When Thurstane, turning his back on the torture scene, had ascended to the
roof of the Casa, he found the ladies excited and anxious.
"What is the matter?" asked Clara at once, taking hold of his sleeve with
the tips of her fingers, in a caressing, appealing way, which was common
with her when talking to those she liked.
Ordinarily our officer was a truth-teller; indeed, there was nothing which
came more awkwardly to him than deception; he hated and despised it as if
it were a personage, a criminal, an Indian. But here was a case where he
must stoop to falsification, or at least to concealment.
"The Apaches are just below," he mumbled. "Not one of you women must
venture out. I will see to everything. Be good now."
She gave his sleeve a little twitch, smiled confidingly in his face, and
sat down to do some much-needed mending.
Having posted Sweeny at the foot of the ladders, with instructions to let
none of the women descend, Thurstane hastened back to the exterior wall,
drawn by a horrible fascination. With his field-glass he could distinguish
every action of the tragedy which was being enacted on the plain. Pepita,
entirely stripped of her clothing, was already bound to the sapling which
stood by the side of the rivulet, and twenty or thirty of the Apaches were
dancing around her in a circle, each one approaching her in turn, howling
in her ears and spitting in her face. The young man had read and heard
much of the horrors of that torture-dance, which stamps the American
Indian as the most ferocious of savages; but be had not understood at all
how large a part insult plays in this ceremony of deliberate cruelty; and,
insulting a woman! he had not once dream'ed it. Now, when he saw it done,
his blood rushed into his head and he burst forth in choked incoherent
curses.
"I can't stand this," he shouted, advancing upon Coronado with clenched
fists. "We must charge."
The Mexican shook his head in a sickly, scared way, and pointed to the
left. There was a covering party of fifty or sixty warriors; it was not
more than a quarter of a mile from the eastern end of the enclosure; it
was in position to charge either upon that, or upon the flank of any
rescuing sally.
"We can do it," insisted the lieutenant, who felt as if he could fight
twenty men.
"We can't," replied Coronado. "I won't go, and my men shan't go."
Thurstane thought of Clara, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed
aloud. Texas Smith stared at him with a kind of contemptuous pity, and
offered such consolation as it was in his nature to give.
"Capm, when they've got through this job they'll travel."
The hideous prelude continued for half an hour. The Apaches in the dance
were relieved by their comrades in the covering party, who came one by one
to take their turns in the round of prancing, hooting, and spitting. Then
came a few minutes of rest; then insult was followed by outrage.
The girl was loosed from the sapling and lifted until her head was even
with the lower branches, three warriors holding her while two others
extended her arms and fixed them to two stout limbs. What the fastenings
were Thurstane could guess from the fact that he saw blows given, and
heard the long shrill scream of a woman in uttermost agony. Then there was
more hammering around the sufferer's feet, and more shrill wailing. She
was spiked through the palms and the ankles to the tree. It was a
crucifixion.
"By ----!" groaned Thurstane, "I never will spare an Indian as long as I
live."
"Capm, I'm with you," said Texas Smith. "I seen my mother fixed like that.
I seen it from the bush whar I was a hidin'. I was a boy then. I've killed
every Injun I could sence."
Now the dance was resumed. The Apaches pranced about their victim to the
music of her screams. The movement quickened; at last they ran around the
tree in a maddened crowd; at every shriek they stamped, gestured, and
yelled demoniacally. Now and then one of them climbed the girl's body and
appeared to stuff something into her mouth. Then the lamentable outcries
sank to a gasping and sobbing which could only be imagined by the
spectators on the hill.
"Can't you hit some of them?" Thurstane asked Texas Smith.
"Better let 'em finish," muttered the borderer. "The gal can't be helped.
She's as good as dead, Capm."
After another rest came a fresh scene of horror. Several of the Apaches,
no doubt chiefs or leading braves, caught up their bows and renewed the
dance. Running in a circle at full speed about the tree, each one in turn
let fly an arrow at the victim, the object being to send the missile clear
through her.
"That's the wind-up," muttered Texas Smith. "It's my turn now."
