Death seemed to the eyes of the Indians to reign over the island--for
the hunters held even their breath--and yet they advanced with the
utmost care.
The foremost man, who was the "Blackbird" himself, had reached a place
where the water began to be deep, as the last man was just leaving the
bank. But just as Fabian was about to take aim against the chief, to
the great regret of Pepe, the "Blackbird," either fearful of danger, or
because a ray of moonlight gleaming on the rifles told him his enemy
still lived dived suddenly under the water.
"Fire!" cried Bois-Rose, and immediately the last Indian of the file
fell to rise no more, and two others appeared struggling in the water,
and were quickly borne off by the stream. Pepe and Bois-Rose then threw
their rifles behind them as agreed upon, for Fabian to reload, while
they themselves stood upon the bank, knives in hand.
"The Apaches are still seven," shouted Bois-Rose, in a voice of thunder,
anxious to finish the struggle, and feeling all his hatred of the
Indians awakened within him, "will they dare to come and take the scalps
of the whites?"
But the disappearance of their chief and the death of their comrades had
disconcerted the Indians; they did not fly, but they remained undecided
and motionless, as black rocks bathed by the shining waters of the
river.
"Can the red warriors only scalp dead bodies?" added Pepe with a
contemptuous laugh. "Are the Apaches like vultures who only attack the
dead? Advance then, dogs, vultures, women without courage!" shouted he,
at the sight of their enemies, who were now rapidly regaining the bank.
Suddenly, however, he noticed a body floating on its back, whose bright
eyes showed that it was not a corpse, as the extended arms and
motionless body seemed to indicate.
"Don Fabian, my rifle! there is the `Blackbird' pretending to be dead
and floating down the stream."
Pepe took the rifle from Fabian, and aimed at the floating body, but not
a muscle stirred. The hunter lowered his rifle. "I was wrong," said
he, aloud, "the white men do not, like the Indians, waste their powder
on dead bodies."
The body still floated, with outspread legs and extended arms. Pepe
again raised his rifle and again lowered it. Then, when he thought that
he had paid off anguish for anguish to the Indian chief, he fired, and
the body floated no longer.
"Have you killed him?" asked Bois-Rose.
"No, I only wished to break his shoulder bone, that he may always have
cause to remember the shudder he gave, and the treason he proposed to
me. If he were dead, he would still float."
"You might have done better to have killed him. But what is to be done
now? I hoped to finish with these demons, and now our work is still to
be done. We cannot cross the river to attack them."
"It is the best thing we can do."
"With Fabian, I cannot decide to do it, or I should be now on the bank
opposite, where you know as well as I do they still are breathing their
infernal vengeance."
The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders with stoical resignation.
"Doubtless," said he, "but we must decide either to fly or to stay."
"Carramba!" continued he, "if we two were alone we would gain the
opposite bank in a minute; the seven who are left would catch us no
doubt, but we should come out of it, as we have out of more difficult
situations."
"It would be better than to stay here like foxes in their hole."
"I agree: but Fabian! and the unlucky scalped man, whom we cannot
abandon thus to the mercy of the wretches who have already treated him
so cruelly. Let us wait at least until the moon has set, and darkness
comes on."
And the old man hung his head with an air of discouragement--which made
a painful impression on the Spaniard--raising it only to glance
anxiously at the sky; where the moon held on her ordinary course over
the starry blue.
"So be it," said Pepe; "but, stay! we killed first five Indians, then
three, that makes eight; there should have been twelve left; why did we
only count ten in the water? Depend upon it, the Blackbird has sent the
two others to seek for reinforcements."
"It is possible: to remain here or to fly are both terrible."
For some time the hunters thus continued to deliberate; meanwhile the
moonbeams began to fall more obliquely, and already a part of the tops
of the trees were in shadow. More than an hour had elapsed since the
attempt of the Indians, and Pepe, less absorbed than Bois-Rose, was
watching anxiously.
"That cursed moon will never go down," said he, "and it seems to me that
I hear something like the noise of feet in the water; the buffaloes do
not come down to drink at this time of night."
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 encompassed 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 circumstances, 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 titles--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 passing, 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 amusement."
"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 pass 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?"
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 superstitious 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.