"Yet this is fine sight--how these noble beasts bound with joy at their
liberty!"
"Yes, until they are chased by the Indians, and then they bound with
terror!"
"There! now they are gone like the cloud driven by the wind!" continued
the Canadian. "Now the scene changes. Look at that stag, who shows
from time to time his shining eyes and black nose through the trees; he
snuffs the wind, he listens. Ah! now he also approaches to drink. He
has heard a noise, he raises his head; do not the drops that fall from
his mouth look like liquid gold? I will wake the lad!"
"Let him sleep, I tell you; perhaps his dream now shows him black eyes
and rosy lips, or some nymph sleeping on the banks of a clear stream."
The old Canadian sighed again.
"Is not the stag the emblem of independence?" said he.
"Yes, until the time when the wolves assemble to pursue and tear him to
pieces. Perhaps he would have more chance of life in our royal parks.
Everything to its time, Bois-Rose; old age loves silence, youth noise."
Bois-Rose still fought against the truth. It was the drop of gall that
is found at the bottom of every cup of happiness; it is not permitted
that there should be perfect felicity, for it would then be too painful
to die; neither is unmixed misery allowed to mortals, or it would be
painful to live. The Canadian hung his head and looked sad as he
glanced at the sleeping youth, while Pepe put on his buffalo-skin
buskins.
"Well! what did I tell you?" said he, presently; "do you not hear from
afar those howlings--I mean those barkings, for the wolves have voices
like dogs when they hunt the stags. Poor stag! he is, as you said, the
emblem of life in the desert."
"Shall I wake Fabian now?" said Bois-Rose.
"Yes, certainly; for after a love dream a stag hunt is the thing most
worthy of a nobleman like him, and he will rarely see such a one as
this."
"He will see nothing like it in the towns," cried the Canadian,
enchanted; "such scenes must make him love the desert."
And he shook the young man gently.
With head thrown back, to inhale more freely the air necessary to his
lungs, the stag flew like an arrow along the plain. Behind him a hungry
pack of wolves, a few white, but the greater number black, pursued him
at full speed. The stag had an immense start, but on the sand heaps,
almost lost in the horizon, the piercing eye of the hunter might
distinguish other wolves watching. The noble animal either did not see,
or else disdained them, for he flew straight towards them. As he neared
them he halted a moment. Indeed, he found himself shut in by a circle
of enemies, who constantly advanced upon him as he stopped to take
breath. All at once he turned round, faced the other wolves, and tried
one last effort to escape. But he could not now clear the solid masses
that had formed around him, and he fell in the midst of them. Some
rolled under his feet, and two or three were tossed in the air. Then,
with a wolf hanging to his flanks, bleeding and with tongue protruding,
the poor animal advanced to the edge of the water, in front of the three
spectators of the strange chase.
"It is magnificent!" cried Fabian clapping his hands, and carried away
by the hunter's enthusiasm, which for the time silences humanity in the
heart of men.
"Is it not fine?" cried Bois-Rose, doubly pleased, happy at Fabian's
pleasure, and at his own. "And we shall witness many such fine sights,
my Fabian! here you see only the worst side of these American solitudes,
but when you go with Pepe and me to the great rivers, and the great
lakes of the north--"
"The animal has got rid of his enemy," interrupted Fabian, "he is about
to spring into the river!"
The water bubbled after the leap of the stag, then a dozen times more as
the wolves followed; then amidst the foam were visible the head of the
stag, and those of the wolves who were pursuing him, howling with
hunger, while the more timid ones ran along the banks uttering their
lamentable howls. The stag had neared the island, when the wolves on
the bank suddenly ceased their cries and fled precipitately away.
"What is that?" cried Pepe; "what causes this sudden panic?" but no
sooner had he spoken than he cried again, "Hide yourselves, in God's
name! the Indians are in chase also."
Other and more formidable hunters now appeared in their turn upon the
arena. A dozen of the wild horses, which they had seen before, were now
seen galloping wildly over the plain, while some Indians, mounted
bareback on their horses (having taken their saddles off for greater
speed), with their knees almost up to their chins, were pursuing the
terrified animals. At first there were but three Indians visible; but
one by one about twenty appeared, some armed with lances, and others
brandishing their lassoes of plaited leather--all uttering those cries
by which they express their joy or anger.