He leaped from the wall to the ground, ran sixty or eighty yards down the
hill, halted, aimed, and fired. One of the warriors, a fellow in a red
shirt who had been conspicuous in the torture scene, rolled over and lay
quiet. The Apaches, who had been completely absorbed by their frantic
ceremony, and who had not looked for an attack at the moment, nor expected
death at such a distance, uttered a cry of surprise and dismay. There was
a scramble of ten or fifteen screaming horsemen after the audacious
borderer. But immediately on firing he had commenced a rapid retreat, at
the same time reloading. He turned and presented his rifle; just then,
too, a protecting volley burst from the rampart; another Apache fell, and
the rest retreated.
"Capm, it's all right," said Texas, as he reascended the ruin. "We're
squar with 'em."
"We might have broken it up," returned Thurstane sullenly.
"No, Capm. You don't know 'em. They'd got thar noses p'inted to torture
that gal. If they didn't do it thar, they'd a done it a little furder off.
They was bound to do it. Now it's done, they'll travel."
Warned by their last misadventure, the Indians presently retired to their
usual camping ground, leaving their victim attached to the sapling.
"I'll fotch her up," volunteered Texas, who had a hyena's hankering after
dead bodies. "Reckon you'd like to bury her."
He mounted, rode slowly, and with prudent glances to right and left, down
the hill, halted under the tree, stood up in his saddle and worked there
for some minutes. The Apaches looked on from a distance, uttering yells of
exultation and making opprobrious gestures. Presently Texas resumed his
seat and cantered gently back to the ruins, bearing across his saddle-bow
a fearful burden, the naked body of a girl of eighteen, pierced with more
than fifty arrows, stained and streaked all over with blood, the limbs
shockingly mangled, and the mouth stuffed with rags.
While nearly every other spectator turned away in horror, he glared
steadily and calmly at the corpse, repeating, "That's Injin fun, that is.
That's what they brag on, that is."
"Bury her outside the wall," ordered Thurstane with averted face. "And
listen, all you people, not a word of this to the women."
"We shall be catechised," said Coronado.
"You must do the lying," replied the officer. He was so shaken by what he
had witnessed that he did not dare to face Clara for an hour afterward,
lest his discomposure should arouse her suspicions. When he did at last
visit the tower, she was quiet and smiling, for Coronado had done his
lying, and done it well.
"So there was no attack," she said. "I am so glad!"
"Only a little skirmish. You heard the firing, of course."
"Yes. Coronado told us about it. What a horrible howling the Indians made!
There were some screams that were really frightful."
"It was their last demonstration. They will probably be gone in the
morning."
"Poor Pepita! She will be carried off," said Clara, a tear or two stealing
down her cheek.
"Yes, poor Pepita!" sighed Thurstane.
The muleteer who had been killed in the assault was already buried. At
sundown came the funeral of the soldier Shubert. The body, wrapped in a
blanket, was borne by four Mexicans to the grave which had been prepared
for it, followed by his three comrades with loaded muskets, and then
by all the other members of the party, except Mrs. Stanley, who looked
down from her roof upon the spectacle. Thurstane acted as chaplain, and
read the funeral service from Clara's prayer-book, amidst the weeping
of women and the silence of men. The dead young hero was lowered into
his last resting-place. Sergeant Meyer gave the order: "Shoulder
arms--ready--present--aim--fire!" The ceremony was ended; the muleteers
filled the grave; a stone was placed to mark it; so slept a good soldier.
Now came another night of anxiety, but also of quiet. In the morning, when
eager eyes looked through the yellow haze of dawn over the plain, not an
Apache was to be seen.
"They are gone," said Coronado to Thurstane, after the two had made the
tour of the ruins and scrutinized every feature of the landscape. "What
next?"
Thurstane swept his field-glass around once more, searching for some
outlet besides the horrible cañon, and searching in vain.
"We must wait a day or so for our wounded," he said. "Then we must start
back on our old trail. I don't see anything else before us."
"It is a gloomy prospect," muttered Coronado, thinking of the hundred
miles of rocky desert, and of the possibility that Apaches might be
ambushed at the end of it.
He had been so anxious about himself for a few days that he had cared for
little else. He had been humble, submissive to Thurstane, and almost
entirely indifferent about Clara.
