If ever a spectacle of hell let loose was vouchsafed to mortal eye,
assuredly it must have borne a strong family likeness to that presented
by the Indian village, as Vipan and the three chiefs stepped gravely
outside the _teepe_ to see what was going on.
A wild, roaring, yelling crowd came surging into the open space where
stood the council-lodge. Bucks and squaws, children and dogs, all
mingled together in a motley mass, whooping, laughing, chattering and
grinning. A sea of wild excited faces, the crowd poured onward,
gathering as it rolled. Then the cause of all this excitement became
discernible. In the front of the throng, in the centre of a group of
yelling squaws, hustled, beaten, kicked, dragged along by the
bloodthirsty harpies, were two white men. Their arms were tightly bound
behind their backs, but their feet were tied so as to enable them to
make short steps. They had been stripped naked, and their bodies,
already lacerated with many a weal, and bruised from the switches and
clubs of their tormentors, were plentifully besmeared with their own
blood.
"Wagh, Golden Face!" exclaimed Sitting Bull, with grim humour. "Our
squaws seem to handle your countrymen very tenderly."
The adventurer made no reply. Even he felt his heart sicken within him
at the thought of the hideous fate these two wretched men were about to
undergo. Yet drawn by an uncontrollable impulse, he found himself
moving beside the three Indians, who were strolling leisurely in the
direction taken by the crowd. Not that his red friends manifested any
interest in the proceedings. The torture of helpless prisoners was
sport for boys and squaws, and unworthy of the attention of great chiefs
or warriors of renown. Still, with the characteristic weakness of their
race to witness anything unusual, they followed the crowd.
As the latter thundered along the open space, the inmates of the
clustering groups of _teepes_ on either side poured forth to swell its
ranks. Young bucks would dart out in front, and execute a series of
leaps in the air, uttering shrill whoops, and even the river was dotted
with bull-boats, as the inhabitants of the villages on the opposite bank
crowded over in hundreds to see the fun. Knives were flourished in the
prisoners' faces, kicks and slaps were their portion at every step;
indeed, it almost seemed that the ill-usage of the infuriated mob would
mercifully end their sufferings before they should reach the terrible
stake. Something of this seemed to strike their tormentors themselves,
for all of a sudden a compact band of young bucks charged into the mass,
drove back the yelling squaws, and seizing the two unhappy wretches,
dragged them forward at a smart run.
Just outside the village was a clear space. Here a couple of stout
posts, eight or nine feet high, had been driven into the ground about a
dozen yards apart.
And now Vipan had an opportunity of estimating the strength of the band
or bands into whose midst he had so involuntarily penetrated. Far along
the river-banks on either side, extending a distance of five or six
miles, the tall lodges stood in lines and clusters among the thin belt
of timber which lined the stream. These and the village behind him,
roughly reckoning, he estimated to represent some four or five thousand
warriors. Overhead the great mountains shot up their craggy heads,
blasted into a score of fantastic shapes, frowning down upon the
barbarous scene like grim tutelaries of destruction.
The two miserable men were backed against the posts and firmly secured,
their arms being drawn up high above their heads and stretched to the
utmost. Powerless to move a limb, they were ready for the torturers.
Suddenly a piercing cry for help burst from one of them. In it Vipan
recognised his own name.
In deference to their rank, the crowd had made way for the chiefs in
whose company he was. At a sign from Sitting Bull, it now gave way
further, and Vipan was able to approach within easy speaking-distance of
the prisoners.
"Oh, for God's sake, Mr Vipan, save me from torture! Kill me--put me
out of my misery at once!"
Vipan stared at the utterer of this agonised prayer. In the distorted
features, cut and bruised out of all knowledge, and livid with the dews
of bodily and mental anguish, in the strained eyeballs staring from
their sockets in deadly fear, he could hardly recognise the unfortunate
Geoffry Vallance.
A curious change passed over the adventurer's face, so curious that even
many of the Indians standing around noticed it and wondered.
"I am the last person in this world, of whom _you_ ought to ask a
benefit," he said curtly.
Had there been time for reflection, poor Geoffry might well have been
amazed. Now, half-frenzied with terror, he only moaned:
"Save me from the torture! Kill me, that is all I ask you!"
"I cannot if I would," was the answer, in a more relenting tone. "How
did you manage to let them capture you?"
"It was the day the camp was taken," gasped the wretched prisoner. "I
was lingering behind and got lost, and then my horse ran away when I was
dismounted. I don't know how it was, but I looked up and found myself
in the middle of the Indians."
"Well, I can do nothing for you. Mind me, though. I knew a chap in
your position once. He managed to roll his tongue back into his throat
and choke himself. He escaped the fire that way. Try it. It's your
only chance."
The despairing moan with which this gloomy alternative was received was
drowned by a loud cry from the other white man.
"Colonel Vipan. Git us out of this fix, for the Lord's sake! I kin put
you on to a good thing, I kin!"
The adventurer turned in amazement. He saw what was a villainous
countenance at the best of times, and now with the shaggy beard matted
with saliva and gouts of blood, it was hideous and horrible in the
extreme. He recognised the man he had felled in the liquor saloon at
Henniker City--Bitter Rube.
"How in thunder did you get into this hobble?" he said.
"It's this way, Colonel. The red devils jumped us at our _placer_.
They scalped the other three."
"Burntwood Creek?"
"That's it, Colonel. You get me out of this, and I'll make you a rich
man for life. There's gold there worth millions and millions."
"Glad to hear it, Bitter Rube," was the unconcerned reply. "I know the
place all right; going to work it by and by. It's where your mate
jumped me and got laid out for his pains. Remember your scheme to lynch
me, eh, Bitter Rube?"
