalping-knife and hatchet. The sunrise gun awoke me. I rolled out of my blanket, saw the white cannon-smoke floating above the trees, ran down to the river, and plunged in.
Amochol, frozen to a scarlet statue, stared at the contortions of the executioner for a moment, then, livid, wheeled on the Prophetess, shaking from head to foot. "Is this your accursed magic?" he shouted. "Is this your witchcraft, Sorceress of Biskoonah? Is it thus you strike when threatened? Then you shall burn! Take her, Andastes!"
But through this he must blaze his trail, and the pioneers who are to follow shall lay their wagon-path across felled trees, northward still, across the forests that border the flats of Catharines-town; and then, still northward for a mile; and so swing west, severing the lake trail. Thus we shall trap Amochol between us."
"I only ask of my friend and blood-brother that he reserve himself for these great deeds and not risk a chance bullet in ambush for the sake of an Erie scalp or two for the sake of a patch of mangy fur which grows on these Devil-Cats of Amochol."
They're all awaiting us, it is said; the whole crew Johnson's Greens, Butler's Rangers, McDonald's painted Tories, Brant's Mohawks and the Senecas with their war-chiefs and their sorcerer, Amochol truly a motley devil's brood, Lana; and I pray only that one of Morgan's men may sight Walter Butler or Sir John over his rifle's end."
"What is this?" said Lana sharply; but he lifted an impatient hand and went on in his quick, interested manner, to detail to me the plan he had conceived for striking Amochol at Catharines-town, in the very midst of the Onon-hou-aroria.
But the Toad Woman, mother of Amochol, was absent, and of all the Montours only this strange priest had remained at Catharines-town. And him we were now about to take or slay. "Amochol!" whispered the Sagamore in my ear. "I know," I said. "It is strange. He is not like a monster, after all." "He is beautiful," whispered Lois. I stared at the pale, calm face over which the firelight played.
But the combination of Seneca, Erie, and Amochol prowling around our picket-line was too much for the outraged Sagamore of the Spirit Wolf. And I now comprehended it thoroughly.
And there must have been some Seneca there doubtless some adopted Seneca of a birth more civilized who told the mother, and who was persuaded by her to make of it a Hidden One. "How long it lay concealed, and in whose care, how can I know? But it is certain that Amochol learned that it had been hidden, and sent his Cat-People out to prowl and watch.
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