"We ought at least to try something in the way of explorations," continued
the lieutenant. "To begin with, I shall sound the river. I shall be
thought a devil of a failure if I don't carry back some information about
the topography of this region."
"Can you paddle your boat against the current?" asked Coronado.
"I doubt it. But we can make a towing cord of lariats and let it out from
the shore; perhaps swing it clear across the river in that way--with some
paddling, you know."
"It is an excellent plan," said Coronado.
The day passed without movement, excepting that Texas Smith and two
Mexicans explored the cañon for several miles, returning with a couple of
lame ponies and a report that the Apaches had undoubtedly gone southward.
At night, however, the animals were housed and sentries posted as usual,
for Thurstane feared lest the enemy might yet return and attempt a
surprise.
The next morning, all being quiet, the Buchanan boat was launched. A
couple of fairish paddles were chipped out of bits of driftwood, and a
towline a hundred feet long was made of lariats. Thurstane further
provisioned the cockle-shell with fishing tackle, a sounding line, his own
rifle, Shubert's musket and accoutrements, a bag of hard bread, and a few
pounds of jerked beef.
"You are not going to make a voyage!" stared Coronado.
"I am preparing for accidents. We may get carried down the river."
"I thought you proposed to keep fast to the shore."
"I do. But the lariats may break."
Coronado said no more. He lighted a cigarito and looked on with an air of
dreamy indifference. He had hit upon a plan for getting rid of Thurstane.
The next question was, who could handle a boat? The lieutenant wanted two
men to keep it out in the current while he used the sounding line and
recorded results.
"Guess I'll do 's well 's the nex' hand," volunteered Captain Glover. "Got
a sore ear, 'n' a hole in my nose, but reckon I'm 'n able-bodied seaman
for all that. _Hev_ rowed some in my time. Rowed forty mile after a whale
onct, 'n' caught the critter--fairly rowed him down. Current's putty
lively. Sh'd say 't was tearin' off 'bout five knots an hour. But guess
I'll try it. Sh'd kinder like to feel water under me agin."
"Captain, you shall handle the ship," smiled Thurstane. "I'll mention you
by name in my report. Who next?"
"Me," yelped Sweeny.
"Can you row, Sweeny?"
"I can, Liftinant."
"You may try it."
"Can I take me gun, Liftinant?" demanded Sweeny, who was extravagantly
fond and proud of his piece, all the more perhaps because he held it in
awe.
"Yes, you can take it, and Glover can have Shubert's. Though, 'pon my
honor, I don't know why we should carry firearms. It's old habit, I
suppose. It's a way we have in the army."
The lieutenant had no sort of anxiety on the score of his enterprise. His
plan was to swing out into the current, and, if the boat proved perfectly
manageable, to cut loose from the towline and paddle across, sounding the
whole breadth of the channel. It seemed easy enough and safe enough. When
he left the Casa Grande after breakfast he contrived to kiss Clara's hand,
but it did not once occur to him that it would be proper to bid her
farewell. He was very far indeed from guessing that in the knot of the
lariat which was fast to the bow of his coracle there was a fatal gash. It
was not suspicion of evil, but merely a habit of precaution, a prudential
tone of mind which he had acquired in service, that led him at the last
moment to say (making Coronado tremble in his boots), "Mr. Glover, have
you thoroughly overhauled the cord?"
"Give her a look jest before we went up to breakfast," replied the
skipper. "She'll hold."
Coronado, who stood three feet distant, blew a quiet little whiff of smoke
through his thin purple lips, meanwhile dreamily contemplating the
speaker.
"Git in, you paddywhack," said Glover to Sweeny. "Grab yer paddle. T'other
end; that's the talk. Now then. All aboard that's goin'. Shove off."
In a few seconds, impelled from the shore by the paddles, the boat was at
the full length of the towline and in the middle of the boiling current.
"Will it never break?" thought Coronado, smoking a little faster than
usual, but not moving a muscle.
Yes. It had already broken. At the first pause in the paddling the mangled
lariat had given way.
In spite of the renewed efforts of the oarsmen, the boat was flying down
the San Juan.