Pepe glanced at the Canadian as though to ask whether he had calculated
these terrible chances when he wished to make Fabian share their
adventurous career. For the first time, at such a crisis, the intrepid
hunter looked deadly pale. An eloquent but sad glance was his reply to
the Spaniard's mute interrogation.
"A too great affection in the heart of the bravest man," thought Pepe,
"makes him tremble for him who he loves more than life; and adventurers
like us should have no ties. There is Bois-Rose trembling like a
woman!"
However, they felt almost certain that even the practiced eyes of the
Indians could not discover them in their retreat; and the three men,
after their first alarm had passed over, watched coolly the manoeuvres
of the Indians. These continued to pursue the flying horses; the
numberless obstacles so thickly strewn over the plain--the ravines, the
hillocks, and the sharp-pointed cacti--could not stop them. Without
slackening the impetuosity of their pace or turning aside from any
obstacle, these horsemen cleared them with wonderful address. Bold
rider as he was himself, Fabian looked with enthusiasm on the
astonishing agility of these wild hunters, but the precautions which
they were forced to take, in order to conceal themselves, made the three
friends lose a part of this imposing spectacle.
The vast savannahs, late so deserted, were suddenly changed into a scene
of tumult and confusion. The stag, returning to the bank, continued to
fly, with the wolves still after him. The wild horses galloped before
the Indians--whose howlings equalled that of the wolves--and described
great circles to avoid the lance or the lasso, while numerous echoes
repeated these various sounds.
The sight of Fabian, who followed with an ardent eye all these
tumultuous evolutions, not appearing to disquiet himself about a danger
which he now braved for the first time, deprived Bois-Rose of that
confidence in himself which had brought him safe and sound out of perils
apparently greater than this.
"Ah!" muttered he, "these are scenes which the inhabitants of cities can
never see, it is only in the desert one can meet with them."
But his voice trembled in spite of himself; and he stopped, for he felt
that he would have given a year of his life that Fabian had not been
present. At this moment a new subject of apprehension added to his
anguish.
The scene became more solemn; for a new actor, whose _role_ was to be
short though terrible, now appeared upon it. It was a man, whom by his
dress the three recognised with terror as a white man like themselves.
The unlucky man suddenly discovered in one of the evolutions of the
chase, had become in his turn the exclusive object of pursuit. Wild
horses, wolves, the stag, had all disappeared in the distant fog. There
remained only the twenty Indians scattered over a circle, of which the
white man occupied the centre. For an instant the friends could see him
cast around him a glance of despair and anguish. But, excepting on the
river-side, the Indians were everywhere. It was, therefore, in this
direction that he must fly; and he turned his horse towards the opening
opposite to the island. But his single moment of indecision had
sufficed for the Indians to get near him.
"The unhappy man is lost, and no help for it," said Bois-Rose; "he is
too late now to cross the river."
"But," said Fabian, "if we can save a Christian, shall we let him be
murdered before our eyes?"
Pepe looked at Bois-Rose.
"I answer for your life before God," said the Canadian, solemnly, "if we
are discovered we are but three against twenty. The life of three men--
yours especially, Fabian--is more precious than that of one; we must let
this unhappy man meet his fate."
"But intrenched as we are?" persisted Fabian.
"Intrenched! Do you call this frail rampart of osiers and reeds an
intrenchment? Do you think these leaves are ball proof? And these
Indians are but twenty now; but let one of our shots be fired at them,
and you will soon see one hundred instead of twenty. May God pardon me
if I am unfeeling, but it is necessary."
Fabian said no more; this last reason seemed conclusive, for, like his
companions, he was ignorant that the rest of the Indians were at the
camp of Don Estevan.
Meanwhile the white fled like a man the speed of whose horse is his last
resource. Already they could see the terror depicted on his face, but
just as he was about twenty feet from the river, the lasso of an Indian
caught him, and the unlucky wretch, thrown violently from his saddle
fell upon the sand.