The Pirates of the Prairies Part 38

"Unfasten him," Unicorn commanded a second time.

Several warriors approached the Apache chief, cut the cords that bound him to the stake, and then secured his limbs and threw him at the foot of a tree, Black Cat not deigning to make a sign evidencing the slightest irritation. After exchanging a glance with Valentine, Unicorn placed himself at the head of a band of warriors, who formed a semicircle round the prisoners. The chieftainess placed herself opposite to him, with the women; the band struck up more noisily than ever, and the torture began.

The squaws and warriors danced round the prisoners, and in pa.s.sing before them, each, whether a man or woman, cut off a strip of flesh with long, sharp scalping knives. In making these wounds, the Comanches employed the utmost precaution to prevent the knives running too deep into the flesh, lest the victims should run the chance of dying at once, which would have unpleasantly modified the intention of the Indians, by depriving them of a sight from which they promised themselves so much pleasure.

The Apaches smiled on their torturers, and excited them still more by telling them that they did not know how to treat their prisoners; that their wounds were only so many mosquito stings; that the Apaches were far more skilful; and that the many Comanche prisoners they had made endured in their tribe much more atrocious sufferings.

The unfortunate men were in a pitiable state: their bodies were only one wound, from which the blood streamed. The Comanches grew excited and rage seized upon them, on hearing the insults of their enemies. A woman rushed all at once on one of the prisoners whose words were the bitterest, and with her sharp and curved talons tore out his eyes, which she swallowed on the spot, saying to him--

"Dog, you shall not see the sun again."

"You have torn out my eyes, but left me my tongue," the prisoner replied, with a smile rendered more hideous by the two empty and bleeding sockets. "'Twas I who devoured the quivering heart of your son, Running-water, when he entered my calli to steal horses. Do what you please, I am revenged beforehand!"

The woman, exasperated by this last insult, rushed upon him and buried her knife in his heart. The Apache burst into a hoa.r.s.e laugh, which suddenly changed into the death rattle, and fell a corpse while uttering the words--

"I said truly that you do not know how to torture your prisoners--dogs, rabbits, thieves!"

The Comanches doubled their fury on the wretched victims, incessantly hacking and stabbing them, and though the majority were dead already, they did not leave off till they had destroyed all appearance of humanity. The scalps were then raised, and the victims thrown into the fire prepared for them.

The Comanches danced and howled round this fire until their voice and strength failed them, and they fell exhausted, in spite of the drums and chichikouis. The men and women, stretched on the ground pell-mell, soon fell asleep, in that strange state of intoxication produced by the odour of the blood shed during this atrocious butchery.

Valentine, despite the almost insurmountable disgust this scene had occasioned him, did not wish to retire, as he feared lest Black Cat might be ma.s.sacred by the Comanches in a moment of mad fury. This precaution was not vain: several times, had he not resolutely interfered, the Apache chief would also have been sacrificed to the hatred of his enemies, who had attained a paroxysm of fury impossible to describe.

When the camp was plunged in silence, and everybody asleep, Valentine proceeded cautiously in the direction where the Apache chief lay bound, who watched him come up with a very peculiar glance. Not saying a word, the hunter, after a.s.suring himself that n.o.body was watching his movements, cut all the cords that bound him. The Apache bounded like a jaguar, but fell back again on the ground; the cords had been tied so securely that they had entered into his flesh.

"My brother must be prudent," the Frenchman said gently. "I wish to save him."

He then took his flask and poured a few drops of brandy on the pallid lips of the chief, who gradually recovered, and at length stood on his feet. Bending a searching glance on the man who so generously paid him attentions he was far from expecting, he asked in a hoa.r.s.e voice--

"Why does the pale hunter wish to save me?"

"Because," Valentine answered, without hesitation, "my brother is a great warrior in his nation, and must not die. He is free."

And holding out his hand to the chief, he helped him to walk.

The Indian followed him unresistingly, but without a word. On reaching the spot where the horses of the tribe were picketed, Valentine selected one, saddled it, and led it to the Apache, who, during the hunter's short absence, had remained motionless on the same spot.

"My brother will mount," he said.

The warrior was still so weak that Valentine was compelled to help him into the saddle.

"Can my brother keep on his horse?" he asked, with tender solicitude.

"Yes," the Apache answered, laconically.

The hunter took the gun, bow, and panther skin quiver of the chief which he handed to him, saying gently--

"My brother will take back his arms. A great warrior as he is must not return to his tribe like a timid woman; he should be able to kill a stag, if he met one on the road."

The Indian seized the weapons; a convulsive tremor ran over his limbs, and joy gained the victory over Indian stoicism. This man, who had faced a horrible death without change of countenance, was conquered by the Frenchman's n.o.ble conduct; his granite heart was softened; a tear, doubtless the first he had ever shed, escaped from his fever parched eyes, and a sob burst from his overcharged breast.

"Thanks," he said, in a choking voice, so soon as words could find their way to to his lips; "thanks, my brother is good, he has a friend."

"My brother owes me nothing," the hunter replied, simply; "I act as my heart and my religion order me."

The Indian remained pensive for a moment, then he muttered, shaking his head dubiously:

"Yes, I have heard that said before, by Father Seraphin, the Chief of Prayer of the palefaces. Their G.o.d is omnipotent, He is before all merciful; is not that a blessing?"

"Remember, chief," Valentine quietly interrupted him, "that I save your life in the name of Father Seraphin, whom you seem to know."

The Apache smiled softly.

"Yes," he said, "these are his words, 'Requite good for evil.'"

"Remember those divine precepts which I put in practice today,"

Valentine exclaimed, "and they will support you in suffering."

Black Cat shook his head.

"No," he said, "the desert has its own laws, which are immutable; the red skins are of a different nature from the palefaces: their law is one of blood, and they cannot alter it. Their law says: 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' The maxim is derived from their fathers, and they are obliged to submit to it, and follow it; but the redskins never forget an insult or a kindness. Black Cat has a great memory."

There was a silence of some minutes, during which the two men regarded each other attentively. At length the Apache spoke again.

"My brother will lend me his gourd."

The hunter gave it to him; the Apache quickly raised it to his lips, and took a mouthful. Then, bending down to Valentine, he placed his hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on the lips, while allowing a portion of the fluid he held in his mouth to pa.s.s into the hunter's.

On the prairies of the Far West this ceremony is a species of mysterious initiation, and the greatest mark of attachment one man can give another. When two men have embraced in this way, they are henceforth friends, whom nothing can separate save death, and they help one another without hesitation under all circ.u.mstances.

Valentine knew this, and hence, in spite of the disgust he internally experienced, he did not oppose the action of the Apache chief. On the contrary, he yielded to it joyfully, comprehending the immense advantages he should, at a later date, derive from this indissoluble alliance with one of the most influential Apache sachems, those allies of Red Cedar, on whom he had sworn to take an exemplary revenge.

"We are brothers," Black Cat said, gravely. "Henceforth, by day or night, wherever the great pale hunter may direct his footsteps, a friend will constantly watch over him."

"We are brothers," the hunter replied; "Black Cat will ever find me ready to come to his a.s.sistance."

"I know it," said the warrior. "Farewell; I will return to the warriors of my tribe."

"Farewell," Valentine said.

And vigorously lashing his horse, the Apache Chief started at full speed, and soon disappeared in the darkness. Valentine listened for a moment to the echo of his horse's hoofs on the hardened ground, and then returned thoughtfully to the calli, in which Ellen was nursing White Gazelle.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TWO WOMEN'S HEARTS.