Chapter Forty.An Indian Diplomat.After the cries of triumph which announced the capture of the unlucky white man, there was a moment of profound silence. The men on the island exchanged looks of consternation and pity. “Thank God! they have not killed him!” said Fabian.The prisoner indeed arose, although bruised with his fall, and one of the Indians disengaged him from the lasso. Bois-Rose and Pepé shook their heads.“So much the worse for him, for his sufferings would now be over,” said Pepé; “the silence of the Indians shows that each is considering what punishment to inflict. The capture of one white is more precious in their eyes than that of a whole troop of horses.”The Indians, still on horseback, surrounded the prisoner, who, casting around him a despairing glance, saw on every side only bronzed and hardened faces. Then the Indians began to deliberate.Meanwhile, one who appeared to be the chief, and who was distinguished by his black plumes, jumped off his horse, and, throwing the bridle to one of the men, advanced towards the island. Having reached the bank, he seemed to seek for footsteps on the sand. Bois-Rose’s heart beat violently, for this movement appeared to show some suspicion as to their presence.“Can this wretch,” whispered he to Pepé, “smell flesh like the ogres in the fairy tales?”“Quien sabe—who knows?” replied the Spaniard, in the phrase which is the common answer of his native country.But the sand trampled over by the wild horses who had come to drink, showed no traces of a human foot, and the Indian walked up the stream, still apparently seeking.“The demon has some suspicion,” said Bois-Rose; “and he will discover the traces that we left half-a-mile off when we entered the bed of the river to get at this island. I told you,” added he, “that we should have entered two miles higher up; but neither you nor Fabian wished it, and like a fool, I yielded to you.”The deliberation as to the fate of the prisoner was now doubtless over; for cries of joy welcomed some proposition made by one of the Indians. But it was necessary to await the return and approbation of the chief, who was the man already known to us as the “Blackbird.” He had continued his researches, and having reached the place where they had left the sand to enter the river, no longer doubted that the report brought to them had been correct; and having his own private objects, he determined to follow it. Once assured of the presence of the three whites, he returned to his men, listened gravely to the result of their deliberations, answered in a few words, and then advanced slowly towards the river—after having given an order to five of his men who set off at full gallop to execute it.The aquatic plants were open in the sunshine; the breeze agitated the leaves of the osiers on the banks of the island, which was to all appearance as uninhabited as when the stream flowed only for the birds of heaven, and the buffaloes and wild horses of the plains. But an Indian could not be deceived by this apparent calm. The “Blackbird” made a speaking-trumpet of his hand, and cried in a language half Indian, half-Spanish—“The white warriors of the north may show themselves; the ‘Blackbird’ is their friend. So, too, are the warriors he commands.”At these words, borne to them distinctly by the wind, the Canadian pressed the arm of Pepé; both understood the mixed dialect of the Indian.“What shall we reply?” said he.“Nothing,” answered Pepé.The breeze which murmured through the reeds was the only answer the Indian could hear.He went on—“The eagle may hide his track in the air from the eye of an Apache; the salmon in the stream leaves no trace behind him; but a white man who crosses the desert is neither a salmon nor an eagle.”“Nor a gosling,” murmured Pepé; “and a gosling only betrays himself by trying to sing.”The Indian listened again, but hearing no sound, continued, without showing any signs of being discouraged, “The white warriors of the north are but three against twenty, and the red warriors engage their word to be friends and allies to them.”“Wagh!” said Bois-Rose, “for what perfidy has he need of us?”“Let him go on, and we shall hear; he has not yet finished, or I am much mistaken!”“When the white warriors know the intentions of the Blackbird, they will leave their hiding-place,” continued he, “but they shall hear them. The white men of the north are the enemies of those of the south—their language, their religion is different. The Apaches hold in their toils a whole camp of southern warriors.”“So much the worse for the gold-seekers,” said Bois-Rose.“If the warriors of the north will join the Indians with their long rifles, they shall share the horses and the treasures of the men of the south; the Indians and the whites will dance together round the corpses of their enemies, and the ashes of their camp.”Bois-Rose and Pepé looked at each other in astonishment, and explained to Fabian the proposal made to them, but the fire of their eyes and their disdainful looks, showed that the noble trio had but one opinion on the subject—that of perishing rather than aiding the Indians to triumph even over their mortal enemies.“Do you hear the miscreant,” cried Bois-Rose, using in indignation an image fit for the Indians, “he takes jaguars far jackals. Ah! if Fabian were not here, a bullet would be my answer.”Meanwhile, the Indian feeling certain of the presence of the hunters in the island, began to lose patience—for the orders of the chiefs had been peremptory to attack the whites—but he, having his own opinions, wished to prove them right. He knew that the American or Canadian rifle never misses its aim, and three such allies seemed to him not to be despised. He therefore continued to speak:“The buffalo of the prairies is not more easy to follow than the white man; the track of the buffalo tells the Indian his age, his size, and the time of his passing. There are behind the reeds of the floating island a man as strong as a bison, and taller than the tallest rifle, a warrior of mingled north and south blood, and a young warrior of the pure south, but the alliance of these two with the first, indicates that they are enemies of the southern whites—for the weakest ever seek the friendship of the strongest and espouse their cause.”“The sagacity of these dogs is admirable,” said Bois-Rose.“Because they flatter you,” said Pepé, who seemed somewhat annoyed at what the Indian had said.“I await for the answer of the whites,” continued the Blackbird. “I hear only the sound of the river, and the wind which says to me, ‘the whites imagine a thousand errors; they believe that the Indian has eyes behind his back, that the track of the bison is invisible, and that reeds are ball proof.’ The Blackbird laughs at the words of the wind.”“Ah!” said Bois-Rose, “if we had entered but two miles higher up the river!”“A friend disdained becomes a terrible enemy,” continued the chief.“We say something similar among us,” muttered Pepé.The Blackbird now signed to the captive to approach. The latter advanced, and the chief pointed out to him the little island, and said, “Can the rifle of the pale-face send a ball into the space between those bushes?”But the prisoner had understood only the little Spanish mixed with the Indian dialect, and he remained mute and trembling. Then the Blackbird spoke to one of his warriors, who placed in the hands of the prisoner the rifle that he had taken from him, and by gestures made him understand what was wanted of him. The unlucky man tried to take aim, but terror caused him to shake in such a fashion that his rifle was unsteady in his hands.“If the Indian has no better way than that to make us speak,” said Pepé, “I will not say a word until to-morrow!”The white man fired indeed, but the ball, directed by his trembling hands, fell into the water some distance from the island. The Blackbird glanced contemptuously at him, and then looked around him.“Yes,” said Pepé; “seek for balls and powder among the lances and lassoes of your warriors.”But as he finished this consoling reflection, the five men who had gone away, returned armed for combat, with rifles and quivers full of arrows. They had been to fetch the arms which they had laid down, in order to follow the wild horses more freely. Five others now went off.“This looks bad,” said Bois-Rose.“Shall we attack them while they are but fifteen,” said Pepé.“No, let us remain silent; he still doubts whether we are here.”“As you like.”The Indian chief now took a rifle and advanced again to the bank.“The hands of the Blackbird do not tremble like a leaf shaken by the wind,” said he, pointing his rifle steadily towards the island. “But before firing, he will wait while he counts one hundred, for the answer of the whites who are hidden in the island.”“Get behind me, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose.“No, I stay here,” said Fabian, decidedly. “I am younger, and it is my place to expose myself for you.”“Child! do you not see that my body exceeds yours six inches on every side, and your remaining in front is but presenting a double mark.”And without shaking a single one of the reeds around the island, he advanced and knelt before Fabian.“Let him do it, Fabian,” said Pepé. “Never had man a more noble buckler, than the heart of the giant which beats in fear for you.”The Indian chief, rifle in hand, listened as he counted, but excepting the murmur of the water, a profound silence reigned everywhere.He fired at length, and the leaves of the trees flew into the air; but as the three hunters knelt in a row they did not present a large aim, and the ball passed at some little distance from them.The Blackbird waited a minute and cried again: “The Indian was wrong, he acknowledges his error, he will seek for the white warriors elsewhere.”“Who believes that?” said Pepé; “he is more sure than ever. He is about to leave us alone for a few minutes, until he has finished with that poor devil yonder, which will not belong—since the death of a white is a spectacle which an Indian is always in a hurry to enjoy.”“But had we better not make some effort in favour of the unlucky man?” said Fabian.“Some unexpected circumstances may come to our assistance,” replied Bois-Rose. “Whatever Pepé says, the Indians may still doubt, but if we show ourselves, all is over. To accept an alliance with these Indians, even against Don Estevan de Arechiza, would be an unworthy cowardice. What can we do?” added he, sadly.One fear tormented him; he had seen Fabian in danger when his blood was boiling with passion, but had he the calm courage which meets death coolly? Had he the stoical resignation of which he himself had given so many proofs? The Canadian took a sudden resolution.“Listen, Fabian,” said he; “can I speak to you the language of a man? Will the words which your ears will transmit to your heart not freeze it with terror?”“Why doubt my courage?” replied Fabian in a tone of gentle reproach. “Whatever you say, I will hear without growing pale; whatever you do, I will do also, without trembling.”“Don Fabian speaks truly, Pepé; look at his eye,” said the Canadian, pressing Fabian in his arms; then he continued solemnly: “Never were three men in greater peril than we are now; our enemies are seven times our number; when each of us has killed six of them, there would still remain a number equal to our own.”“We have done it before,” said Pepé.“And we shall do it again,” cried Fabian.“Good, my child,” said Bois-Rose, “but whatever happens, these demons must not take us alive. See, Fabian!” added the old man, in a voice that he tried to keep firm while unsheathing a long knife, “if we were left without powder or ammunition at the mercy of these dogs, about to fall into their hands, and this poignard in my hand was our only chance, what would you say?”“I would say, strike, father, and let us die together!”“Yes, yes,” cried the Canadian, looking with indescribable tenderness at him who called him father, “it will be one means of never being separated.” And he held out to Fabian his hand trembling with emotion, which the latter kissed respectfully.“Now,” said Bois-Rose, “whatever happens we shall not be separated. God will do the rest, and we shall try to save this unlucky man.”“To work then!” said Fabian.“Not yet, my child; let us see what these red demons are about to do.”Meanwhile the Indians had ranged themselves in two lines, and the white man was placed a little in advance of them.“I see what they are going to do,” said Bois-Rose, “they are going to try if the poor wretch’s legs are better than his arms. They are about to chase him.”“How so?” said Fabian.“They will place their captive a little in advance, then at a given signal he will run. Then all the Indians will run after him, lance and hatchet in hand. If the white is quick enough to reach the river before them, we will call to him to swim to us. Some shots will protect him, and he may reach here safe and sound. But if terror paralyses his limbs, as it did his hands just now, the foremost Indian will break his head with a blow from a hatchet. In any case we shall do our best.”At this moment the five other Indians returned armed from head to foot, and now joined the rest. Fabian looked with profound compassion at the unlucky white man, who with haggard eye, and features distorted by terror, waited in horrible anguish until the signal was given. But the Blackbird pointed to the bare feet of his warriors, and then to the leather buskins which protected the feet of the white man. They then saw the latter sit down and take them off slowly, as if to gain a few seconds.“The demons!” cried Fabian.“Hush!” said Bois-Rose, “do not by discovering yourself destroy the last chance of life for the poor wretch!”Fabian shut his eyes so as not to witness the horrible scene about to take place. At length the white man rose to his feet, and the Indians stood devouring him with their looks, until the Blackbird clapped his hands together, and then the howlings which followed could only be compared to those of a troop of jaguars in pursuit of a deer. The unlucky captive ran with great swiftness, but his pursuers bounded after him like tigers. Thanks to the start which he had had, he cleared safely a part of the distance which separated him from the river, but the stones which cut his feet and the sharp thorns of the nopals soon caused him to slacken his pace, and one of the Indians rushed up and made a furious thrust at him with his lance. It passed between his arm and his body, and the Indian losing his equilibrium, fell on the sand.Gayferos, for it was he, appeared to hesitate a moment whether he should pick up the lance which the Indian had let fall, but then rapidly continued his course. That instant’s hesitation was fatal to him. All at once, amidst the cloud of dust raised by his feet, a hatchet shone over the head of the unfortunate Mexican, who was seen falling to the earth.Bois-Rose was about to fire, but the fear of killing him whom he wished to defend, stopped his hand. For a single moment the wind cleared away the dust, and he fired, but it was too late, the Indian who fell under his ball was brandishing in his hand the scalp of the unhappy man. To this unexpected shot, the savages replied with howls, and then rushed away from what they believed to be only a corpse. Soon, however, they saw the man rise, with his head laid bare, who after straggling a few paces, fell again, while the blood flowed in torrents from his wounds.“Ah!” cried Bois-Rose, “if there remains in him a spark of life—and people do not die only from scalping—we shall save him yet; I swear we shall!”
After the cries of triumph which announced the capture of the unlucky white man, there was a moment of profound silence. The men on the island exchanged looks of consternation and pity. “Thank God! they have not killed him!” said Fabian.
The prisoner indeed arose, although bruised with his fall, and one of the Indians disengaged him from the lasso. Bois-Rose and Pepé shook their heads.
“So much the worse for him, for his sufferings would now be over,” said Pepé; “the silence of the Indians shows that each is considering what punishment to inflict. The capture of one white is more precious in their eyes than that of a whole troop of horses.”
The Indians, still on horseback, surrounded the prisoner, who, casting around him a despairing glance, saw on every side only bronzed and hardened faces. Then the Indians began to deliberate.
Meanwhile, one who appeared to be the chief, and who was distinguished by his black plumes, jumped off his horse, and, throwing the bridle to one of the men, advanced towards the island. Having reached the bank, he seemed to seek for footsteps on the sand. Bois-Rose’s heart beat violently, for this movement appeared to show some suspicion as to their presence.
“Can this wretch,” whispered he to Pepé, “smell flesh like the ogres in the fairy tales?”
