A month had gone by. The mountain air had become thin and steely, and
the gorgeous glories of the golden-hued woods were falling fast. Winter
was in the atmosphere.
In the villages of the hostiles time was of no account. Dancing and
warlike exercises, gossip, story-telling and gambling, and hunting in
the adjacent mountains, thus this great gathering of savages on a
war-footing solaced their leisure hours--which were many. Bands of
warriors, under some favourite chief or partisan, would strike the
war-post, and sally forth on some more or less desperate foray,
returning in due time with scalps or plunder, or both. Once they
brought with them a wretched prisoner, who was promptly done to death
under the usual circumstances of revolting barbarity.
Now, of this life Vipan had become heartily sick. Accustomed as he was
to come and go at will among the camps and villages of the Sioux, the
restraint of knowing himself a prisoner galled him. For although
allowed a certain amount of liberty, and rather ostentatiously treated
as a guest, he was carefully watched. But it is doubtful whether
another cause had not more to do with his weariness and disgust. That
was no mere passing passion whose expression had so nearly escaped him
when standing in the dug-out with Yseulte Santorex. By an inexplicable
rebound from his wild and reckless life, this man's mature mind and
strong nature had sprung to the other extreme. Well he knew--none
better--his position, or, rather, the utter lack of it, did he return to
civilisation, and there were times when he felt tempted to throw himself
in heart and soul with his Indian friends, to lead them on the war-path,
and in ferocity and daring excelling even the savages themselves, to
devote the remainder of his life to acts of vengeance upon that
civilisation whose laws had placed it in the power of a specious
hypocrite to drive him forth from its midst a pauper and an outcast--
acts of barbarous and bloody vengeance that should render his name a
terror to the whole of the Western frontier. What had he to do with
softness--with love--at his time of life? Yseulte Santorex would be
safe in her English home by this time, probably recalling--when she did
recall it--their acquaintanceship only as a passing romance embedded
among her other adventurous experiences. With such reflections would he
lash and torture himself.
More than once when accompanying some of their hunting parties into the
mountains he had been seized by a wild impulse to make a dash for
liberty. But the cat-like watchfulness of the Indians never flagged,
and upon such occasions a glance was enough to show the impracticability
of any such scheme. The first step would be the signal for a volley of
bullets through his body--moreover, he was never allowed the use of
anything but an inferior steed.
And now, day by day, his situation became more precarious. Sitting
Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other chiefs had somehow waxed more than
doubtful of late as to whether his services in regard to a possible
British intervention would be of any use at all--and this idea was
insidiously fostered by his enemies, who were many and powerful--
Mountain Cat, the Ogallalla war-chief, and Crow-Scalper, who hated all
whites, and the band of young desperadoes who had attached themselves to
the fortunes of War Wolf. The latter brave's bumptiousness had become
simply overwhelming. Full of the recently-acquired importance conferred
upon him by his captivity among the whites and subsequent escape, he
would strut and swagger around, bedecked in all his war-paint and
finery--passing Vipan with a contemptuous laugh or a remark of covert
insolence. The only consideration that restrained the latter from
inflicting summary chastisement was the certainty that the hour he did
so would be his last. And his friend and protector, Mahto-sapa, was
frequently absent on warlike or diplomatic expeditions. The sullen and
hostile feeling growing around him was written on every grim and
scowling face. He felt as helpless as a fly in a spider's web.
Pondering over these things, he was seated one day alone in the lodge of
his host--the latter being away upon one of those absences which
constituted such a peril to himself--when a shadow darkened the entry
and a feminine voice inquired in English:
"May I come in?"
He started, as well he might. The accent was pure and refined, the tone
firm and pleasing. For answer he rose and bowed, and the speaker
entered.
Strange as it may seem, during all this while Vipan had seen his host's
white wife by no more than a few stray passing glimpses, and then at a
distance. It had always struck him that she avoided him with design,
and he had respected her motives. She dwelt in two _teepes_, which she
occupied all to herself--an unwonted luxury--and was attended on by a
Shoshone slave girl of unrivalled hideosity, captured on one of the
chief's forays into the country of the Snakes.
