As I reached the rough shelter of fringing evergreen Mount and Little Otter stepped out; and I saw the giant forest-runner wink the tears away as he laid his huge finger across his lips.
"She sleeps as sweetly as a child," he whispered. "I told her you were coming. Oh, sir, it will tear your heart out to see her small white feet so bruised, and the soft, baby hands of her raw at the wrists, where they tied her at night.... Is he surely dead, sir, as they say?"
"I saw him die, thank God!"
"That is safer for him, I think," said Mount simply. "Will you come this way, sir? Otter, fetch a splinter o' fat pine for a light. Mind the wheel there, Mr. Renault--this way on tiptoe!"
He took the splinter-light from the Oneida, fixed it in a split stick, backed out, and turned away, followed by the Indian.
At first I could not see, and set the burning stick nearer. Then, as I bent over the rough wagon, I saw her lying there very white and still, her torn hands swathed with lint, her bandaged feet wrapped in furs. And beside her, stretched full length, lay Lyn Montour, awake, dark eyes fixed on mine.
She smiled as she caught my eye; then something in my face sobered her. "He is dead?" she motioned with her lips. And my lips moved assent.
Gravely, scarcely stirring, she reached up and unbound her hair, letting it down over her face. I understood, and, stepping to the fire, returned with a charred ember. She held out first one hand, then the other, and I marked the palms with the ashes, touched her forehead, her breast, her feet. Thus, in the solemn presence of death itself, she claimed at the tribunal of the Most High the justice denied on earth, signing herself a widow with the ashes none but a wedded wife may dare to wear.
Lower and lower burned the tiny torch, sank to a spark, and went out. The black curtains of obscurity closed in; redder and redder spread the glare from the camp-fire; crackling and roaring, the flames rose, tufted with smoke, through which a million sparks whirled upward, showering the void above. Dark shapes moved in the glow with a sparkle of spur and sword as they turned; the infernal light fell on the naked bodies of Oneidas, sitting like demons, eyes blinking at the flames. And through the roar of the fire I heard their chanting undertone, monotonous, interminable, saluting their dead: "Cover the White Throat at Carenay, Lest evil fall at Danascara, Lay the phantom away, Men of Thendara, Trails of Kayaderos And Adriutha Cover our loss! Tree of Oswaya, From Garoga To Caroga Cover the White Throat For the sake of the Silver Boat afloat In the Water of Light, O Tharon! This for the pledge of Aroronon Lest the Long House end And the Tree bend And our dead ascend in every trail And the Great League fail. Now by the brotherhood ye've sworn Let the Oneida mourn."