The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin by Robert J. Begiebing Read Free Book Online

was this an ancient city? Certainly, he thought, as they moved into the village, this might well be the place for a man in search of anonymity and security from his white brethren.
    Here too Shaw was known. The men Shaw spoke to seemed to understand and accept the Englishmen’s purpose. They agreed to a meeting on another day with Higgins. For now the Englishmen were again invited to join the seasonal celebration.
    When the eating ended that night, an old man rose before Browne and began to chant. These, Shaw explained, were ancient Indian tales he was reciting. To Browne they seemed mellifluous and strangely rhymed, yet incomprehensible.
    â€œThis is the story of the father deer,” Shaw told Browne in a quiet voice. Browne looked at him blankly.
    â€œThe deer has power for them. These people have gathered into one of the last strongholds of the northern forest in the territory of Massachusetts and the southern Province of Maine. Many groups still spread throughout the forests, but here is a settlement impregnable by its numbers and most powerful leader. Not even the Mohawks dare provoke them now.”
    â€œThe Mohawks are enemies of these savages?” Browne asked.
    â€œAnd the most feared. But Tantpasiquineo defies them. He pays no tribute. And when two Mohawks were caught skulking nearby, they met their end. Tantpasiquineo returned a severed hand from each man to their own prince.”
    â€œWhat became of these wretches?”
    â€œThey were tortured to death, in the savage manner. It is worse for an enemy who falls into their hands for they are masters of keeping him alive under his torments.”
    â€œMay we never become their enemies!” Browne said.
    â€œWe are brothers in trade. It is only the English who may break the partnership, as some even now have. There must be trust on both sides.”
    â€œOr we will be subject to their barbarisms.”
    â€œReap as we sow.”
    After a moment Shaw added: “But their practices can be no worse than the torments of the Turks or Persians, or Christians come to that. Yet these Indians may exceed them all in prolonging an enemy’s misery.”
    â€œBy what method?” Browne asked.
    â€œBy divers practices. The common thing is to bind the victim to a tree and begin by cutting off one finger and toe at a time, then the hands, feet, arms, legs at each joint, until only the trunk remains. The flow of blood is each time stanched by searing the wound with fiery coals. Near the end they flay the flesh from the head and place more embers like a cap on the head. If his heart is still alive they cut it from his breast.”
    â€œA fiendish horror,” Browne said and shook his head.
    â€œMore so for anyone awaiting similar treatment, who must watch and hear the screams of the victim, whose songs increase the next victim’s terror.”
    Browne grew silent. The old poet’s melodious chant flowed into the night. Browne recalled what he had been told of Boston and the southerly reaches of New England during the Pequod wars, a limited uprising the English had been able to beat down.It seemed to him at the moment an historical eccentricity rather than a prophecy of the relations between the light and dark races. They cooperated in a trade now that the English were extending to the marketplaces of the world, a vast market, Browne believed, that could only grow in size and stability.
    But Shaw’s words recalled for him stray images of the old war. A man had once described for Browne the conditions of vigilance in the dank, gray-clouded Boston of late August, 1637. He saw again the smoke blowing about the town where grim, armed men received and displayed the gruesome trophies of war sent by friendly tribes and British excursions: the wampum, the squaws, the blood-clotted heads and hands of Pequod chiefs and warriors. And these sights and odors of war had stirred men to greater religious fervors, the trials and banishments