“Quien sabe—who knows?” replied the Spaniard, in the phrase which is the common answer of his native country.
But the sand trampled over by the wild horses who had come to drink, showed no traces of a human foot, and the Indian walked up the stream, still apparently seeking.
“The demon has some suspicion,” said Bois-Rose; “and he will discover the traces that we left half-a-mile off when we entered the bed of the river to get at this island. I told you,” added he, “that we should have entered two miles higher up; but neither you nor Fabian wished it, and like a fool, I yielded to you.”
The deliberation as to the fate of the prisoner was now doubtless over; for cries of joy welcomed some proposition made by one of the Indians. But it was necessary to await the return and approbation of the chief, who was the man already known to us as the “Blackbird.” He had continued his researches, and having reached the place where they had left the sand to enter the river, no longer doubted that the report brought to them had been correct; and having his own private objects, he determined to follow it. Once assured of the presence of the three whites, he returned to his men, listened gravely to the result of their deliberations, answered in a few words, and then advanced slowly towards the river—after having given an order to five of his men who set off at full gallop to execute it.
The aquatic plants were open in the sunshine; the breeze agitated the leaves of the osiers on the banks of the island, which was to all appearance as uninhabited as when the stream flowed only for the birds of heaven, and the buffaloes and wild horses of the plains. But an Indian could not be deceived by this apparent calm. The “Blackbird” made a speaking-trumpet of his hand, and cried in a language half Indian, half-Spanish—
“The white warriors of the north may show themselves; the ‘Blackbird’ is their friend. So, too, are the warriors he commands.”
At these words, borne to them distinctly by the wind, the Canadian pressed the arm of Pepé; both understood the mixed dialect of the Indian.
“What shall we reply?” said he.
“Nothing,” answered Pepé.
The breeze which murmured through the reeds was the only answer the Indian could hear.
He went on—
“The eagle may hide his track in the air from the eye of an Apache; the salmon in the stream leaves no trace behind him; but a white man who crosses the desert is neither a salmon nor an eagle.”
“Nor a gosling,” murmured Pepé; “and a gosling only betrays himself by trying to sing.”
The Indian listened again, but hearing no sound, continued, without showing any signs of being discouraged, “The white warriors of the north are but three against twenty, and the red warriors engage their word to be friends and allies to them.”
“Wagh!” said Bois-Rose, “for what perfidy has he need of us?”
“Let him go on, and we shall hear; he has not yet finished, or I am much mistaken!”
“When the white warriors know the intentions of the Blackbird, they will leave their hiding-place,” continued he, “but they shall hear them. The white men of the north are the enemies of those of the south—their language, their religion is different. The Apaches hold in their toils a whole camp of southern warriors.”
“So much the worse for the gold-seekers,” said Bois-Rose.
“If the warriors of the north will join the Indians with their long rifles, they shall share the horses and the treasures of the men of the south; the Indians and the whites will dance together round the corpses of their enemies, and the ashes of their camp.”
Bois-Rose and Pepé looked at each other in astonishment, and explained to Fabian the proposal made to them, but the fire of their eyes and their disdainful looks, showed that the noble trio had but one opinion on the subject—that of perishing rather than aiding the Indians to triumph even over their mortal enemies.
“Do you hear the miscreant,” cried Bois-Rose, using in indignation an image fit for the Indians, “he takes jaguars far jackals. Ah! if Fabian were not here, a bullet would be my answer.”
Meanwhile, the Indian feeling certain of the presence of the hunters in the island, began to lose patience—for the orders of the chiefs had been peremptory to attack the whites—but he, having his own opinions, wished to prove them right. He knew that the American or Canadian rifle never misses its aim, and three such allies seemed to him not to be despised. He therefore continued to speak:
“The buffalo of the prairies is not more easy to follow than the white man; the track of the buffalo tells the Indian his age, his size, and the time of his passing. There are behind the reeds of the floating island a man as strong as a bison, and taller than the tallest rifle, a warrior of mingled north and south blood, and a young warrior of the pure south, but the alliance of these two with the first, indicates that they are enemies of the southern whites—for the weakest ever seek the friendship of the strongest and espouse their cause.”
“The sagacity of these dogs is admirable,” said Bois-Rose.
“Because they flatter you,” said Pepé, who seemed somewhat annoyed at what the Indian had said.
“I await for the answer of the whites,” continued the Blackbird. “I hear only the sound of the river, and the wind which says to me, ‘the whites imagine a thousand errors; they believe that the Indian has eyes behind his back, that the track of the bison is invisible, and that reeds are ball proof.’ The Blackbird laughs at the words of the wind.”
“Ah!” said Bois-Rose, “if we had entered but two miles higher up the river!”
“A friend disdained becomes a terrible enemy,” continued the chief.
“We say something similar among us,” muttered Pepé.
The Blackbird now signed to the captive to approach. The latter advanced, and the chief pointed out to him the little island, and said, “Can the rifle of the pale-face send a ball into the space between those bushes?”
But the prisoner had understood only the little Spanish mixed with the Indian dialect, and he remained mute and trembling. Then the Blackbird spoke to one of his warriors, who placed in the hands of the prisoner the rifle that he had taken from him, and by gestures made him understand what was wanted of him. The unlucky man tried to take aim, but terror caused him to shake in such a fashion that his rifle was unsteady in his hands.
“If the Indian has no better way than that to make us speak,” said Pepé, “I will not say a word until to-morrow!”
The white man fired indeed, but the ball, directed by his trembling hands, fell into the water some distance from the island. The Blackbird glanced contemptuously at him, and then looked around him.
“Yes,” said Pepé; “seek for balls and powder among the lances and lassoes of your warriors.”
But as he finished this consoling reflection, the five men who had gone away, returned armed for combat, with rifles and quivers full of arrows. They had been to fetch the arms which they had laid down, in order to follow the wild horses more freely. Five others now went off.
“This looks bad,” said Bois-Rose.
“Shall we attack them while they are but fifteen,” said Pepé.
“No, let us remain silent; he still doubts whether we are here.”
“As you like.”
The Indian chief now took a rifle and advanced again to the bank.
“The hands of the Blackbird do not tremble like a leaf shaken by the wind,” said he, pointing his rifle steadily towards the island. “But before firing, he will wait while he counts one hundred, for the answer of the whites who are hidden in the island.”
“Get behind me, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose.
“No, I stay here,” said Fabian, decidedly. “I am younger, and it is my place to expose myself for you.”
“Child! do you not see that my body exceeds yours six inches on every side, and your remaining in front is but presenting a double mark.”
And without shaking a single one of the reeds around the island, he advanced and knelt before Fabian.
“Let him do it, Fabian,” said Pepé. “Never had man a more noble buckler, than the heart of the giant which beats in fear for you.”
The Indian chief, rifle in hand, listened as he counted, but excepting the murmur of the water, a profound silence reigned everywhere.
He fired at length, and the leaves of the trees flew into the air; but as the three hunters knelt in a row they did not present a large aim, and the ball passed at some little distance from them.
The Blackbird waited a minute and cried again: “The Indian was wrong, he acknowledges his error, he will seek for the white warriors elsewhere.”
“Who believes that?” said Pepé; “he is more sure than ever. He is about to leave us alone for a few minutes, until he has finished with that poor devil yonder, which will not belong—since the death of a white is a spectacle which an Indian is always in a hurry to enjoy.”
“But had we better not make some effort in favour of the unlucky man?” said Fabian.
“Some unexpected circumstances may come to our assistance,” replied Bois-Rose. “Whatever Pepé says, the Indians may still doubt, but if we show ourselves, all is over. To accept an alliance with these Indians, even against Don Estevan de Arechiza, would be an unworthy cowardice. What can we do?” added he, sadly.
One fear tormented him; he had seen Fabian in danger when his blood was boiling with passion, but had he the calm courage which meets death coolly? Had he the stoical resignation of which he himself had given so many proofs? The Canadian took a sudden resolution.
“Listen, Fabian,” said he; “can I speak to you the language of a man? Will the words which your ears will transmit to your heart not freeze it with terror?”
“Why doubt my courage?” replied Fabian in a tone of gentle reproach. “Whatever you say, I will hear without growing pale; whatever you do, I will do also, without trembling.”
“Don Fabian speaks truly, Pepé; look at his eye,” said the Canadian, pressing Fabian in his arms; then he continued solemnly: “Never were three men in greater peril than we are now; our enemies are seven times our number; when each of us has killed six of them, there would still remain a number equal to our own.”
“We have done it before,” said Pepé.
“And we shall do it again,” cried Fabian.
“Good, my child,” said Bois-Rose, “but whatever happens, these demons must not take us alive. See, Fabian!” added the old man, in a voice that he tried to keep firm while unsheathing a long knife, “if we were left without powder or ammunition at the mercy of these dogs, about to fall into their hands, and this poignard in my hand was our only chance, what would you say?”
“I would say, strike, father, and let us die together!”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Canadian, looking with indescribable tenderness at him who called him father, “it will be one means of never being separated.” And he held out to Fabian his hand trembling with emotion, which the latter kissed respectfully.
“Now,” said Bois-Rose, “whatever happens we shall not be separated. God will do the rest, and we shall try to save this unlucky man.”
“To work then!” said Fabian.
“Not yet, my child; let us see what these red demons are about to do.”
Meanwhile the Indians had ranged themselves in two lines, and the white man was placed a little in advance of them.
“I see what they are going to do,” said Bois-Rose, “they are going to try if the poor wretch’s legs are better than his arms. They are about to chase him.”
“How so?” said Fabian.
“They will place their captive a little in advance, then at a given signal he will run. Then all the Indians will run after him, lance and hatchet in hand. If the white is quick enough to reach the river before them, we will call to him to swim to us. Some shots will protect him, and he may reach here safe and sound. But if terror paralyses his limbs, as it did his hands just now, the foremost Indian will break his head with a blow from a hatchet. In any case we shall do our best.”
At this moment the five other Indians returned armed from head to foot, and now joined the rest. Fabian looked with profound compassion at the unlucky white man, who with haggard eye, and features distorted by terror, waited in horrible anguish until the signal was given. But the Blackbird pointed to the bare feet of his warriors, and then to the leather buskins which protected the feet of the white man. They then saw the latter sit down and take them off slowly, as if to gain a few seconds.
“The demons!” cried Fabian.
“Hush!” said Bois-Rose, “do not by discovering yourself destroy the last chance of life for the poor wretch!”
Fabian shut his eyes so as not to witness the horrible scene about to take place. At length the white man rose to his feet, and the Indians stood devouring him with their looks, until the Blackbird clapped his hands together, and then the howlings which followed could only be compared to those of a troop of jaguars in pursuit of a deer. The unlucky captive ran with great swiftness, but his pursuers bounded after him like tigers. Thanks to the start which he had had, he cleared safely a part of the distance which separated him from the river, but the stones which cut his feet and the sharp thorns of the nopals soon caused him to slacken his pace, and one of the Indians rushed up and made a furious thrust at him with his lance. It passed between his arm and his body, and the Indian losing his equilibrium, fell on the sand.
Gayferos, for it was he, appeared to hesitate a moment whether he should pick up the lance which the Indian had let fall, but then rapidly continued his course. That instant’s hesitation was fatal to him. All at once, amidst the cloud of dust raised by his feet, a hatchet shone over the head of the unfortunate Mexican, who was seen falling to the earth.
Bois-Rose was about to fire, but the fear of killing him whom he wished to defend, stopped his hand. For a single moment the wind cleared away the dust, and he fired, but it was too late, the Indian who fell under his ball was brandishing in his hand the scalp of the unhappy man. To this unexpected shot, the savages replied with howls, and then rushed away from what they believed to be only a corpse. Soon, however, they saw the man rise, with his head laid bare, who after straggling a few paces, fell again, while the blood flowed in torrents from his wounds.
“Ah!” cried Bois-Rose, “if there remains in him a spark of life—and people do not die only from scalping—we shall save him yet; I swear we shall!”
