Wood Rangers Part 47

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 encompa.s.sed the island.

"The moon may go down now," cried Pepe 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 t.i.tles--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 Pepe. It was indeed he, supported by two Indians.

"Why should they open their ears?" answered Pepe.

"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 Pepe, 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 Pepe.

"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 Pepe.

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 Pepe 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 pa.s.sing, still slept heavily.

"Thus," said Pepe, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt."

"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 pa.s.s 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 Pepe. "Besides, we have with with us a man who cannot swim."

"Whom?"