ning redly before the Emperor's
lodge. Beneath the trees, waiting for us, was the Indian maid, with her
light form, and large, shy eyes, and finger upon her lips. She would not
speak or tarry, but flitted before us as dusk and noiseless as a moth,
and we followed her into the darkness beyond the firelight, well-nigh
to the line of sentinels. A wigwam, larger than common and shadowed by
trees, rose in our path; the girl, gliding in front of us, held aside
the mats that curtained the entrance. We hesitated a moment, then
stooped and entered the place.

CHAPTER XXXIII IN WHICH MY FRIEND BECOMES MY FOE

IN the centre of the wigwam the customary fire burned clear and bright,
showing the white mats, the dressed skins, the implements of war
hanging upon the bark walls,--all the usual furniture of an Indian
dwelling,--and showing also Nantauquas standing against the stripped
trunk of a pine that pierced the wigwam from floor to roof. The fire was
between us. He stood so rigid, at his full height, with folded arms and
head held high, and his features were so blank and still, so forced and
frozen, as it were, into composure, that, with the red light beating
upon him and the thin smoke curling above his head, he had the look of a
warrior tied to the stake.

"Nantauquas!" I exclaimed, and striding past the fire would have touched
him but that with a slight and authoritative motion of the hand he kept
me back. Otherwise there was no change in his position or in the dead
calm of his face.

The Indian maid had dropped the mat at the entrance, and if she waited,
waited without in the darkness. Diccon, now staring at the young chief,
now eyeing the weapons upon the wall with all a lover's passion, kept
near the doorway. Through the thickness of the bark and woven twigs the
wild cries and singing came to us somewhat faintly; beneath that distant
noise could be heard the wind in the trees and the soft fall of the
burning pine.

"Well!" I asked at last. "What is the matter, my friend?"

For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voice
matched his face.

"My friend," he said, "I am going to show myself a friend indeed to the
English, to the strangers who were not content with their own hunting
grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I do not
know that Captain Percy will call me 'friend' again."

"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantauquas," I answered him. "I am not
fond of riddles."