Chapter Forty One.Indian Cunning.As the Canadian uttered the generous oath, wrung from him by indignation, it seemed to him that a supplicating voice reached him. “Is not the poor wretch calling for aid?” And he raised his head from behind its shelter.At sight of the fox-skin cap which covered the head of the giant, and of the long and heavy rifle which he raised like a willow wand, the Indians recognised one of their formidable northern enemies, and recoiled in astonishment—for the Blackbird alone had been instructed as to whom they were seeking. Bois-Rose, looking towards the shore now perceived the unlucky Gayferos stretching out his arms towards him, and feebly calling for help. The dying Indian still held the scalp in his clenched hand.At this terrible spectacle the Canadian drew himself up to his full height. “Fire on these dogs!” cried he, “and remember—never let them take you alive.”So saying, he resolutely entered the water, and any other man would have had it up to his head, but the Canadian had all his shoulders above the surface.“Do not fire till after me,” said Pepé to Fabian; “my hand is surer than yours, and my Kentucky rifle carries twice as far as your Liege gun.” And he held his rifle ready to fire at the slightest sign of hostility from the Indians.Meanwhile, Bois-Rose still advanced, the water growing gradually shallower, when an Indian raised his rifle ready to fire on the intrepid hunter; but a bullet from Pepé stopped him, and he fell forward on his face.“Now you, Don Fabian!” said Pepé, throwing himself on the ground to reload, after the American custom in such cases.Fabian fired, but his rifle having a shorter range, the shot only drew from the Indian at whom he aimed a cry of rage. But Pepé had reloaded, and stood ready to fire again.There was a moment’s hesitation among the Indians, by which Bois-Rose profited to draw towards him the body of the unlucky Gayferos. He, clinging to his shoulders, had the presence of mind to leave his preserver’s arms free; who, with his burden, again entered the water, going backwards. Then his rifle was heard, and an Indian’s death-cry immediately followed. This valiant retreat, protected by Pepé and Fabian, awed the Indians, and some minutes after, Bois-Rose triumphantly placed the fainting Gayferos on the island.“There are three of them settled for,” said he, “and now we shall have a few minutes’ truce. Well, Fabian, do you see the advantage of firing in file? You did not do badly for a beginner, and I can assure you that when you have a Kentucky rifle like us, you will be a good marksman.” Then to Gayferos, “We came too late to save the skin of your head, my poor fellow, but console yourself, it is no such dreadful thing. I have many friends in the same condition, who are none the worse for it. Your life is saved—that is the great thing—and we shall endeavour to bind up your wounds.”Some strips torn from the shirt of Gayferos served to bind around his head a large mass of willow leaves crushed together and steeped in water, and concealed the hideous wound. The blood was then washed from his face.“You see,” said Bois-Rose, still clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, “you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all is after so much noise?”The desert, indeed, had recovered its silence, the leaves only trembled in the evening breeze, and the water began to display brilliant colours in the setting sun.“Well, Pepé, they are but seventeen now!” continued Bois-Rose, in a tone of triumph.“Oh! we may succeed, if they do not get reinforcements.”“That is a chance and a terrible one; but our lives are in God’s hands,” replied Bois-Rose. “Tell me, friend!” said he to Gayferos, “you probably belong to the camp of Don Estevan?”“Do you know him then?” said the wounded man, in a feeble voice.“Yes; and by what chance are you so far from the camp?”The wounded man recounted how, by Don Estevan’s orders, he had set off to seek for their lost guide, and that his evil star had brought him in contact with the Indians as they were hunting the wild horses.“What is the name of your guide?”“Cuchillo.”Fabian and Bois-Rose glanced at each other.“Yes,” said the latter, “there is some probability that your suspicions about that white demon were correct, and that he is conducting the expedition to the Golden Valley; but, my child, if we escape these Indians, we are close to it; and once we are installed there, were they a hundred, we should succeed in defending ourselves.”This was whispered in Fabian’s ear.“One word more,” said Bois-Rose to the wounded man, “and then we shall leave you to repose. How many men has Don Estevan with him?”“Sixty.”Bois-Rose now again bathed the head of the wounded Gayferos with cold water: and the unhappy man, refreshed for the moment, and weakened by loss of blood, fell into a lethargic sleep.“Now,” continued Bois-Rose, “let us endeavour to build up a rampart which shall be a little more ball and arrow-proof than this fringe of moving leaves and reeds. Did you count how many rifles the Indians had?”“Seven, I believe,” said Pepé.“Then ten of them are less to be feared. They cannot attack us either on the right or the left—but perhaps they have made a détour to cross the river, and are about to place us between two fires.”The side of the islet opposite the shore on which the Indians had shown themselves was sufficiently defended by enormous roots, bristling like chevaux-de-frise; but the side where the attack was probably about to recommence was defended only by a thick row of reeds and osier-shoots.Thanks to his great strength, Bois-Rose, aided by Pepé, succeeded in dragging from the end of the islet which faced the course of the stream, some large dry branches and fallen trunks of trees. A few minutes sufficed for the two skilful hunters to protect the feeble side with a rough but solid entrenchment, which would form a very good defence to the little garrison of the island.“Do you see, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose, “you’ll be as safe behind these trunks of trees as in a stone fortress. You’ll be exposed only to the balls that may be fired from the tops of the trees, but I shall take care that none of these redskins climb so high.”And quite happy at having raised a barrier between Fabian and death, he assigned him his post in the place most sheltered from the enemy.“Did you remark,” said he to Pepé, “how at every effort that we made to break a branch or disengage a block of wood, the island trembled to its foundation?”“Yes,” said Pepé, “one might think that it was about to be torn from its base and follow the course of the stream.”The Canadian then cautioned his two companions to be careful of their ammunition, gave Fabian some instructions as to taking aim, pressed him to his heart, squeezed the hand of his old comrade, and then the three stationed themselves at their several posts. The surface of the river, the tops of the aspens growing on the banks, the banks themselves and the reeds, were all objects of examination for the hunters, as the night was fast coming on.“This is the hour when the demons of darkness lay their snares,” said Bois-Rose, “when these human jaguars seek for their prey. It was of them that the Scriptures spoke.”No one replied to this speech, which was uttered rather as a soliloquy.Meanwhile, the darkness was creeping on little by little, and the bushes which grew on the bank began to assume the fantastic forms given to objects by the uncertain twilight.The green of the trees began to look black; but habit had given to Bois-Rose and to Pepé eyes as piercing as those of the Indians themselves, and nothing, with the vigilance they were exerting, could have deceived them.“Pepé,” whispered Bois-Rose, pointing to a tuft of osiers, “does it not seem to you that that bush has changed its form and grown larger?”“Yes; it has changed its form!”“See, Fabian! you have the piercing sight that I had at your age; does it not appear to you that at the left-hand side of that tuft of osiers the leaves no longer look natural?”The young man pushed the reeds on one side, and gazed for a while attentively.“I could swear it,” said he, “but—” He stopped, and looked in another direction.“Well! do you see anything?”“I see, between that willow and the aspen, about ten feet from the tuft of osiers, a bush which certainly was not there just now.”“Ah! see what it is to live far from towns;—the least points of the landscape fix themselves in the memory, and become precious indications. You are born to live the life of a hunter, Fabian!”Pepé levelled his rifle at the bush indicated by Fabian.“Pepé understands it at once,” said Bois-Rose; “he knows, like me, that the Indians have employed their time in cutting down branches to form a temporary shelter; but I think two of us at least may teach them a few stratagems that they do not yet know. Leave that bush to Fabian, it will be an easy mark for him; fire at the branches whose leaves are beginning to wither—there is an Indian behind them. Fire in the centre, Fabian!”The two rifles were heard simultaneously, and the false bush fell, displaying a red body behind the leaves, while the branches which had been added were convulsively agitated. All three then threw themselves on the ground, and a discharge of balls immediately flew over their heads, covering them with leaves and broken branches, while the war-cry of the Indians sounded in their ears.“If I do not deceive myself, they are now but fifteen,” said Bois-Rose, as he quitted his horizontal posture, and knelt on the ground.“Be still!” added he. “I see the leaves of an aspen trembling more than the wind alone could cause them to do. It is doubtless one of those fellows who has climbed up into the tree.”As he spoke, a bullet struck one of the trunks of which the islet was composed, and proved that he had guessed rightly.“Wagh!” said the Canadian, “I must resort to a trick that will force him to show himself.”So saying, he took off his cap and coat, and placed them between the branches, where they could be seen. “Now,” said he, “if I were fighting a white soldier, I would place myself by the side of my coat, for he would fire at the coat; with an Indian I shall stand behind it, for he will not be deceived in the same manner, and will aim to one side of it. Lie down, Fabian and Pepé, and in a minute you shall hear a bullet whistle either to the right or the left of the mark I have set up.”As Bois-Rose said this, he knelt down behind his coat, ready to fire at the aspen.He was not wrong in his conjectures; in a moment, the balls of the Indians cut the leaves on each side of the coat, but without touching either of the three companions, who had placed themselves in a line.“Ah,” cried the Canadian, “there are whites who can fight the Indians with their own weapons; we shall presently have an enemy the less.”And saying this he fired into the aspen, out of which the body of an Indian was seen to fall, rolling from branch to branch like a fruit knocked from its stem.At this feat of the Canadian, the savage howlings resounded with so much fury, that it required nerves of iron not to shudder at them. Gayferos himself, whom the firing had not roused, shook off his lethargy and murmured, in a trembling voice, “Virgen de los Dolores! Would not one say it was a band of tigers howling in the darkness?—Holy Virgin! have pity on me!”“Thank her rather,” interrupted the Canadian; “the knaves might deceive a novice like you, but not an old hunter like me. You have heard the jackals of an evening in the forest howl and answer each other as though there were hundreds of them, when there were but three or four. The Indians imitate the jackals, and I will answer for it there are not more that a dozen now behind those trees. Ah! if I could but get them to cross the water, not one of them should return to carry the news of their disaster.”Then, as if a sudden thought had flashed across his mind, he directed his companions to lie down on their backs—in which position they were protected by the trunks of the trees. “We are in safety as long as we lie thus,” said he, “only keep your eye on the tops of the trees; it is from these only they can reach us. Fire only if you see them climb up, but otherwise remain motionless. The knaves will not willingly depart without our scalps, and must make up their minds at last to attack us.”This resolution of the hunter seemed to have been inspired by heaven, for scarcely had they laid down before a shower of balls and arrows tore to pieces the border of reeds, and broke the branches behind which they had been kneeling a minute before. Bois-Rose pulled down his coat and hat, as though he himself had fallen, and then the most profound silence reigned in the island, after this apparently murderous fire. Cries of triumph followed this silence, and then a second discharge of bullets and arrows.“Is not that an Indian mounting the willow?” whispered Pepé.“Yes, but let us risk his fire without stirring; lie all of us as if we were dead. Then he will go and tell his companions that he has counted the corpses of the palefaces.”In spite of the danger incurred by this stratagem, the proposition of Bois-Rose was accepted, and each remained motionless, watching, not without anxiety, the manoeuvres of the Indian. With extreme precaution the red warrior climbed from branch to branch, until he had reached a point from which he could overlook the whole islet.There remained just sufficient daylight to observe his movements when the foliage itself did not hide them. When he had reached the desired height, the Indian, resting on a thick branch, advanced his head with precaution. The sight of the bodies extended on the ground appeared not to surprise him, and he now openly pointed his rifle towards them. This he did several times, apparently taking aim, but not one of the hunters stirred. Then the Indian uttered a cry of triumph. “The shark takes the bait,” muttered Bois-Rose.“I shall recognise this son of a dog,” rejoined Pepé, “and if I do not repay him for the anxiety he has caused me, it is because the bullet he is about to send will prevent me.”“It is the Blackbird,” said Bois-Rose, “he is both brave and dexterous—lie close!”The Indian once more took aim, and then fired; a branch knocked from a tree just above Pepé, fell upon him and hurt his forehead. He stirred no more than the dead wood against which he leaned, but said, “Rascal of a redskin, I’ll pay you for this before long.”Some drops of blood fell upon the face of the Canadian.“Is any one wounded?” said he, with a shudder.“A scratch, nothing more,” said Pepé, “God be praised!”Just then the Indian uttered a cry of joy, as he descended from the tree on which he had mounted, and the three friends again breathed freely.And yet some doubt seemed to remain in the minds of the Indians, for a long and solemn silence followed the manoeuvre of their chief.The sun had now set, the short twilight had passed away, night had come on, and the moon shone on the river, yet still the Indians did not stir.“Our scalps tempt them, but they still hesitate to come and take them,” said Pepé, who was becoming very tired of doing nothing.“Patience!” whispered Bois-Rose, “the Indians are like the vultures, who dare not attack a body until it begins to decay. We may look out for them by-and-bye. Let us resume our position behind the reeds.”The hunters again quickly knelt down and continued to watch their enemies.Before long an Indian showed himself very cautiously, another then joined him, and both approached with increasing confidence, followed by others, until Bois-Rose counted ten in the moonlight.“They will cross the river in file, I expect,” said he. “Fabian, you fire at the first, Pepé will aim at the centre, and I at the last but one. In that way they cannot all attack together. It will be a hand-to-hand struggle, but you, Fabian, while Pepé and I wait for them knife in hand, shall load our rifles and pass them to us. By the memory of your mother, I forbid you to fight with these wretches.”As the Canadian uttered these words, a tall Indian entered the river, followed by nine others. All advanced with the utmost caution; they might have been taken for the shades of warriors returned from the land of spirits.
As the Canadian uttered the generous oath, wrung from him by indignation, it seemed to him that a supplicating voice reached him. “Is not the poor wretch calling for aid?” And he raised his head from behind its shelter.
At sight of the fox-skin cap which covered the head of the giant, and of the long and heavy rifle which he raised like a willow wand, the Indians recognised one of their formidable northern enemies, and recoiled in astonishment—for the Blackbird alone had been instructed as to whom they were seeking. Bois-Rose, looking towards the shore now perceived the unlucky Gayferos stretching out his arms towards him, and feebly calling for help. The dying Indian still held the scalp in his clenched hand.
At this terrible spectacle the Canadian drew himself up to his full height. “Fire on these dogs!” cried he, “and remember—never let them take you alive.”
So saying, he resolutely entered the water, and any other man would have had it up to his head, but the Canadian had all his shoulders above the surface.
“Do not fire till after me,” said Pepé to Fabian; “my hand is surer than yours, and my Kentucky rifle carries twice as far as your Liege gun.” And he held his rifle ready to fire at the slightest sign of hostility from the Indians.
Meanwhile, Bois-Rose still advanced, the water growing gradually shallower, when an Indian raised his rifle ready to fire on the intrepid hunter; but a bullet from Pepé stopped him, and he fell forward on his face.
“Now you, Don Fabian!” said Pepé, throwing himself on the ground to reload, after the American custom in such cases.
Fabian fired, but his rifle having a shorter range, the shot only drew from the Indian at whom he aimed a cry of rage. But Pepé had reloaded, and stood ready to fire again.
There was a moment’s hesitation among the Indians, by which Bois-Rose profited to draw towards him the body of the unlucky Gayferos. He, clinging to his shoulders, had the presence of mind to leave his preserver’s arms free; who, with his burden, again entered the water, going backwards. Then his rifle was heard, and an Indian’s death-cry immediately followed. This valiant retreat, protected by Pepé and Fabian, awed the Indians, and some minutes after, Bois-Rose triumphantly placed the fainting Gayferos on the island.
“There are three of them settled for,” said he, “and now we shall have a few minutes’ truce. Well, Fabian, do you see the advantage of firing in file? You did not do badly for a beginner, and I can assure you that when you have a Kentucky rifle like us, you will be a good marksman.” Then to Gayferos, “We came too late to save the skin of your head, my poor fellow, but console yourself, it is no such dreadful thing. I have many friends in the same condition, who are none the worse for it. Your life is saved—that is the great thing—and we shall endeavour to bind up your wounds.”
Some strips torn from the shirt of Gayferos served to bind around his head a large mass of willow leaves crushed together and steeped in water, and concealed the hideous wound. The blood was then washed from his face.