He saw before him a tall, fine-looking woman who might or might not have
been under forty. She was habited in the tasteful Indian dress, and the
tunic and leggings of soft doeskin, beautifully embroidered, brought out
every line and curve of a splendidly-moulded figure. Her face, browned
and hardened by exposure to the sun, and a life not altogether free from
privation, was lighted up by a pair of clear blue eyes, and must
formerly have been one of striking beauty. But the chief attraction was
her hair. This was not arranged in two long plaits after the Sioux
fashion, but rippled over her shoulders in a heavy redundant mass,
forming a very mantle of sheeny, ruddy gold, explaining to the
astonished spectator the name she bore among her adopted compatriots,
The Sun Queen. But--Heavens--what an apparition to meet with in the
camp of the hostile Sioux!
"Thanks," she said, simply, seating herself upon the pile of robes which
Vipan had dragged forward for that purpose. Then pausing a moment to
see if he would break the silence, she went on: "You do not seem to
remember me."
"Pardon me. I am not likely to have forgotten you," was the quiet
reply, with an undercurrent of cutting satire. "Who that had seen her
could ever forget the beautiful Miss D'Arcy--the Belle of the Island?"
She broke into a bitter laugh. "Is that what they used to call me? I
had forgotten--it seems such a long, long time ago. Could it have been
myself? I, Isabel D'Arcy, who held the whole island in thrall;
Government House, the garrison--all--all my humble devoted slaves, now
the wife of a painted savage! In a word, an Indian squaw!"
"And because I declined to make one of the crowd of your humble devoted
slaves you ruined my life. You blighted my whole career as a sacrifice
to your ruffled vanity. One word from you would have exonerated me--yet
you did not speak it."
"Why did you not defend yourself? Why did you not explain the matter
fully?"
"I was a fool not to, perhaps. In fact, I am sure I was. Well, you
see--it was no part of my creed to give away a friend, nor yet a woman--
for it was in a secondary degree on your account that I kept silence and
set up no defence."
"On my account?" she echoed.
"Yes. Your only chance of getting clear out of the business was to deny
the whole thing and stick to it. If I had cut in with the story of the
other man borrowing my charger for the occasion, especially as owing to
our striking resemblance we were often taken for each other--why the
whole murder would have been out. No, there was nothing for it but the
denial."
"And--and have you never explained a word of it since?"
"Never. What was the use? I was already condemned. Your uncle, Sir
George, had more than enough influence for that, and I was practically
cashiered. I must, however, give him credit for the astute way in which
the business was hushed up. Barentyne, I suppose, couldn't clear me for
fear of giving _you_ away."
"And what became of Major Barentyne?" she asked eagerly.
"He left the service soon afterwards. He's a governor-general now, a
sort of viceroy, and all sorts of things; while I'm--well, a fair
specimen of a Western border ruffian. Thus, in this world, is the
saddle clapped upon the wrong horse, and the scapegoat is jerked forth
into the wilderness--and it doesn't much matter."
There was no heat, no upbraiding in his tone. After the first touch of
satire underlying his recognition of her he spoke in an even, almost
monotonous voice, puffing slowly at his long Indian pipe with the
impassiveness of the red men themselves. Then a silence fell between
them. The meeting, the conversation, seemed to have bridged over the
weary, hopeless years of captivity of the one, the aimless and chequered
wanderings of the other. By magic the Indian _teepe_, with its
confusion of _parfleches_ and robes and cooking-pots and wicker-beds,
seemed to have disappeared, and once more their minds were back among
the Government House state and the garrison festivities of the island
colony, and many a familiar, but long-forgotten, face and memory of
other days. And now the once beautiful girl who had queened it there,
the descendant of a good old line, was the weary, middle-aged wife of a
Sioux chief, doomed to live and die among the red barbarians. Truly the
whirligig of Fortune was executing a strange freak when it brought these
two face to face thus.
"I have, indeed, injured you," she said at length. "But I can yet make
some amends?"
He shook his head.
"Listen," she went on. "I can do this. I can give you in writing a
full and true statement of the whole affair. Then you can return home
and clear yourself."
