Part 6 (1/2)
”You are bitten! Is there aught I can do?”
The Indian shook his head. With one hand he pulled the shoulder forward, trying, as Landless saw, to meet the wound with his lips; but finding that it could not be done, he desisted and sat silent, and to all appearance, unconcerned.
Landless cried out impatiently, ”It will kill you, man! Do you know no remedy?”
The Indian grunted. ”Snake root grow deep in the forest, a long way off.
Besides, an Iroquois does not die for a little thing like a pale face or a dog of an Algonquin.”
”Why did you try to reach the sting with your mouth?”
”To suck out the evil.”
”Is that a cure?”
The Indian nodded. Landless knelt down and examined the shoulder. ”Now,”
he said, ”tell me if I set about it in the right way,” and applied his lips to the swollen, blue-black spot.
The Indian gave a grunt of surprise, and his white teeth flashed in a smile; then he sat silent under the ministrations of the white man who sucked at the wound, spitting the venom upon the ground, until the dark skin was drawn and wrinkled like the hand of a washerwoman.
”Good!” then said the Indian, and pointed to the stream. Landless went to it, rinsed his mouth, and brought back water in his cap with which he laved the shoulder of his new acquaintance, ending by binding it up with the handkerchief from the man's head.
A guttural sound from the Indian made him look up. At the same instant the whip of the overseer, descending, cut him sharply across the shoulders. He sprang to his feet, the veins in his forehead swollen, his frame tense with impotent anger. The overseer, having gained his attention, thrust the whip back into his belt.
”If you don't want to get what will hurt as bad as a snake bite,” he said grimly, ”you had best tend to your tobacco and let vagrom Indians alone. That row is to be suckered before dinner-time or your pork and beans will go begging. As for you,” turning to the Indian, ”what are you doing on this plantation? Where's your pa.s.s?”
The Indian took from his waistband a slip of paper which he handed to the overseer, who looked at it and gave it back with a grudging--”It's all right this time, but you'd better be careful. It's my opinion that Major Carrington lets his servants run about a deal more than's good for them. Anyhow, you've no business in this field. Clear out!”
The Indian arose and went his way. But as he pa.s.sed Landless, suckering a plant with angry energy, he touched him, as if by accident, with his sinewy hand.
”Monakatocka never forgives an enemy,” came in a sibilant whisper too low to be heard by the watchful overseer. ”Monakatocka never forgets a friend. Some day he will repay.”
The red-brown body slipped away through the tall weeds and clumps of alder, like the larger edition of the thing that had hung upon its shoulder. The overseer strode off down the field, sending keen glances to right and left. He was a conscientious man, and earned every pound of his wages.
Landless, left alone, worked steadily on, for he had no mind to lose his midday meal, uninviting as he knew it would prove to be. Moreover, he was one who did with his might what his hand found to do. His body was weary, and his heart sick within him, but the green shoots fell thick and fast.
”Yon was a kindly thing you did. Pity 'twas in no better cause than the saving of a worthless natural.”
The speaker, who was at work on the next row of plants, had caught up with Landless from behind, and now moved his nimble fingers more slowly, so as to keep pace with the less expert new hand.
Landless, raising his head, stared at a figure of positively terrifying aspect. Upon a skeleton body of extraordinary height was set a head bare of any hair. Scalp, forehead and cheeks were of one dull, ivory hue like an eastern carving. Upon the smooth, dead surface of the right cheek sprawled a great red R, branded into the flesh, and through each large protruding ear went a ragged hole. For the rest, the lips were of iron, and the small, deep-set eyes were so bright and burning that they gave the impression that they were red like the great letter. It might have been the face of a man of sixty years, though it would have been hard to tell wherein lay the semblance of age, so smooth was the skin and so brilliant the eyes.
”The Indian needed help. Why should I not have given it him?” said Landless.
”Because it is written, 'Cursed are the heathen who inhabit the land.'”
Landless smiled. ”So you would not help an Indian in extremity. What if it had been a negro?”
”Cursed are the negroes! 'Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by the sword.'”
”A Quaker?”