“You see,” said Bois-Rose, still clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, “you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all is after so much noise?”
The desert, indeed, had recovered its silence, the leaves only trembled in the evening breeze, and the water began to display brilliant colours in the setting sun.
“Well, Pepé, they are but seventeen now!” continued Bois-Rose, in a tone of triumph.
“Oh! we may succeed, if they do not get reinforcements.”
“That is a chance and a terrible one; but our lives are in God’s hands,” replied Bois-Rose. “Tell me, friend!” said he to Gayferos, “you probably belong to the camp of Don Estevan?”
“Do you know him then?” said the wounded man, in a feeble voice.
“Yes; and by what chance are you so far from the camp?”
The wounded man recounted how, by Don Estevan’s orders, he had set off to seek for their lost guide, and that his evil star had brought him in contact with the Indians as they were hunting the wild horses.
“What is the name of your guide?”
“Cuchillo.”
Fabian and Bois-Rose glanced at each other.
“Yes,” said the latter, “there is some probability that your suspicions about that white demon were correct, and that he is conducting the expedition to the Golden Valley; but, my child, if we escape these Indians, we are close to it; and once we are installed there, were they a hundred, we should succeed in defending ourselves.”
This was whispered in Fabian’s ear.
“One word more,” said Bois-Rose to the wounded man, “and then we shall leave you to repose. How many men has Don Estevan with him?”
“Sixty.”
Bois-Rose now again bathed the head of the wounded Gayferos with cold water: and the unhappy man, refreshed for the moment, and weakened by loss of blood, fell into a lethargic sleep.
“Now,” continued Bois-Rose, “let us endeavour to build up a rampart which shall be a little more ball and arrow-proof than this fringe of moving leaves and reeds. Did you count how many rifles the Indians had?”
“Seven, I believe,” said Pepé.
“Then ten of them are less to be feared. They cannot attack us either on the right or the left—but perhaps they have made a détour to cross the river, and are about to place us between two fires.”
The side of the islet opposite the shore on which the Indians had shown themselves was sufficiently defended by enormous roots, bristling like chevaux-de-frise; but the side where the attack was probably about to recommence was defended only by a thick row of reeds and osier-shoots.
Thanks to his great strength, Bois-Rose, aided by Pepé, succeeded in dragging from the end of the islet which faced the course of the stream, some large dry branches and fallen trunks of trees. A few minutes sufficed for the two skilful hunters to protect the feeble side with a rough but solid entrenchment, which would form a very good defence to the little garrison of the island.
“Do you see, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose, “you’ll be as safe behind these trunks of trees as in a stone fortress. You’ll be exposed only to the balls that may be fired from the tops of the trees, but I shall take care that none of these redskins climb so high.”
And quite happy at having raised a barrier between Fabian and death, he assigned him his post in the place most sheltered from the enemy.
“Did you remark,” said he to Pepé, “how at every effort that we made to break a branch or disengage a block of wood, the island trembled to its foundation?”
“Yes,” said Pepé, “one might think that it was about to be torn from its base and follow the course of the stream.”
The Canadian then cautioned his two companions to be careful of their ammunition, gave Fabian some instructions as to taking aim, pressed him to his heart, squeezed the hand of his old comrade, and then the three stationed themselves at their several posts. The surface of the river, the tops of the aspens growing on the banks, the banks themselves and the reeds, were all objects of examination for the hunters, as the night was fast coming on.
“This is the hour when the demons of darkness lay their snares,” said Bois-Rose, “when these human jaguars seek for their prey. It was of them that the Scriptures spoke.”
No one replied to this speech, which was uttered rather as a soliloquy.
Meanwhile, the darkness was creeping on little by little, and the bushes which grew on the bank began to assume the fantastic forms given to objects by the uncertain twilight.
The green of the trees began to look black; but habit had given to Bois-Rose and to Pepé eyes as piercing as those of the Indians themselves, and nothing, with the vigilance they were exerting, could have deceived them.
“Pepé,” whispered Bois-Rose, pointing to a tuft of osiers, “does it not seem to you that that bush has changed its form and grown larger?”
“Yes; it has changed its form!”
“See, Fabian! you have the piercing sight that I had at your age; does it not appear to you that at the left-hand side of that tuft of osiers the leaves no longer look natural?”
The young man pushed the reeds on one side, and gazed for a while attentively.
“I could swear it,” said he, “but—” He stopped, and looked in another direction.
“Well! do you see anything?”
“I see, between that willow and the aspen, about ten feet from the tuft of osiers, a bush which certainly was not there just now.”
“Ah! see what it is to live far from towns;—the least points of the landscape fix themselves in the memory, and become precious indications. You are born to live the life of a hunter, Fabian!”
Pepé levelled his rifle at the bush indicated by Fabian.
“Pepé understands it at once,” said Bois-Rose; “he knows, like me, that the Indians have employed their time in cutting down branches to form a temporary shelter; but I think two of us at least may teach them a few stratagems that they do not yet know. Leave that bush to Fabian, it will be an easy mark for him; fire at the branches whose leaves are beginning to wither—there is an Indian behind them. Fire in the centre, Fabian!”
The two rifles were heard simultaneously, and the false bush fell, displaying a red body behind the leaves, while the branches which had been added were convulsively agitated. All three then threw themselves on the ground, and a discharge of balls immediately flew over their heads, covering them with leaves and broken branches, while the war-cry of the Indians sounded in their ears.
“If I do not deceive myself, they are now but fifteen,” said Bois-Rose, as he quitted his horizontal posture, and knelt on the ground.
“Be still!” added he. “I see the leaves of an aspen trembling more than the wind alone could cause them to do. It is doubtless one of those fellows who has climbed up into the tree.”
As he spoke, a bullet struck one of the trunks of which the islet was composed, and proved that he had guessed rightly.
“Wagh!” said the Canadian, “I must resort to a trick that will force him to show himself.”
So saying, he took off his cap and coat, and placed them between the branches, where they could be seen. “Now,” said he, “if I were fighting a white soldier, I would place myself by the side of my coat, for he would fire at the coat; with an Indian I shall stand behind it, for he will not be deceived in the same manner, and will aim to one side of it. Lie down, Fabian and Pepé, and in a minute you shall hear a bullet whistle either to the right or the left of the mark I have set up.”
As Bois-Rose said this, he knelt down behind his coat, ready to fire at the aspen.
He was not wrong in his conjectures; in a moment, the balls of the Indians cut the leaves on each side of the coat, but without touching either of the three companions, who had placed themselves in a line.
“Ah,” cried the Canadian, “there are whites who can fight the Indians with their own weapons; we shall presently have an enemy the less.”
And saying this he fired into the aspen, out of which the body of an Indian was seen to fall, rolling from branch to branch like a fruit knocked from its stem.
At this feat of the Canadian, the savage howlings resounded with so much fury, that it required nerves of iron not to shudder at them. Gayferos himself, whom the firing had not roused, shook off his lethargy and murmured, in a trembling voice, “Virgen de los Dolores! Would not one say it was a band of tigers howling in the darkness?—Holy Virgin! have pity on me!”
“Thank her rather,” interrupted the Canadian; “the knaves might deceive a novice like you, but not an old hunter like me. You have heard the jackals of an evening in the forest howl and answer each other as though there were hundreds of them, when there were but three or four. The Indians imitate the jackals, and I will answer for it there are not more that a dozen now behind those trees. Ah! if I could but get them to cross the water, not one of them should return to carry the news of their disaster.”
Then, as if a sudden thought had flashed across his mind, he directed his companions to lie down on their backs—in which position they were protected by the trunks of the trees. “We are in safety as long as we lie thus,” said he, “only keep your eye on the tops of the trees; it is from these only they can reach us. Fire only if you see them climb up, but otherwise remain motionless. The knaves will not willingly depart without our scalps, and must make up their minds at last to attack us.”
This resolution of the hunter seemed to have been inspired by heaven, for scarcely had they laid down before a shower of balls and arrows tore to pieces the border of reeds, and broke the branches behind which they had been kneeling a minute before. Bois-Rose pulled down his coat and hat, as though he himself had fallen, and then the most profound silence reigned in the island, after this apparently murderous fire. Cries of triumph followed this silence, and then a second discharge of bullets and arrows.
“Is not that an Indian mounting the willow?” whispered Pepé.
“Yes, but let us risk his fire without stirring; lie all of us as if we were dead. Then he will go and tell his companions that he has counted the corpses of the palefaces.”
In spite of the danger incurred by this stratagem, the proposition of Bois-Rose was accepted, and each remained motionless, watching, not without anxiety, the manoeuvres of the Indian. With extreme precaution the red warrior climbed from branch to branch, until he had reached a point from which he could overlook the whole islet.
There remained just sufficient daylight to observe his movements when the foliage itself did not hide them. When he had reached the desired height, the Indian, resting on a thick branch, advanced his head with precaution. The sight of the bodies extended on the ground appeared not to surprise him, and he now openly pointed his rifle towards them. This he did several times, apparently taking aim, but not one of the hunters stirred. Then the Indian uttered a cry of triumph. “The shark takes the bait,” muttered Bois-Rose.
“I shall recognise this son of a dog,” rejoined Pepé, “and if I do not repay him for the anxiety he has caused me, it is because the bullet he is about to send will prevent me.”
“It is the Blackbird,” said Bois-Rose, “he is both brave and dexterous—lie close!”
The Indian once more took aim, and then fired; a branch knocked from a tree just above Pepé, fell upon him and hurt his forehead. He stirred no more than the dead wood against which he leaned, but said, “Rascal of a redskin, I’ll pay you for this before long.”
Some drops of blood fell upon the face of the Canadian.
“Is any one wounded?” said he, with a shudder.
“A scratch, nothing more,” said Pepé, “God be praised!”
Just then the Indian uttered a cry of joy, as he descended from the tree on which he had mounted, and the three friends again breathed freely.
And yet some doubt seemed to remain in the minds of the Indians, for a long and solemn silence followed the manoeuvre of their chief.
The sun had now set, the short twilight had passed away, night had come on, and the moon shone on the river, yet still the Indians did not stir.
“Our scalps tempt them, but they still hesitate to come and take them,” said Pepé, who was becoming very tired of doing nothing.
“Patience!” whispered Bois-Rose, “the Indians are like the vultures, who dare not attack a body until it begins to decay. We may look out for them by-and-bye. Let us resume our position behind the reeds.”
The hunters again quickly knelt down and continued to watch their enemies.
Before long an Indian showed himself very cautiously, another then joined him, and both approached with increasing confidence, followed by others, until Bois-Rose counted ten in the moonlight.
“They will cross the river in file, I expect,” said he. “Fabian, you fire at the first, Pepé will aim at the centre, and I at the last but one. In that way they cannot all attack together. It will be a hand-to-hand struggle, but you, Fabian, while Pepé and I wait for them knife in hand, shall load our rifles and pass them to us. By the memory of your mother, I forbid you to fight with these wretches.”
As the Canadian uttered these words, a tall Indian entered the river, followed by nine others. All advanced with the utmost caution; they might have been taken for the shades of warriors returned from the land of spirits.
