For more than two hours was the fiendish spectacle kept up--a tragedy of
many acts; though, as yet, none of them ending in death.
But neither actors nor spectators knew how soon this might be the
termination of it.
So horrified were the captives, they could not calmly reflect; though,
from the heartless revelry around them, instinct itself guided them to
expect very little mercy.
The discrimination shown in their punishment led some to entertain a
hope. All, both blacks and whites, now knew with whom they had to deal;
for, in a whispered conversation among themselves, the story of Blue
Dick was told to those of the emigrant party who had never heard of him
before.
And the slaves who were not of the Blackadder plantation, as also the
white men to whom these belonged, began to indulge in the belief that
they were not to be made victims to the vengeance of the mulatto.
They were allowed time enough to reflect; for after some ten or a dozen
of the female slaves had been _douched_, to the delight of the young
Cheyennes, and the apparent satisfaction of their chief, there was an
interlude in the atrocious performance. The renegade, as if contented
with revenge--at least, for the time--had turned away from the
waterfall, and gone inside his tent.
Among the three captive groups, there was none in which apprehension
could be more keen than that composed of the white women. They had to
fear for something dearer to them to life--their honour.
Several of them were young, and more than one good-looking. Not to know
it they could not have been women.
Up to that hour the savages had not insulted them. But this gave them
no assurance. They knew that these loved wine more than women; and the
whisky taken from the despoiled wagons had hitherto diverted the savages
from intruding upon them.
It could not long continue, for they had been told of something besides
this. The character of cold incontinence given to the forest-Indian--he
who figured in the early history of their country's colonisation--has no
application to the fiery Centaurs of the prairie. All they had ever
heard of these savages led to this conclusion; and the white women, most
of them wives, while thinking of danger to their husbands, were also
apprehensive about their own.
She who had no husband, Clara Blackadder, suffered more than any of
them. She had seen her father's corpse lying upon the prairie sward,
bathed in its own blood. She had just ceased to behold her brother
subjected to a punishment she now knew to be fearfully painful; and she
was reflecting what might be in store for herself.
She remembered Blue Dick well. As his master's daughter--his young
mistress--she had never been unkind to him. But she had never been
specially kind; for some influence, exerted by the slave Sylvia, had
rather turned her against him. Not to actual hostility; only to the
showing of a slight disfavour. The truth was, that the heart of the
planter's daughter had been so occupied with its own affairs--its love
for the young stranger, O'Neil--it had little room for any other
thought.
The same thought was still there; not dead, but surrounded by a
woe-begone despair; that, even now, hindered her from feeling, keenly as
she otherwise might have done, the danger of the situation.
Still was she not insensible to it. The Cheyenne Chief, in passing, had
glared angrily upon her, with an expression she remembered more than
once to have seen in the eyes of Blue Dick. As Sylvia's mistress, as
the friend and confidant of the quadroon slave, more than all, as the
sister of Blount Blackadder, she could not expect either grace or mercy
from the mulatto. She knew not what she might expect. It was painful
to think, still more to converse, upon it with the women around her.
These did not talk or think of her fate. It was sorrow enough for them
to reflect upon their own. But she had more to dread than any of them,
and she knew it. With that quick instinct peculiar to women, she knew
she was the conspicuous figure in the group.
As the horror of the situation came palpably before her mind, she
trembled. Strong as she was, and self-willed as through life she had
been, she could not help having the keenest apprehensions.
But along with her trembling came a determination to escape, even with
Snively's example and failure before her face!
She might be overtaken. No matter. It could not increase the misery of
her situation. It could not add to its danger. At the worst, it could
only end in death; and death she would accept sooner than degradation.
She was but slightly tied. In this the Indians do not take much pains
with their women captives. It is not often these make any effort to get
free; and when they do, it costs but little trouble to track and
recapture them.
Still have there been incidents in the history of the prairies where
brave, heroic women--even delicate ladies--have contrived to escape from
such captivity, and in a manner almost miraculous. The early history of
the West teems with such episodes; and she, a child of the West, had
heard them as part of her nursery lore. It was their remembrance that
was partly inspiring her to make the attempt.
She did not communicate the design to her fellow-captives. They could
not aid, but only obstruct her. Under the circumstances, it would be no
selfishness to forsake them.
One might deem it a wild, hopeless chance. And so, too, would she, but
for a thought that had stolen into her mind. It had been suggested by
the sight of an animal standing near. It was her own horse, that had
been appropriated by one of the Indians. He was standing with the
saddle still on, and the bridle resting over the crutch. A riding-gear
so new to them had caught the fancy of the Indians, and they had left it
on for exhibition.
Clara Blackadder knew her horse to be a fleet one.
"Once on his back," thought she, "I might gallop out of their reach."
She had a thought beyond. She might get upon the trace which the wagons
had followed from Bent's Fort. She believed she could remember, and
return along it.
And still another thought. At the Fort she had seen many white men.
They might be induced to come back with her, and rescue her captive
companions--her brother.
All this passed through her mind in a few short moments; and while it
was so passing, she slipped off the thongs, that were but carelessly
lapped around her delicate limbs, and prepared for a start.
Now was the time, while the chief was inside his tent.