"Oh, Lord, Colonel. It was the other chaps. See here now--"
"Well, I can't even repay the little service you were going to render
me--a short shrift and a long rope," interrupted Vipan, the scowling
glances and increasing murmurs of the throng convincing him of the peril
he himself was incurring. A frantic yell burst from the prisoner.
"You snake-spawned white Injun! Here's a white man being cut into
chunks before your eyes. I'll haunt yer! I'll ghost yer! I'll make
life a hell to yer!"
The miserable wretch went on to bellow the most frantic blasphemies.
One of the young Indians, stepping up behind him, thrust a red-hot
faggot into his open mouth. This was greeted as an excellent joke by
the onlookers, who shouted and screamed with laughter. Then one of them
applied a light to the victim's unkempt and shaggy beard. It frizzled
and flared up, burning the wretched man frightfully about the face and
head. The mirth of the spectators became well-nigh uncontrollable.
"How! white brudder," said a burly buck, grinning hideously into
Geoffry's face, and patting him fraternally on the shoulder. "Injun
brudder hab heap fun. Injun brudder not hurt you first. Other man hurt
first--you see him--you hab heap good fun. You hurt first, you no
laugh--other hurt first, you plenty laugh--Injun brudder plenty laugh.
How--how!"
Then the wretched Geoffry understood that with a diabolical refinement
of cruelty the savages intended that he should witness the torture and
death of his companion in adversity before his own turn came. He could
only raise his eyes stupidly to the grinning countenance of his
addresser.
Two squaws now stepped forward--hideous hags whose long flattened
breasts fell in disgusting flaps below their waists. They were nearly
naked, and each held in her hand a sharp knife. Advancing to the
sufferer they made an incision down each of his sides, and proceeded to
skin him alive as coolly as a butcher would flay a dead sheep.
The anguished shrieks of the victim were terrible to hear; but no spark
of pity did they stir in the hearts of the ruthless fiends who crowded
around, gloating over this diabolical performance. They danced and
laughed, leaping high in the air, hurling taunting epithets at the
miserable victim, and exhorting the other prisoner to observe what was
in store for him. And in their hellish glee the women, if anything,
surpassed the younger and more ferocious of the warriors.
For nearly an hour the scene went on--varied at intervals by the passing
of a lighted torch along those portions of the victim's body already
laid bare. The piercing shrieks of the tortured wretch sunk into
laboured and hollow groans--then ceased altogether. He had fainted.
A glance having sufficed to show them that he was not dead, the
performers stood back, contemplating their handiwork with a grin of
ferocious satisfaction. And so deftly had they done it, that from chin
to feet, the front and sides of the sufferer's body was entirely denuded
of skin, which hung from his shoulders in a bleeding and ghastly mantle.
Yet this was only the first stage of his torture.
Vipan, who had perforce witnessed this hideous spectacle, felt seized
with a violent and well-nigh uncontrollable nausea, and would have
turned away. But as the exhibition of the slightest repulsion or
feeling would have been not merely inexpedient, but highly dangerous, he
was constrained to master himself. Besides, a sort of horrible
fascination rooted him to the spot--an overmastering and morbid
curiosity to see how the other prisoner would fare.
Sitting Bull, who with a few other chiefs had been witnessing the
hellish performance with grave impassiveness, must have read his
thoughts.
"They are not King George men," he remarked laconically. "They are not
your countrymen, Golden Face."
Vipan made no reply. The remark suggested an idea. He might be able to
save Geoffry by claiming him as a fellow-countryman. A strange struggle
took place within him. Why should he? If he attempted to do so it
would be at deadly risk to himself, and even then would he meet with
success? And apart from these considerations, as he himself had told
the unfortunate one, he was the last man from whom the latter should
claim any assistance.
Then the bloodthirsty rage of the barbarous horde took a fresh turn.
Their one victim was for the time being insensible to pain, but there
was another. Him they had been reserving with this end in view. Shouts
were raised that it was time to begin upon him.
With a wild-beast laugh, the two fiend-like hags approached the new
victim, their reeking knives in hand, the yells and roars of the crowd
urging them on. The miserable Geoffry, bound immovably to the stake,
watched their approach. His eyes protruded from their sockets, a cold
sweat rained down his distorted countenance, and there was a strange
hoarse rattle in his throat. It was a sight to haunt the spectator for
a lifetime. Then his head fell heavily forward on his chest.
Seizing him by the hair, one of the female fiends forced it back. It
was as lead in her grasp. Then the truth became apparent. The
miserable captive was stone-dead. He had died of sheer horror and
fright.
A moment of silence, then with a wild yell of disappointed fury the
ferocious crowd flung itself upon the corpse and hacked and mutilated it
into a shapeless and gory mass. Then the blind madness of their
bloodthirsty rage fairly let loose, they turned once more to the first
victim. The scalp was torn from his head; knives and burning splinters
were stuck into his flesh; and the yet warm and palpitating heart was
plucked out and reared aloft on the point of a lance. Then bundles of
dry brushwood were piled around both of the mangled corpses, and set
alight, and soon the red tongues of flame--whose roaring and crackling
was drowned by the frenzied yells of the savages as they danced and
leaped around like devils let loose from the nethermost hell--shot
upward, licking around the cruel stakes of torture, and a horrible and
sickening odour of burning flesh hung upon the air. A great volume of
smoke mounted to the heavens, and, after watching it for a while, the
whole fiend-like crowd surged back to the village, there to hold a
gigantic scalp-dance--bearing the reeking trophies aloft on
lance-points.
All that remained of the border ruffian and the unfortunate Geoffry
Vallance were two little heaps of calcined bones.