Chapter Forty Two.The Blackbird.Death seemed to the eyes of the Indians to reign over the island—for the hunters held even their breath—and yet they advanced with the utmost care.The foremost man, who was the “Blackbird” himself, had reached a place where the water began to be deep, as the last man was just leaving the bank. But just as Fabian was about to take aim against the chief, to the great regret of Pepé, the “Blackbird,” either fearful of danger, or because a ray of moonlight gleaming on the rifles told him his enemy still lived dived suddenly under the water.“Fire!” cried Bois-Rose, and immediately the last Indian of the file fell to rise no more, and two others appeared struggling in the water, and were quickly borne off by the stream. Pepé and Bois-Rose then threw their rifles behind them as agreed upon, for Fabian to reload, while they themselves stood upon the bank, knives in hand.“The Apaches are still seven,” shouted Bois-Rose, in a voice of thunder, anxious to finish the struggle, and feeling all his hatred of the Indians awakened within him, “will they dare to come and take the scalps of the whites?”But the disappearance of their chief and the death of their comrades had disconcerted the Indians; they did not fly, but they remained undecided and motionless, as black rocks bathed by the shining waters of the river.“Can the red warriors only scalp dead bodies?” added Pepé with a contemptuous laugh. “Are the Apaches like vultures who only attack the dead? Advance then, dogs, vultures, women without courage!” shouted he, at the sight of their enemies, who were now rapidly regaining the bank. Suddenly, however, he noticed a body floating on its back, whose bright eyes showed that it was not a corpse, as the extended arms and motionless body seemed to indicate.“Don Fabian, my rifle! there is the ‘Blackbird’ pretending to be dead and floating down the stream.”Pepé took the rifle from Fabian, and aimed at the floating body, but not a muscle stirred. The hunter lowered his rifle. “I was wrong,” said he, aloud, “the white men do not, like the Indians, waste their powder on dead bodies.”The body still floated, with outspread legs and extended arms. Pepé again raised his rifle and again lowered it. Then, when he thought that he had paid off anguish for anguish to the Indian chief, he fired, and the body floated no longer.“Have you killed him?” asked Bois-Rose.“No, I only wished to break his shoulder bone, that he may always have cause to remember the shudder he gave, and the treason he proposed to me. If he were dead, he would still float.”“You might have done better to have killed him. But what is to be done now? I hoped to finish with these demons, and now our work is still to be done. We cannot cross the river to attack them.”“It is the best thing we can do.”“With Fabian, I cannot decide to do it, or I should be now on the bank opposite, where you know as well as I do they still are breathing their infernal vengeance.”The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders with stoical resignation.“Doubtless,” said he, “but we must decide either to fly or to stay.”“Carramba!” continued he, “if we two were alone we would gain the opposite bank in a minute; the seven who are left would catch us no doubt, but we should come out of it, as we have out of more difficult situations.”“It would be better than to stay here like foxes in their hole.”“I agree: but Fabian! and the unlucky scalped man, whom we cannot abandon thus to the mercy of the wretches who have already treated him so cruelly. Let us wait at least until the moon has set, and darkness comes on.”And the old man hung his head with an air of discouragement—which made a painful impression on the Spaniard—raising it only to glance anxiously at the sky; where the moon held on her ordinary course over the starry blue.“So be it,” said Pepé; “but, stay! we killed first five Indians, then three, that makes eight; there should have been twelve left; why did we only count ten in the water? Depend upon it, the Blackbird has sent the two others to seek for reinforcements.”“It is possible: to remain here or to fly are both terrible.”For some time the hunters thus continued to deliberate; meanwhile the moonbeams began to fall more obliquely, and already a part of the tops of the trees were in shadow. More than an hour had elapsed since the attempt of the Indians, and Pepé, less absorbed than Bois-Rose, was watching anxiously.“That cursed moon will never go down,” said he, “and it seems to me that I hear something like the noise of feet in the water; the buffaloes do not come down to drink at this time of night.”So saying, he rose and leaning right and left, looked up and down the stream, but on each side extended an impenetrable veil of fog. The coolness of the American nights which succeeds the burning heat of the day, condenses thus in thick clouds the exhalations of the ground, and of the waters heated by the sun.“I can see nothing but fog,” said he.Little by little the vague sounds died away, and the air recovered its habitual cairn and silence. The moon was fast going down, and all nature seemed sleeping, when the occupants of the island started up in terror.From both sides of the river rose shouts so piercing that the banks echoed them long after the mouths that uttered them were closed. Henceforth flight was impossible; the Indians had encompassed the island.“The moon may go down now,” cried Pepé with rage. “Ah! with reason I feared the two absent men, and the noises that I heard; it was the Indians who were gaining the opposite bank. Who knows how many enemies we have around us now?”“What matter,” replied Bois-Rose gloomily, “whether there are one hundred vultures to tear our bodies, or a hundred Indians to howl round us when we are dead?”“It is true that the number matters little in such circumstances, but it will be a day of triumph for them.”“Are you going to sing your death-song like them, who, when tied to the stake, recall the number of scalps they have taken?”“And why not? it is a very good custom, it helps one to die like a hero, and to remember that you have lived like a man.”“Let us rather try to die like Christians,” replied Bois-Rose.Then drawing Fabian towards him, he said:“I scarcely know, my beloved child, what I had dreamed of for you; I am half savage and half civilised, and my dreams partook of both. Sometimes I wished to restore you to the honours of this world—to your honours, your titles—and to add to them all the treasures of the Golden Valley. Then I dreamed only of the splendour of the desert, and its majestic harmonies, which lull a man to his rest, and entrance him at his waking. But I can truly say that the dominant idea in my mind was that of never quitting you. Must that be accomplished in death? So young, so brave, so handsome, must you meet the same fate as a man who would soon be useless in the world?”“Who would love me when you were gone?” replied Fabian, in a voice which their terrible situation deprived neither of its sweetness nor firmness. “Before I met you, the grave had closed upon all I loved, and the sole living being who could replace them was—you. What have I to regret in this world?”“The future, my child; the future into which youth longs to plunge, like the thirsty stag into the lake.”Distant firing now interrupted the melancholy reflections of the old hunter; the Indians were attacking the camp of Don Estevan. The reader knows the result.Suddenly they heard a voice from the bank, saying, “Let the white men open their ears!”“It is the ‘Blackbird’ again,” cried Pepé. It was indeed he, supported by two Indians.“Why should they open their ears?” answered Pepé.“The whites laugh at the menaces of the ‘Blackbird,’ and despise his promises.”“Good!” said the Indian; “the whites are brave, and they will need all their bravery. The white men of the south are being attacked now; why are the men of the north not against them?”“Because you are a bird of doleful plumage! because lions do not hunt with jackals, for jackals can only howl while the lion devours. Apply the compliment; it is a fine flower of Indian rhetoric,” cried Pepé, exasperated.“Good! the whites are like the conquered Indians, insulting his conqueror. But the eagle laughs at the words of the mocking-bird, and it is not to him that the eagle deigns to address himself.”“To whom then?” cried Pepé.“To the giant, his brother, the eagle of the snowy mountains, who disdains to imitate the language of other birds.”“What do you want of him?” said Bois-Rose.“The Indian would hear the northern warrior ask for life,” replied the Blackbird.“I have a different demand to make,” said the Canadian.“I listen,” replied the Indian.“If you will swear on the honour of a warrior, and on your father’s bones, that you will spare my companions’ lives, I shall cross the river alone without arms, and bring you my scalp on my head. That will tempt him,” added Bois-Rose.“Are you mad, Bois-Rose?” cried Pepé.Fabian flew towards the Canadian: “At the first step you make towards the Indian, I shall kill you,” cried he.The old hunter felt his heart melt at the sound of the two voices that he loved so much. A short silence followed, then came the answer from the bank.“The Blackbird wishes the white man to ask for life, and he asks for death. My wish is this, let the white man of the north quit his companions, and I swear on my father’s bones, that his life shall be saved, but his alone; the other three must die.”Bois-Rose disdained to reply to this offer, and the Indian chief waited vainly for a refusal or an acceptance. Then he continued: “Until the hour of their death, the whites hear the voice of the Indian chief for the last time. My warriors surround the island and the river. Indian blood has been spilled and must be revenged; white blood must flow. But the Indian does not wish for this blood warmed by the ardour of the combat, he wishes for it frozen by terror, impoverished by hunger. He will take the whites living; then, when he holds them in his clutches, when they are like hungry dogs howling after a bone, he will see what men are like after fear and privation; he will make of their skin a saddle for his war-horse, and each of their scalps shall be suspended to his saddle, as a trophy of vengeance. My warriors shall surround the island for fifteen days and nights if necessary, in order to make capture of the white men.”After these terrible menaces the Indian disappeared behind the trees. But Pepé not willing that he should believe he had intimidated them, cried as coldly as anger would permit, “Dog, who can do nothing but bark, the whites despise your vain bravados. Jackal, unclean polecat, I despise you—I—I”—but rage prevented him from saying more, and he finished off by a gesture of contempt; then with a loud laugh he sat down, satisfied at having had the last word. As for Bois-Rose he saw in it all only the refusal of his heroic sacrifice.“Ah!” sighed the generous old man, “I could have arranged it all; now it is too late.”The moon had gone down; the sound of distant firing had ceased, and the darkness made the three friends feel still more forcibly how easy it would have been to gain the opposite bank, carrying in their arms the wounded man. He, insensible to all that was passing, still slept heavily.“Thus,” said Pepé, first breaking silence, “we have fifteen days to live; it is true we have not much provision, but carramba! we shall fish for food and for amusement.”“Let us think,” said Bois-Rose, “of employing usefully the hours before daylight.”“In what?”“Parbleu! in escaping!”“But how?”“That is the question. You can swim, Fabian?”“How else should. I have escaped from the Salto de Agua?”“True! I believe that fear confuses my brain. Well! it would not be impossible, perhaps, to dig a hole in the middle of this island, and to slip through this opening into the water. The night is so dark, that if the Indians do not see us throw ourselves into the water, we might gain a place some way off with safety. Stay, I shall try an experiment.” So saying, he detached, with some trouble, one of the trunks from the little island; and its knotty end looked not unlike a human head. This he placed carefully on the water, and soon it floated gently down the stream. The three friends followed its course anxiously; then, when it had disappeared, Bois-Rose said:“You see, a prudent swimmer might pass in the same manner; not an Indian has noticed it.”“That is true; but who knows that their eyes cannot distinguish a man from a piece of wood?” said Pepé. “Besides, we have with with us a man who cannot swim.”“Whom?”The Spaniard pointed to the wounded man; who groaned in his sleep, as though his guardian angel warned him that there was a question of abandoning him to his enemies.“What matter?” said Bois-Rose; “is his life worth that of the last of the Medianas?”“No,” replied the Spaniard; “and I, who half wanted a short time ago to abandon the poor wretch, think now I would be cowardly.”“Perhaps,” added Fabian, “he has children, who would weep for their father.”“It would be a bad action, and would bring us ill luck,” added Pepé.All the superstitious tenderness of the Canadian awoke at these words, and he said—“Well, then, Fabian, you are a good swimmer, follow this plan: Pepé and I will stay here and guard this man, and if we die here, it will be in the discharge of our duty, and with the joy of knowing you to be safe.”But Fabian shook his head.“I care not for life without you; I shall stay,” said he.“What can be done then?”“Let us think,” said Pepé.But it was unluckily one of those cases in which all human resources are vain, for it was one of those desperate situations from which a higher power alone could extricate them. In vain the fog thickened and the night grew darker; the resolution not to abandon the wounded man opposed an insurmountable obstacle to their escape, and before long the fires lighted by the Indians along each bank, threw a red light over the stream, and rendered this plan impracticable. Except for these fires, the most complete calm reigned, for no enemy was visible, no human voice troubled the silence of the night. However, the fog grew more and more dense, the stream disappeared from view, and even the fires looked only like pale and indistinct lights under the shadowy outline of the trees.
Death seemed to the eyes of the Indians to reign over the island—for the hunters held even their breath—and yet they advanced with the utmost care.
The foremost man, who was the “Blackbird” himself, had reached a place where the water began to be deep, as the last man was just leaving the bank. But just as Fabian was about to take aim against the chief, to the great regret of Pepé, the “Blackbird,” either fearful of danger, or because a ray of moonlight gleaming on the rifles told him his enemy still lived dived suddenly under the water.
“Fire!” cried Bois-Rose, and immediately the last Indian of the file fell to rise no more, and two others appeared struggling in the water, and were quickly borne off by the stream. Pepé and Bois-Rose then threw their rifles behind them as agreed upon, for Fabian to reload, while they themselves stood upon the bank, knives in hand.
“The Apaches are still seven,” shouted Bois-Rose, in a voice of thunder, anxious to finish the struggle, and feeling all his hatred of the Indians awakened within him, “will they dare to come and take the scalps of the whites?”
But the disappearance of their chief and the death of their comrades had disconcerted the Indians; they did not fly, but they remained undecided and motionless, as black rocks bathed by the shining waters of the river.
“Can the red warriors only scalp dead bodies?” added Pepé with a contemptuous laugh. “Are the Apaches like vultures who only attack the dead? Advance then, dogs, vultures, women without courage!” shouted he, at the sight of their enemies, who were now rapidly regaining the bank. Suddenly, however, he noticed a body floating on its back, whose bright eyes showed that it was not a corpse, as the extended arms and motionless body seemed to indicate.
“Don Fabian, my rifle! there is the ‘Blackbird’ pretending to be dead and floating down the stream.”
Pepé took the rifle from Fabian, and aimed at the floating body, but not a muscle stirred. The hunter lowered his rifle. “I was wrong,” said he, aloud, “the white men do not, like the Indians, waste their powder on dead bodies.”
The body still floated, with outspread legs and extended arms. Pepé again raised his rifle and again lowered it. Then, when he thought that he had paid off anguish for anguish to the Indian chief, he fired, and the body floated no longer.
“Have you killed him?” asked Bois-Rose.
“No, I only wished to break his shoulder bone, that he may always have cause to remember the shudder he gave, and the treason he proposed to me. If he were dead, he would still float.”
“You might have done better to have killed him. But what is to be done now? I hoped to finish with these demons, and now our work is still to be done. We cannot cross the river to attack them.”
“It is the best thing we can do.”
“With Fabian, I cannot decide to do it, or I should be now on the bank opposite, where you know as well as I do they still are breathing their infernal vengeance.”
The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders with stoical resignation.
“Doubtless,” said he, “but we must decide either to fly or to stay.”
“Carramba!” continued he, “if we two were alone we would gain the opposite bank in a minute; the seven who are left would catch us no doubt, but we should come out of it, as we have out of more difficult situations.”
“It would be better than to stay here like foxes in their hole.”
“I agree: but Fabian! and the unlucky scalped man, whom we cannot abandon thus to the mercy of the wretches who have already treated him so cruelly. Let us wait at least until the moon has set, and darkness comes on.”
And the old man hung his head with an air of discouragement—which made a painful impression on the Spaniard—raising it only to glance anxiously at the sky; where the moon held on her ordinary course over the starry blue.
“So be it,” said Pepé; “but, stay! we killed first five Indians, then three, that makes eight; there should have been twelve left; why did we only count ten in the water? Depend upon it, the Blackbird has sent the two others to seek for reinforcements.”
“It is possible: to remain here or to fly are both terrible.”
For some time the hunters thus continued to deliberate; meanwhile the moonbeams began to fall more obliquely, and already a part of the tops of the trees were in shadow. More than an hour had elapsed since the attempt of the Indians, and Pepé, less absorbed than Bois-Rose, was watching anxiously.
“That cursed moon will never go down,” said he, “and it seems to me that I hear something like the noise of feet in the water; the buffaloes do not come down to drink at this time of night.”
So saying, he rose and leaning right and left, looked up and down the stream, but on each side extended an impenetrable veil of fog. The coolness of the American nights which succeeds the burning heat of the day, condenses thus in thick clouds the exhalations of the ground, and of the waters heated by the sun.
“I can see nothing but fog,” said he.
Little by little the vague sounds died away, and the air recovered its habitual cairn and silence. The moon was fast going down, and all nature seemed sleeping, when the occupants of the island started up in terror.
From both sides of the river rose shouts so piercing that the banks echoed them long after the mouths that uttered them were closed. Henceforth flight was impossible; the Indians had encompassed the island.
“The moon may go down now,” cried Pepé with rage. “Ah! with reason I feared the two absent men, and the noises that I heard; it was the Indians who were gaining the opposite bank. Who knows how many enemies we have around us now?”
“What matter,” replied Bois-Rose gloomily, “whether there are one hundred vultures to tear our bodies, or a hundred Indians to howl round us when we are dead?”
“It is true that the number matters little in such circumstances, but it will be a day of triumph for them.”
