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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.
"It has further been reported to me by the Palatine scout that the Onondagas are wavering, that the Oneidas are disposed to stand our friends, that the Tuscaroras are anxious to remain neutral. "Now, within a few days, news has reached me that these three doubtful nations are to be persuaded by an unknown woman who is, they say, the prophetess of the False-Faces."
"They say the False-Faces' rites are terrific," he muttered. "Thank God, that child will not be lured into those hideous orgies by Walter Butler!" We walked towards the house where Mount had prepared our food. I sat down on the door-step to eat my porridge and think of what lay before me and how best to accomplish it.
Then came the Cherry-maid, a slender creature, hung from head to foot with thick bunches of wild cherries which danced and swung when she walked; and the False-Faces plucked the fruit from her as she passed around, laughing and tossing her black hair, until she had been despoiled and only the garment of sewed leaves hung from shoulder to ankle.
Roars of applause shook the silence; then a masked figure leaped towards the central fire, shouting: "The False-Faces' feast! Ho! Hoh! Ho-ooh!" In a moment the circle was a scene of terrific excesses.
Truth was once more wholly restrained, hidden, dissimulated; the skillful shifting of painted masks, false-faces, continued uninterrupted its progress. A new lethargy enveloped Lee: his interest, his confidence, in what he was trying to prevent waned. What did it matter who went and who stayed? In the end it was the same, unprofitable and stale.
"I've found the False-Faces' trysting-place," said Mount, eagerly, as I came up. "I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir.
There was gilt and pretense. There were numerous glass cases, filled with lotions and skin-foods and other articles of toilet; there were faceless heads adorned with all shades of hair, scalps, pompadours, and wigs. A few false-faces grinned or scowled or smirked from frames or corners where they were piled. There were tawdry masquerade costumes, too, and theatrical make-up.
The Indians, amazed and cowed, slunk farther back. The hag fixed her blazing eyes on them and raised her arms. "Fools! Fools!" she mouthed, "what madness brought you here to this grove? to this place where the Stonish Giants have returned, riding out of Biskoona!" A groan burst from the Indians; a chief raised his arms, making the False-Faces' sign. "Mother," he stammered, "we did not know!
And at first I was minded to send Sir George back with Magdalen Brant and take only Mount with me. But whether it was a craven dread of despatching to Dorothy the man she was pledged to wed, or whether a desire for his knowledge and experience prompted me to invite his attendance at the False-Faces' rites, I do not know clearly, even now.
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