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chanting his death song as from a lofty oak limb he looked down the forest trail.
Along this way came always the red-haired killers from Akilinek, the Island of Demons, somewhere on
the tidal sea.
He did not know just where it might be situated. Once thirty canoes had gone to seek it. A great war
party, the strength of three tribes. None had ever returned, taken either by the sleek green wolves of
Squant, the square-eyed sea-goddess, or Hobbamock the Foul, who dwelt upon that island to be the
curse of men.
Twice each year the hairy killers came ravening through the forests of the Abenaki when the snow was
one moon gone from the hills and again shortly before it returned. Never had they been conquered. They
came as they pleased, with their heavy axes and their shirts from which the arrows bounced and their
war-bonnets upon which stone tomahawks broke.
They plundered, slew, ravaged and were gone to sea again, paddling over the horizon hi their curious
stone boats (for Nunganey knew nothing of metals) with their weighty loads of maize, furs, meat and
captives.
When they had gone, Nunganey s people were destitute. Still they clung to their homeland and
hunting-grounds, loving their country savagely, refusing to be driven away or to fall permanently into the
position of a subject nation. They always fought, though they never won.
Nunganey thought moodily on these things, striking softly into the thick bark with his stone hatchet as he
waited.
Orono, the chief, had derided his plans for vengeance after the last raid, when Cosannip, his blood
brother, had been taken captive, for what purpose no one knew. Nunganey had refused to become
discouraged. He kept on, climbing daily into his high tree with bags of pebbles on his back. -»
Now, forty feet above the ground, there were suspended two ponderous sacks of stones, each made
from the hide of a large black bear. Between them hung a latticework of saplings, studded with foot-long
stakes, sharpened and burned stone hard. A single cut of his hatchet upon a single thong would release
the cunning fastenings which held the whole suspended over the trail below.
He would see if these stonish men were proof against that, as they were against dart and spear! Then he
would follow swiftly, sliding down the rawhide rope which lay ready to his hand. He would drop among
them to kill and kill and kill again, until Cosannip was avenged and he himself lay dead.
That he would be slain he had no doubt. There was no man of the People who could stand singly against
a demon s ax. He could not help marveling at the return of the killers, so soon after their raid. Generally
one trip was all at each season, though the old men told that, in their grandfather s time, three visits a year
had been the custom, and N karnayoo of old time even oftener. He had only hoped, without reason,
that they might return and fall into his trap.
Always, it would appear these demons, these Chenoo, had persecuted the Abenaki, the Children of the
Dawn. Now here they were and he was waiting. Wan-pe, the fisher, had seen them on the shore and fled
into the village to warn the people and Nunganey had sought the great oak and was ready.
Here they came at last, striding noiselessly over the forest floor. Were they so confident, these Chenoo,
that two alone thought that they could walk among the wickams to choose and take as they would?
Nunganey growled deep in his corded throat. He would see!
But what in the name of Kiehtan were they?
The man was dressed in somewhat similar manner to the invaders, but his hair was brown, not flaming
red his skin bronzed, not pallid like the Chenoo. Nor was his companion like any Abenaki woman.
Entirely naked, her very flesh like the hard integument which the Chenoo put oft or on at will, she was a
beautiful demon who must die.
Both were strangers, however strangely armed, and they came from the sea. That alone marked them as
enemies, in Nunganey s mind.
A score of strides more ten five ! The Abe-naki s dark eyes glittered and his hatchet fell upon the
restraining thong.
Gwalchmai and Corenice had come a long way without speaking. The forest was very still, but neither
suspected danger until a blue-jay squawked. Then a whir in the air and a dark blur crashing down caused
the metal girl to whirl quick as a tree-cat against him. Thrusting him violently aside and crouching, she
received upon herself the full ringing impact of that mighty blow.
Flat on his back, Gwalchmai jerked out the Same gun at his belt. A blast of livid light crashed into the
tree and Nunganey, already swinging from the rope, fell thudding from bough to bough, followed by a
rain of debris as that rope was clipped above him.
Down smashed the entire treetop with a splintering roar. He saw the painted body strike the earth in a
coil of rawhide, to be instantly covered with swishing leaves. He plunged into the foliage, yanking out the
stunned Abenaki, and, stepping back, was about to cut down upon him with the flame swathe when
Corenice called:
 Save that man alive! I want speech with him!
Glowering, holding his surly prisoner rigid under the menace of that crystal lens, he turned upon her.
Un-scratched, unharmed, with her golden hair flying loose, she stood in the wreckage of the lattice. Its
many prongs were driven deep around her, broken and askew. The two weights had fallen on either side,
to burst the bags and send stones flying afar, splashing up the turf like soft mud.
Bewildered at her odd shortness of stature, he could at first only grin as, all woman in the midst of ruin, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]