“Are you going to sing your death-song like them, who, when tied to the stake, recall the number of scalps they have taken?”
“And why not? it is a very good custom, it helps one to die like a hero, and to remember that you have lived like a man.”
“Let us rather try to die like Christians,” replied Bois-Rose.
Then drawing Fabian towards him, he said:
“I scarcely know, my beloved child, what I had dreamed of for you; I am half savage and half civilised, and my dreams partook of both. Sometimes I wished to restore you to the honours of this world—to your honours, your titles—and to add to them all the treasures of the Golden Valley. Then I dreamed only of the splendour of the desert, and its majestic harmonies, which lull a man to his rest, and entrance him at his waking. But I can truly say that the dominant idea in my mind was that of never quitting you. Must that be accomplished in death? So young, so brave, so handsome, must you meet the same fate as a man who would soon be useless in the world?”
“Who would love me when you were gone?” replied Fabian, in a voice which their terrible situation deprived neither of its sweetness nor firmness. “Before I met you, the grave had closed upon all I loved, and the sole living being who could replace them was—you. What have I to regret in this world?”
“The future, my child; the future into which youth longs to plunge, like the thirsty stag into the lake.”
Distant firing now interrupted the melancholy reflections of the old hunter; the Indians were attacking the camp of Don Estevan. The reader knows the result.
Suddenly they heard a voice from the bank, saying, “Let the white men open their ears!”
“It is the ‘Blackbird’ again,” cried Pepé. It was indeed he, supported by two Indians.
“Why should they open their ears?” answered Pepé.
“The whites laugh at the menaces of the ‘Blackbird,’ and despise his promises.”
“Good!” said the Indian; “the whites are brave, and they will need all their bravery. The white men of the south are being attacked now; why are the men of the north not against them?”
“Because you are a bird of doleful plumage! because lions do not hunt with jackals, for jackals can only howl while the lion devours. Apply the compliment; it is a fine flower of Indian rhetoric,” cried Pepé, exasperated.
“Good! the whites are like the conquered Indians, insulting his conqueror. But the eagle laughs at the words of the mocking-bird, and it is not to him that the eagle deigns to address himself.”
“To whom then?” cried Pepé.
“To the giant, his brother, the eagle of the snowy mountains, who disdains to imitate the language of other birds.”
“What do you want of him?” said Bois-Rose.
“The Indian would hear the northern warrior ask for life,” replied the Blackbird.
“I have a different demand to make,” said the Canadian.
“I listen,” replied the Indian.
“If you will swear on the honour of a warrior, and on your father’s bones, that you will spare my companions’ lives, I shall cross the river alone without arms, and bring you my scalp on my head. That will tempt him,” added Bois-Rose.
“Are you mad, Bois-Rose?” cried Pepé.
Fabian flew towards the Canadian: “At the first step you make towards the Indian, I shall kill you,” cried he.
The old hunter felt his heart melt at the sound of the two voices that he loved so much. A short silence followed, then came the answer from the bank.
“The Blackbird wishes the white man to ask for life, and he asks for death. My wish is this, let the white man of the north quit his companions, and I swear on my father’s bones, that his life shall be saved, but his alone; the other three must die.”
Bois-Rose disdained to reply to this offer, and the Indian chief waited vainly for a refusal or an acceptance. Then he continued: “Until the hour of their death, the whites hear the voice of the Indian chief for the last time. My warriors surround the island and the river. Indian blood has been spilled and must be revenged; white blood must flow. But the Indian does not wish for this blood warmed by the ardour of the combat, he wishes for it frozen by terror, impoverished by hunger. He will take the whites living; then, when he holds them in his clutches, when they are like hungry dogs howling after a bone, he will see what men are like after fear and privation; he will make of their skin a saddle for his war-horse, and each of their scalps shall be suspended to his saddle, as a trophy of vengeance. My warriors shall surround the island for fifteen days and nights if necessary, in order to make capture of the white men.”
After these terrible menaces the Indian disappeared behind the trees. But Pepé not willing that he should believe he had intimidated them, cried as coldly as anger would permit, “Dog, who can do nothing but bark, the whites despise your vain bravados. Jackal, unclean polecat, I despise you—I—I”—but rage prevented him from saying more, and he finished off by a gesture of contempt; then with a loud laugh he sat down, satisfied at having had the last word. As for Bois-Rose he saw in it all only the refusal of his heroic sacrifice.
“Ah!” sighed the generous old man, “I could have arranged it all; now it is too late.”
The moon had gone down; the sound of distant firing had ceased, and the darkness made the three friends feel still more forcibly how easy it would have been to gain the opposite bank, carrying in their arms the wounded man. He, insensible to all that was passing, still slept heavily.
“Thus,” said Pepé, first breaking silence, “we have fifteen days to live; it is true we have not much provision, but carramba! we shall fish for food and for amusement.”
“Let us think,” said Bois-Rose, “of employing usefully the hours before daylight.”
“In what?”
“Parbleu! in escaping!”
“But how?”
“That is the question. You can swim, Fabian?”
“How else should. I have escaped from the Salto de Agua?”
“True! I believe that fear confuses my brain. Well! it would not be impossible, perhaps, to dig a hole in the middle of this island, and to slip through this opening into the water. The night is so dark, that if the Indians do not see us throw ourselves into the water, we might gain a place some way off with safety. Stay, I shall try an experiment.” So saying, he detached, with some trouble, one of the trunks from the little island; and its knotty end looked not unlike a human head. This he placed carefully on the water, and soon it floated gently down the stream. The three friends followed its course anxiously; then, when it had disappeared, Bois-Rose said:
“You see, a prudent swimmer might pass in the same manner; not an Indian has noticed it.”
“That is true; but who knows that their eyes cannot distinguish a man from a piece of wood?” said Pepé. “Besides, we have with with us a man who cannot swim.”
“Whom?”
The Spaniard pointed to the wounded man; who groaned in his sleep, as though his guardian angel warned him that there was a question of abandoning him to his enemies.
“What matter?” said Bois-Rose; “is his life worth that of the last of the Medianas?”
“No,” replied the Spaniard; “and I, who half wanted a short time ago to abandon the poor wretch, think now I would be cowardly.”
“Perhaps,” added Fabian, “he has children, who would weep for their father.”
“It would be a bad action, and would bring us ill luck,” added Pepé.
All the superstitious tenderness of the Canadian awoke at these words, and he said—
“Well, then, Fabian, you are a good swimmer, follow this plan: Pepé and I will stay here and guard this man, and if we die here, it will be in the discharge of our duty, and with the joy of knowing you to be safe.”
But Fabian shook his head.
“I care not for life without you; I shall stay,” said he.
“What can be done then?”
“Let us think,” said Pepé.
But it was unluckily one of those cases in which all human resources are vain, for it was one of those desperate situations from which a higher power alone could extricate them. In vain the fog thickened and the night grew darker; the resolution not to abandon the wounded man opposed an insurmountable obstacle to their escape, and before long the fires lighted by the Indians along each bank, threw a red light over the stream, and rendered this plan impracticable. Except for these fires, the most complete calm reigned, for no enemy was visible, no human voice troubled the silence of the night. However, the fog grew more and more dense, the stream disappeared from view, and even the fires looked only like pale and indistinct lights under the shadowy outline of the trees.
Chapter Forty Three.A Feat of Herculean Strength.Let us now glance at the spot occupied by the Blackbird. The fires lighted on the banks threw at first so strong a light that nothing could escape the eyes of the Indians, and a sentinel placed near each fire was charged to observe carefully all that passed on the island. Seated and leaning against the trunk of a tree, his broken shoulder bound up with strips of leather, the Blackbird only showed on his face an expression of satisfied ferocity; as for the suffering he was undergoing, he would have thought it unworthy of him to betray the least indication of it. His ardent eye was fixed continually on the spot where were the three men, whom he pictured to himself as full of anguish.But as the fog grew thicker, first the opposite bank and then the island itself, became totally invisible. The Indian chief felt that it was necessary to redouble his surveillance. He ordered one man to cross the river, and another to walk along the bank, and exhorted every one to watchfulness.“Go,” said he, “and tell those of my warriors who are ordered to watch these Christians—whose skins and scalps shall serve as ornaments to our horses—that they must each have four ears, to replace the eyes that the fog has rendered useless. Tell them that their vigilance will merit their chief’s gratitude; but that if they allow sleep to deaden their senses, the hatchet of the Blackbird will send them to sleep in the land of spirits.”The two messengers set off, and soon returned to tell the chief that he might rest satisfied that attention would be paid to his orders. Indeed, stimulated at once by their own hatred of the whites, and by the hope of a recompense—fearing if sleep surprised them, not so much the threatened punishment as the idea of awaking in the hunting-grounds of the land of spirits, bearing on their foreheads the mark of shame which accompanies the sentinel who gives way to sleep—the sentinels had redoubled their vigilance. There are few sounds that can escape the marvellous ears of an Indian, but on this occasion the fog made it difficult to hear as well as to see, and the strictest attention was necessary. With closed eyes and open ears, and standing up to chase away the heaviness that the silence of nature caused them to feel, the Indian warriors stood motionless near their fires, throwing on on from time to time some fagots to keep them ablaze.Some time passed thus, during which the only sound heard was that of a distant fall in the river.The Blackbird remained on the left bank, and the night air, as it inflamed his wounds, only excited his hatred the more. His face covered with hideous paint, and contracted by the pain—of which he disdained to make complaint—and his brilliant eyes, made him resemble one of the sanguinary idols of barbarous times. Little by little, however, in spite of himself, his eyes were weighed down by sleep, and an invincible drowsiness took possession of his spirit. Before long his sleep became so profound, that he did not hear the dry branches crackle under a moccasin, as an Indian of his tribe advanced towards him.Straight and motionless as a bamboo stem, an Indian runner covered with blood and panting for breath, waited for some time until the chief, before whom he stood, should open his eyes and interrogate him. As the latter showed no signs of awaking, the runner resolved to announce his presence, and in a hollow, guttural voice, said—“When the Blackbird shall open his eyes, he will hear from my mouth words which will chase sleep far from him.”The chief opened his eyes at the voice, and shook off his drowsiness with a violent effort. Ashamed at having been surprised asleep, he muttered:“The Blackbird has lost much blood; he has lost so much that the next sun will not dry it on the ground, and his body is more feeble than his will.”“Man is made thus,” rejoined the messenger, sententiously.The Blackbird continued without noticing the reflection:“It is some very important message doubtless, since the Spotted Cat has chosen the fleetest of his runners to carry it?”“The Spotted Cat will send no more messengers,” replied the Indian. “The lance of a white man has pierced his breast, and the chief now hunts with his fathers in the land of spirits.”“What matter! he died a conqueror? he saw, before he died, the white dogs dispersed over the plain?”“He died conquered; and the Apaches had to fly after losing their chief and fifty of their renowned warriors.”In spite of his wound, and of the empire that an Indian should exercise over himself, the Blackbird started up at these words. However, he restrained himself, and replied gravely, though with trembling lips—“Who, then, sends you to me, messenger of ill?”“The warriors, who want a chief to repair their defeat. The Blackbird was but the chief of a tribe, he is now the chief of a whole people.”Satisfied pride shone in the eye of the Indian, at his augmented authority.“If the rifles of the north had been joined to ours, the whites of the south would have been conquered.” But as he recalled to mind the insulting manner in which the two hunters had rejected his proposal, his eyes darted forth flames of hatred, and pointing to his wound, he said, “What can a wounded chief do? His limbs refuse to carry him, and he can scarcely sit on his horse.”“We can tie him on; a chief is at once a head and an arm—if the arm be powerless the head will act, and the sight of their chief’s blood will animate our warriors. The council fire was lighted anew after the defeat, and the warriors wait for the Blackbird to make his voice heard; his battle-horse is ready—let us go!”“No,” replied the Blackbird, “my warriors encompass, on each bank, the white hunters whom I wished to have for allies; now they are enemies; the ball of one of them has rendered useless for six moons, the arm that was so strong in combat; and were I offered the command of ten nations, I would refuse it, to await here the hour when the blood that I thirst for shall flow before my eyes.”The chief then recounted briefly the captivity of Gayferos, his deliverance by the Canadian, the rejection of his proposals and the vow of vengeance he had made.The messenger listened gravely; he felt all the importance of making a new attack on the gold-seekers, at the moment when, delighted at their victory, they believed themselves safe, and he proposed to the Blackbird to leave some one behind in his place to watch the island; but the Blackbird was immovable.“Well!” said the runner, “before long the sun will begin to rise; I shall wait until daylight to report to the Apaches that the Blackbird prefers his personal vengeance to the honour of the entire nation. By deferring my departure, I shall have retarded the moment when our warriors will have to regret the loss of the bravest among them.”“So be it,” said the chief, in a grave tone, although much pleased by this adroit flattery, “but a messenger has need of repose after a battle followed by a long journey. Meanwhile, I would listen to the account of the combat in which the Spotted Cat lost his life.”The messenger sat down near the fire, with crossed legs, and with one elbow on his knee and his head leaning on his hand, after a few minutes’ rest, gave a circumstantial account of the attack on the white camp—omitting no fact which might awaken the hatred of the Blackbird against the Mexican invaders.This over, he laid down and slept, or seemed to sleep. But the tumultuous and contrary passions which struggled in the heart of the Blackbird—ambition on the one hand, and thirst for vengeance on the other—kept him awake without effort. In about an hour the runner half rose, and pushing back the cloak of skin which he had drawn over his head he perceived the Blackbird still sitting in the same attitude.“The silence of the night has spoken to me,” said he, “and I thought that a renowned chief like the Blackbird might, before the rising sun, have his enemies in his power and hear their death-song.”“My warriors cannot walk on the water as on the warpath,” replied he; “the men of the north do not resemble those of the south, whose rifles are like reeds in their hands.”“The blood that the Blackbird has lost deceives his intellect and obscures his vision; if he shall permit it, I shall act for him, and to-morrow his vengeance will be complete.”“Do as you like; from whatever side vengeance comes, it will be agreeable to me.”