Wood Rangers Part 48

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 Pepe.

All the superst.i.tious tenderness of the Canadian awoke at these words, and he said--

"Well, then, Fabian, you are a good swimmer, follow this plan: Pepe 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 Pepe.

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 pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude; 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 f.a.gots to keep them ablaze.

Some time pa.s.sed 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 encompa.s.s, 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 pa.s.sions 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 att.i.tude.

"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."