“Enough. I shall soon bring here the three hunters, and him whose scalp they could not save.”So saying the messenger rose and was soon hidden by the fog from the eyes of the Blackbird.On the island more generous emotions were felt. From the eyes of its occupants sleep had also fled—for if there be a moment in life, when the hearts of the bravest may fail them, it is when danger is terrible and inevitable, and when not even the last consolation of selling life dearly is possible to them. Watched by enemies whom they could not see, the hunters could not satisfy their rage by making their foes fall beneath their bullets as they had done the evening before. Besides, both Bois-Rose and Pepé knew too well the implacable obstinacy of the Indians to suppose that the Blackbird would permit his warriors to reply to their attacks; a soldier’s death would have seemed too easy to him.Oppressed by these sad thoughts, the three hunters spoke no more, but resigned themselves to their fate, rather than abandon the unlucky stranger by attempting to escape.Fabian was as determined to die as the others. The habitual sadness of his spirit robbed death of its terrors, but still the ardour of his mind would have caused him to prefer a quicker death, weapon in hand, to the slow and ignominious one reserved for them. He was the first to break silence. The profound tranquillity that reigned on the banks was to the experienced eyes of the Canadian and Pepé only a certain indication of the invincible resolution of their enemies; but to Fabian it appeared reassuring—a blessing by which they ought to profit.“All sleeps now around us,” said he, “not only the Indians on the banks, but all that has life in the woods and in the desert—the river itself seems to be running slower! See! the reflections of the fires die away! would it not be the time to attempt a descent on the bank?”“The Indians sleep!” interrupted Pepé, bitterly, “yes, like the water which seems stagnant, but none the less pursues its course. You could not take three steps in the river before the Indians would rush after you as you have often seen wolves rush after a stag. Haveyounothing better to propose, Bois-Rose?”“No,” replied he as his hand sought that of Fabian, while with the other he pointed to the sick man, tossing restlessly on his couch of pain.“But, in default of all other chance,” said Fabian, “we should at least have that of dying with honour, side by side as we would wish. If we are victorious, we can then return to the aid of this unfortunate man. If we fall, God himself, when we appear before him, cannot reproach us with the sacrifice of his life, since we risked our own for the common good.”“No,” replied Bois-Rose; “but let us still hope in that God, who re-united us by a miracle; what does not happen to-day, may to-morrow; we have time before us before our provisions fail. To attempt to take the bank now, would be to march to certain death. To die would be nothing, and we always hold that last resource in our own hands; but we might perhaps be made prisoners, and then I shudder to think of what would be our fate. Oh! my beloved Fabian, these Indians in their determination to take us alive give me at least the happiness of being yet a few days beside you.”Silence again resumed its reign; but as Bois-Rose thought of the terrible dénouement he clutched convulsively at some of the trunks of the dead trees, and under his powerful grasp the islet trembled as though about to be torn from its base.“Ah! the wretches! the demons!” cried Pepé, with a sudden explosion of rage. “Look yonder!”A red light was piercing gradually through the veil of vapour which hung over the river, and seemed to advance and grow larger; but, strange to say, the fire floated on the water, and, intense as was the fog, the mass of flames dissipated it as the sun disperses the clouds. The three hunters had barely time to be astonished at this apparition, before they guessed its cause. A long course of life in the desert and its dangers had imparted to the Canadian a firmness which Pepé had not attained; therefore, instead of giving way to surprise, he remained perfectly calm. He knew that this was the only way to surmount any difficulty.“Yes,” said he, “I understand what it is as well as if the Indians had told me. You spoke once of foxes smoked out of their holes; now they want to burn us in ours.”The globe of fire which floated on the river advanced with alarming rapidity, and confirmed the words of Bois-Rose. Already amidst the water, reddened by the flame, the twigs of the willows were becoming distinct.“It is a fire-ship,” cried Pepé, “with which they want to set fire to our island.”“So much the better,” cried Fabian; “better to fight against the fire than wait quietly for death.”“Yes,” said Bois-Rose; “but fire is a terrible adversary and it fights for these demons.”The besieged could oppose nothing to the advancing flames; and they would soon devour the little island, leaving to its inmates no other chance of escape but by throwing themselves into the water—where the Indians could either kill them by rifle-shots, or take them alive, as they pleased.Such had been the idea of the Indian messenger. By his order, the Apaches had cut down a tree with its leaves on, and a thick mass of wet grass interlaced in its branches formed a sort of foundation, on which they placed the branches of a pine tree; and after setting fire to this construction, they had sent it floating down the stream. As it approached, the crackling of the wood could be heard; and out of the black smoke which mixed with the fog arose a bright, clear flame.Not far from the bank they could distinguish the form of an Indian. Pepé could not resist a sudden temptation. “Yon demon,” cried he, “shall at least not live to exult over our death.”So saying, he fired and the plume of the Indian was seen to go down.“Sad and tardy vengeance,” remarked Bois-Rose; and as if, indeed, the Apaches disdained the efforts of a vanquished foe, the shore preserved its gloomy solitude, and not a single howl accompanied the last groans of the warrior.“Never mind,” cried Pepé, stamping his foot in his impotent fury; “I shall die more calmly, the greater number of those demons I have sent before me.” And he looked round for some other victim.Meanwhile Bois-Rose was calmly reconnoitring the burning mass, which, if it touched the island, would set fire to the dried trees which composed it.“Well,” cried Pepé, whose rage blinded his judgment, “it is useless to look at the fire; have you any method of making it deviate from its course?”“Perhaps,” replied the Canadian. Pepé began to whistle with an affected indifference.“I see something that proves to me that the reasonings of the Indians are not always infallible; and if it were not that we shall receive a shower of balls, to force us to stay hidden while the islet takes fire, I should care as little for that burning raft as for a fire-fly in the air.”In constructing the floating fire, the Indians had calculated its thickness, so that the wet grass might be dried by the fire and become kindled about the time when it should touch the island. But the grass had been soaked in the water, and this had retarded its combustion; besides the large branches had not had time to inflame; it was only the smaller boughs and the leaves that were burning. This had not escaped the quick eye of the Canadian, who, advancing with a long stick in his hand, resolved to push it underwater; but just as he was about to risk this attempt, what he had predicted took place. A shower of balls and arrows flew towards them; though these shots seemed rather intended to terrify than to kill them.“They are determined,” said Bois-Rose, “only to take us alive!”The fire almost touched the island, a few minutes and it would be alight, when with the rapidity of lightning, Bois-Rose glided into the water and disappeared. Shouts rose from each side of the river, when the Indians, as well as Fabian and Pepé, saw the floating mass tremble under his powerful grasp. The fire blazed up brightly for a moment, then the water hissed and the mass of flame was extinguished in foam, until darkness and fog once more spread their sombre covering over the river. The blackened tree, turned from its course, passed by the island, while, amidst the howls of the Indians Bois-Rose rejoined his friends. The whole island shook under his efforts to get back upon it.“Howl at your ease,” cried he, “you have not captured as yet; but,” he added, in a more serious tone, “shall we be always as lucky?”Indeed, although this danger was surmounted, how many remained to be conquered! Who could foresee what new stratagems the Indians might employ against them? These reflections damped their first feeling of triumph. All at once Pepé started up, crying out as he did so:“Bois-Rose, Fabian, we are saved!”“Saved!” said Bois-Rose, “what do you mean?”“Did you not remark how a few hours ago the whole islet trembled under our hands when we tore away some branches to fortify ourselves with, and how you yourself made it shake just now? well, I thought once of making a raft, but now I believe we three can uproot the whole island and set it floating. The fog is thick, the night dark and to-morrow—”“We shall be far from here!” cried Bois-Rose. “To work! to work! we have no time to spare, for the rising wind indicates the approach of morning, and the river does not run more than three knots an hour.”“So much the better, the movement will be less visible.”The brave Canadian grasped the hands of his comrades as he rose to his feet.“What are you going to do?” said Fabian, “cannot we three uproot the island, as Pepé said?”“Doubtless, Fabian, but we risk breaking, it in pieces, and our safety depends upon keeping it together. It is, perhaps, some large branch or root which holds it in its place. Many years must have elapsed since these trees were first driven here, and the water has probably rendered this branch or root very rotten—that is what I wish to find out.”At that moment the doleful screech of an owl interrupted them, and those plaintive cries troubling the silence of night, just as they were about to entertain some hope, sounded ominous in the ears of Pepé.“Ah!” said he, sadly, all his superstition reviving, “the voice of the owl at this moment seems to me to announce no good fortune to us.”“The imitation is perfect, I allow,” said Bois-Rose, “but you must not be thus deceived. It is an Indian sentinel who calls to his companions either to warn them to be watchful, or what is more like their diabolical spirit, to remind us that they are watching us. It is a kind of death-song with which they wish to regale us.”As he spoke, the same sound was repeated from the opposite bank with different modulations, confirming his words, but it sounded none the less terrible as it revealed all the perils and ambushes hidden by the darkness of the night.“I have a great mind to call to them to roar more like tigers that they are.”“Do not; it would only enable them to know our exact position.”So saying, the Canadian entered the water with extreme care, while his comrades followed his movements with anxious eyes.“Well,” said Pepé, when Bois-Rose came to the surface to take breath, “are we firmly fixed?”“All is well, I think,” replied Bois-Rose, “I see at present but one thing that keeps the islet at anchor. Have patience a while.”“Take care not to get too far under,” said Fabian, “or you may be caught in the roots and branches.”“Have no fear, child; a whale may sooner remain fixed to a fishing-boat which it can toss twenty feet into the air, than I under an islet that I could break to pieces with a blow.”The river closed again over his head, and a tolerably long space of time elapsed during which the presence of Bois-Rose was indicated only by the eddies formed round the islet, which now tottered on its foundation. His comrades felt that the giant was making a powerful effort, and Fabian’s heart sank as he thought that he might be struggling with death; when a crash was heard under their feet, like that of a ship’s timbers striking against a rock, and Bois-Rose reappeared above the surface, his hair streaming with water. With one bound he regained the island, which began to move slowly down the river. An enormous root, some depth in the water, had given way to the vigorous strength of the colossus, and the islet was set free.“God be praised!” cried he, “the last obstacle is vanquished and we are afloat.” As he spoke the island could be perceived advancing down stream, slowly it is true, but surely.“Now,” continued he, “our life rests in the hands of God. If the island floats down the middle of the stream we shall soon, thanks to the fog, be out of sight or reach of the Indians. Oh! my God,” added he, fervently, “a few hours more of darkness and your creatures will be saved.”
Let us now glance at the spot occupied by the Blackbird. The fires lighted on the banks threw at first so strong a light that nothing could escape the eyes of the Indians, and a sentinel placed near each fire was charged to observe carefully all that passed on the island. Seated and leaning against the trunk of a tree, his broken shoulder bound up with strips of leather, the Blackbird only showed on his face an expression of satisfied ferocity; as for the suffering he was undergoing, he would have thought it unworthy of him to betray the least indication of it. His ardent eye was fixed continually on the spot where were the three men, whom he pictured to himself as full of anguish.
But as the fog grew thicker, first the opposite bank and then the island itself, became totally invisible. The Indian chief felt that it was necessary to redouble his surveillance. He ordered one man to cross the river, and another to walk along the bank, and exhorted every one to watchfulness.
“Go,” said he, “and tell those of my warriors who are ordered to watch these Christians—whose skins and scalps shall serve as ornaments to our horses—that they must each have four ears, to replace the eyes that the fog has rendered useless. Tell them that their vigilance will merit their chief’s gratitude; but that if they allow sleep to deaden their senses, the hatchet of the Blackbird will send them to sleep in the land of spirits.”
The two messengers set off, and soon returned to tell the chief that he might rest satisfied that attention would be paid to his orders. Indeed, stimulated at once by their own hatred of the whites, and by the hope of a recompense—fearing if sleep surprised them, not so much the threatened punishment as the idea of awaking in the hunting-grounds of the land of spirits, bearing on their foreheads the mark of shame which accompanies the sentinel who gives way to sleep—the sentinels had redoubled their vigilance. There are few sounds that can escape the marvellous ears of an Indian, but on this occasion the fog made it difficult to hear as well as to see, and the strictest attention was necessary. With closed eyes and open ears, and standing up to chase away the heaviness that the silence of nature caused them to feel, the Indian warriors stood motionless near their fires, throwing on on from time to time some fagots to keep them ablaze.
Some time passed thus, during which the only sound heard was that of a distant fall in the river.
The Blackbird remained on the left bank, and the night air, as it inflamed his wounds, only excited his hatred the more. His face covered with hideous paint, and contracted by the pain—of which he disdained to make complaint—and his brilliant eyes, made him resemble one of the sanguinary idols of barbarous times. Little by little, however, in spite of himself, his eyes were weighed down by sleep, and an invincible drowsiness took possession of his spirit. Before long his sleep became so profound, that he did not hear the dry branches crackle under a moccasin, as an Indian of his tribe advanced towards him.
Straight and motionless as a bamboo stem, an Indian runner covered with blood and panting for breath, waited for some time until the chief, before whom he stood, should open his eyes and interrogate him. As the latter showed no signs of awaking, the runner resolved to announce his presence, and in a hollow, guttural voice, said—
“When the Blackbird shall open his eyes, he will hear from my mouth words which will chase sleep far from him.”
The chief opened his eyes at the voice, and shook off his drowsiness with a violent effort. Ashamed at having been surprised asleep, he muttered:
“The Blackbird has lost much blood; he has lost so much that the next sun will not dry it on the ground, and his body is more feeble than his will.”
“Man is made thus,” rejoined the messenger, sententiously.
The Blackbird continued without noticing the reflection:
“It is some very important message doubtless, since the Spotted Cat has chosen the fleetest of his runners to carry it?”
“The Spotted Cat will send no more messengers,” replied the Indian. “The lance of a white man has pierced his breast, and the chief now hunts with his fathers in the land of spirits.”
“What matter! he died a conqueror? he saw, before he died, the white dogs dispersed over the plain?”
“He died conquered; and the Apaches had to fly after losing their chief and fifty of their renowned warriors.”
In spite of his wound, and of the empire that an Indian should exercise over himself, the Blackbird started up at these words. However, he restrained himself, and replied gravely, though with trembling lips—
“Who, then, sends you to me, messenger of ill?”
“The warriors, who want a chief to repair their defeat. The Blackbird was but the chief of a tribe, he is now the chief of a whole people.”
Satisfied pride shone in the eye of the Indian, at his augmented authority.
“If the rifles of the north had been joined to ours, the whites of the south would have been conquered.” But as he recalled to mind the insulting manner in which the two hunters had rejected his proposal, his eyes darted forth flames of hatred, and pointing to his wound, he said, “What can a wounded chief do? His limbs refuse to carry him, and he can scarcely sit on his horse.”
“We can tie him on; a chief is at once a head and an arm—if the arm be powerless the head will act, and the sight of their chief’s blood will animate our warriors. The council fire was lighted anew after the defeat, and the warriors wait for the Blackbird to make his voice heard; his battle-horse is ready—let us go!”
“No,” replied the Blackbird, “my warriors encompass, on each bank, the white hunters whom I wished to have for allies; now they are enemies; the ball of one of them has rendered useless for six moons, the arm that was so strong in combat; and were I offered the command of ten nations, I would refuse it, to await here the hour when the blood that I thirst for shall flow before my eyes.”
The chief then recounted briefly the captivity of Gayferos, his deliverance by the Canadian, the rejection of his proposals and the vow of vengeance he had made.
The messenger listened gravely; he felt all the importance of making a new attack on the gold-seekers, at the moment when, delighted at their victory, they believed themselves safe, and he proposed to the Blackbird to leave some one behind in his place to watch the island; but the Blackbird was immovable.
“Well!” said the runner, “before long the sun will begin to rise; I shall wait until daylight to report to the Apaches that the Blackbird prefers his personal vengeance to the honour of the entire nation. By deferring my departure, I shall have retarded the moment when our warriors will have to regret the loss of the bravest among them.”
“So be it,” said the chief, in a grave tone, although much pleased by this adroit flattery, “but a messenger has need of repose after a battle followed by a long journey. Meanwhile, I would listen to the account of the combat in which the Spotted Cat lost his life.”
The messenger sat down near the fire, with crossed legs, and with one elbow on his knee and his head leaning on his hand, after a few minutes’ rest, gave a circumstantial account of the attack on the white camp—omitting no fact which might awaken the hatred of the Blackbird against the Mexican invaders.
This over, he laid down and slept, or seemed to sleep. But the tumultuous and contrary passions which struggled in the heart of the Blackbird—ambition on the one hand, and thirst for vengeance on the other—kept him awake without effort. In about an hour the runner half rose, and pushing back the cloak of skin which he had drawn over his head he perceived the Blackbird still sitting in the same attitude.
“The silence of the night has spoken to me,” said he, “and I thought that a renowned chief like the Blackbird might, before the rising sun, have his enemies in his power and hear their death-song.”
“My warriors cannot walk on the water as on the warpath,” replied he; “the men of the north do not resemble those of the south, whose rifles are like reeds in their hands.”
“The blood that the Blackbird has lost deceives his intellect and obscures his vision; if he shall permit it, I shall act for him, and to-morrow his vengeance will be complete.”
“Do as you like; from whatever side vengeance comes, it will be agreeable to me.”
“Enough. I shall soon bring here the three hunters, and him whose scalp they could not save.”
So saying the messenger rose and was soon hidden by the fog from the eyes of the Blackbird.
On the island more generous emotions were felt. From the eyes of its occupants sleep had also fled—for if there be a moment in life, when the hearts of the bravest may fail them, it is when danger is terrible and inevitable, and when not even the last consolation of selling life dearly is possible to them. Watched by enemies whom they could not see, the hunters could not satisfy their rage by making their foes fall beneath their bullets as they had done the evening before. Besides, both Bois-Rose and Pepé knew too well the implacable obstinacy of the Indians to suppose that the Blackbird would permit his warriors to reply to their attacks; a soldier’s death would have seemed too easy to him.
Oppressed by these sad thoughts, the three hunters spoke no more, but resigned themselves to their fate, rather than abandon the unlucky stranger by attempting to escape.
Fabian was as determined to die as the others. The habitual sadness of his spirit robbed death of its terrors, but still the ardour of his mind would have caused him to prefer a quicker death, weapon in hand, to the slow and ignominious one reserved for them. He was the first to break silence. The profound tranquillity that reigned on the banks was to the experienced eyes of the Canadian and Pepé only a certain indication of the invincible resolution of their enemies; but to Fabian it appeared reassuring—a blessing by which they ought to profit.
“All sleeps now around us,” said he, “not only the Indians on the banks, but all that has life in the woods and in the desert—the river itself seems to be running slower! See! the reflections of the fires die away! would it not be the time to attempt a descent on the bank?”
“The Indians sleep!” interrupted Pepé, bitterly, “yes, like the water which seems stagnant, but none the less pursues its course. You could not take three steps in the river before the Indians would rush after you as you have often seen wolves rush after a stag. Haveyounothing better to propose, Bois-Rose?”
“No,” replied he as his hand sought that of Fabian, while with the other he pointed to the sick man, tossing restlessly on his couch of pain.
“But, in default of all other chance,” said Fabian, “we should at least have that of dying with honour, side by side as we would wish. If we are victorious, we can then return to the aid of this unfortunate man. If we fall, God himself, when we appear before him, cannot reproach us with the sacrifice of his life, since we risked our own for the common good.”
“No,” replied Bois-Rose; “but let us still hope in that God, who re-united us by a miracle; what does not happen to-day, may to-morrow; we have time before us before our provisions fail. To attempt to take the bank now, would be to march to certain death. To die would be nothing, and we always hold that last resource in our own hands; but we might perhaps be made prisoners, and then I shudder to think of what would be our fate. Oh! my beloved Fabian, these Indians in their determination to take us alive give me at least the happiness of being yet a few days beside you.”
Silence again resumed its reign; but as Bois-Rose thought of the terrible dénouement he clutched convulsively at some of the trunks of the dead trees, and under his powerful grasp the islet trembled as though about to be torn from its base.
“Ah! the wretches! the demons!” cried Pepé, with a sudden explosion of rage. “Look yonder!”
A red light was piercing gradually through the veil of vapour which hung over the river, and seemed to advance and grow larger; but, strange to say, the fire floated on the water, and, intense as was the fog, the mass of flames dissipated it as the sun disperses the clouds. The three hunters had barely time to be astonished at this apparition, before they guessed its cause. A long course of life in the desert and its dangers had imparted to the Canadian a firmness which Pepé had not attained; therefore, instead of giving way to surprise, he remained perfectly calm. He knew that this was the only way to surmount any difficulty.
“Yes,” said he, “I understand what it is as well as if the Indians had told me. You spoke once of foxes smoked out of their holes; now they want to burn us in ours.”
The globe of fire which floated on the river advanced with alarming rapidity, and confirmed the words of Bois-Rose. Already amidst the water, reddened by the flame, the twigs of the willows were becoming distinct.
“It is a fire-ship,” cried Pepé, “with which they want to set fire to our island.”
“So much the better,” cried Fabian; “better to fight against the fire than wait quietly for death.”
“Yes,” said Bois-Rose; “but fire is a terrible adversary and it fights for these demons.”
The besieged could oppose nothing to the advancing flames; and they would soon devour the little island, leaving to its inmates no other chance of escape but by throwing themselves into the water—where the Indians could either kill them by rifle-shots, or take them alive, as they pleased.
Such had been the idea of the Indian messenger. By his order, the Apaches had cut down a tree with its leaves on, and a thick mass of wet grass interlaced in its branches formed a sort of foundation, on which they placed the branches of a pine tree; and after setting fire to this construction, they had sent it floating down the stream. As it approached, the crackling of the wood could be heard; and out of the black smoke which mixed with the fog arose a bright, clear flame.
Not far from the bank they could distinguish the form of an Indian. Pepé could not resist a sudden temptation. “Yon demon,” cried he, “shall at least not live to exult over our death.”
So saying, he fired and the plume of the Indian was seen to go down.
“Sad and tardy vengeance,” remarked Bois-Rose; and as if, indeed, the Apaches disdained the efforts of a vanquished foe, the shore preserved its gloomy solitude, and not a single howl accompanied the last groans of the warrior.
“Never mind,” cried Pepé, stamping his foot in his impotent fury; “I shall die more calmly, the greater number of those demons I have sent before me.” And he looked round for some other victim.
Meanwhile Bois-Rose was calmly reconnoitring the burning mass, which, if it touched the island, would set fire to the dried trees which composed it.
“Well,” cried Pepé, whose rage blinded his judgment, “it is useless to look at the fire; have you any method of making it deviate from its course?”
“Perhaps,” replied the Canadian. Pepé began to whistle with an affected indifference.
“I see something that proves to me that the reasonings of the Indians are not always infallible; and if it were not that we shall receive a shower of balls, to force us to stay hidden while the islet takes fire, I should care as little for that burning raft as for a fire-fly in the air.”
In constructing the floating fire, the Indians had calculated its thickness, so that the wet grass might be dried by the fire and become kindled about the time when it should touch the island. But the grass had been soaked in the water, and this had retarded its combustion; besides the large branches had not had time to inflame; it was only the smaller boughs and the leaves that were burning. This had not escaped the quick eye of the Canadian, who, advancing with a long stick in his hand, resolved to push it underwater; but just as he was about to risk this attempt, what he had predicted took place. A shower of balls and arrows flew towards them; though these shots seemed rather intended to terrify than to kill them.
“They are determined,” said Bois-Rose, “only to take us alive!”
The fire almost touched the island, a few minutes and it would be alight, when with the rapidity of lightning, Bois-Rose glided into the water and disappeared. Shouts rose from each side of the river, when the Indians, as well as Fabian and Pepé, saw the floating mass tremble under his powerful grasp. The fire blazed up brightly for a moment, then the water hissed and the mass of flame was extinguished in foam, until darkness and fog once more spread their sombre covering over the river. The blackened tree, turned from its course, passed by the island, while, amidst the howls of the Indians Bois-Rose rejoined his friends. The whole island shook under his efforts to get back upon it.
“Howl at your ease,” cried he, “you have not captured as yet; but,” he added, in a more serious tone, “shall we be always as lucky?”
Indeed, although this danger was surmounted, how many remained to be conquered! Who could foresee what new stratagems the Indians might employ against them? These reflections damped their first feeling of triumph. All at once Pepé started up, crying out as he did so:
“Bois-Rose, Fabian, we are saved!”
“Saved!” said Bois-Rose, “what do you mean?”
“Did you not remark how a few hours ago the whole islet trembled under our hands when we tore away some branches to fortify ourselves with, and how you yourself made it shake just now? well, I thought once of making a raft, but now I believe we three can uproot the whole island and set it floating. The fog is thick, the night dark and to-morrow—”
“We shall be far from here!” cried Bois-Rose. “To work! to work! we have no time to spare, for the rising wind indicates the approach of morning, and the river does not run more than three knots an hour.”
“So much the better, the movement will be less visible.”
The brave Canadian grasped the hands of his comrades as he rose to his feet.
“What are you going to do?” said Fabian, “cannot we three uproot the island, as Pepé said?”
“Doubtless, Fabian, but we risk breaking, it in pieces, and our safety depends upon keeping it together. It is, perhaps, some large branch or root which holds it in its place. Many years must have elapsed since these trees were first driven here, and the water has probably rendered this branch or root very rotten—that is what I wish to find out.”
At that moment the doleful screech of an owl interrupted them, and those plaintive cries troubling the silence of night, just as they were about to entertain some hope, sounded ominous in the ears of Pepé.
“Ah!” said he, sadly, all his superstition reviving, “the voice of the owl at this moment seems to me to announce no good fortune to us.”
“The imitation is perfect, I allow,” said Bois-Rose, “but you must not be thus deceived. It is an Indian sentinel who calls to his companions either to warn them to be watchful, or what is more like their diabolical spirit, to remind us that they are watching us. It is a kind of death-song with which they wish to regale us.”
As he spoke, the same sound was repeated from the opposite bank with different modulations, confirming his words, but it sounded none the less terrible as it revealed all the perils and ambushes hidden by the darkness of the night.
“I have a great mind to call to them to roar more like tigers that they are.”
“Do not; it would only enable them to know our exact position.”
So saying, the Canadian entered the water with extreme care, while his comrades followed his movements with anxious eyes.
“Well,” said Pepé, when Bois-Rose came to the surface to take breath, “are we firmly fixed?”
“All is well, I think,” replied Bois-Rose, “I see at present but one thing that keeps the islet at anchor. Have patience a while.”
“Take care not to get too far under,” said Fabian, “or you may be caught in the roots and branches.”
“Have no fear, child; a whale may sooner remain fixed to a fishing-boat which it can toss twenty feet into the air, than I under an islet that I could break to pieces with a blow.”
The river closed again over his head, and a tolerably long space of time elapsed during which the presence of Bois-Rose was indicated only by the eddies formed round the islet, which now tottered on its foundation. His comrades felt that the giant was making a powerful effort, and Fabian’s heart sank as he thought that he might be struggling with death; when a crash was heard under their feet, like that of a ship’s timbers striking against a rock, and Bois-Rose reappeared above the surface, his hair streaming with water. With one bound he regained the island, which began to move slowly down the river. An enormous root, some depth in the water, had given way to the vigorous strength of the colossus, and the islet was set free.
“God be praised!” cried he, “the last obstacle is vanquished and we are afloat.” As he spoke the island could be perceived advancing down stream, slowly it is true, but surely.
“Now,” continued he, “our life rests in the hands of God. If the island floats down the middle of the stream we shall soon, thanks to the fog, be out of sight or reach of the Indians. Oh! my God,” added he, fervently, “a few hours more of darkness and your creatures will be saved.”