"And to what end?" he answered. "Nothing on earth is to be gained by
raking up old troubles already forgotten. Besides, you are forgetting;
I am a prisoner here, and, candidly, have very small hope of ever
knowing liberty again. My time is about run out. Do you know that from
hour to hour I live in unceasing apprehension of treachery? Any moment
may be my last. See, I have an old pistol here--only one shot. I am
keeping it for myself, if necessary, for I will never figure at their
hellish stake."
She shuddered.
"But," she urged, lowering her voice, and speaking quickly, "but what if
I can help you to escape?"
He looked up, a flash of hope in his eyes. Then he shook his head.
"I'm afraid it can't be done. They would be certain to detect your
agency in the matter, and then what would be _your_ fate?"
"What, you can still make that a consideration!" she exclaimed in
amazement. Then, suddenly she burst into a flood of tears.
"Forgive me," she said, quickly recovering herself. "I am very foolish.
But you are the first of my race I have conversed with for eight long
years. The only white faces I have seen during that time have been
those of wretched prisoners brought in for torture and outrage, or of
horse thieves and border ruffians, more repulsive and villainous than
those of the savages themselves."
"I had no idea of your identity," he said, "until you came in here just
now. Then I recognised you, for I never forget a face. I am not easily
astonished, but I was then. If the subject is not painful I should be
glad to know the circumstances of your being here at all."
She laughed drearily.
"Oh, no! Feeling is pretty well dead by now, and happily so. The story
is that of many another, only I suppose I ought to reckon myself
fortunate when I think of what I have seen others go through. In an
evil moment I arranged to come home from the Islands with some friends,
who were anxious to do the trip overland. We landed at San Francisco,
and all went well until we reached this side of the mountains. We were
a small party, so small that the people at Fort Laramie tried all they
could to dissuade us from going on, as most of the tribes were on the
war-path. We were attacked on the banks of the North Platte, about two
days out from Laramie. It was early in the morning, and we had just
hitched up for a start. The spring waggon containing ourselves was a
little behind the rest. Suddenly a band of warriors, hundreds of them
it seemed, charged in upon us yelling like fiends. The teamsters were
shot dead in a moment. Mr Elsdale, under whose protection I was
travelling, was run through with a lance almost before he had time to
fire a shot, and his wife and I were at the mercy of the savages. Even
now I would rather not think of what she had to go through."
"And yourself?"
"I fainted, mercifully. I must have remained unconscious for hours, for
when I came to I found myself tightly held by a powerful Indian in front
of his saddle. The party was travelling at a considerable pace, and
some of them carried freshly-taken scalps, those of our unfortunate
outfit. My captor smiled good-humouredly as I opened my eyes, and, with
signs and a word or two of English, told me not to be afraid, they were
not going to kill me. Even then it struck me that he had a fine face.
There was an expression of humanity and kindness in it totally absent
from the hideous and painted visages of the rest. That man was
Mahto-sapa."
She paused, and seemed to make an effort to proceed. Her listener,
keenly interested, still smoked gravely without speaking.
"That night, when we halted, there was a frightful scene. Mrs Elsdale
was a prisoner too, but I had not seen her until then. Well, you know
Indians and their ways. She was dead before morning. That I escaped
the same brutal treatment was due to the chief. It appears that he had
captured me with his own hand, and he claimed me as his exclusive
property. There was nearly a fight over me, and I have since learned
that it was little short of a miracle that he carried his point. Well,
I was taken to their head village unmolested, for the chief protected me
unswervingly the whole way, and then he took me as his wife. What could
I do, at the mercy of a band of ruthless savages? Some women might have
killed themselves, but I was a full-blooded creature and clung to life;
besides I always had a strong dash of the Bohemian in me."
Vipan remembered how that very thing used to be said of her among the
envious gossips of the island colony, who had predicted all sorts of
queer futures for Isabel D'Arcy. Surely, however, that which had
befallen her was many degrees queerer than even they had ever designed
for her.
"The chief was a splendid-looking man," she continued, "and I felt
genuinely grateful to him when I thought what he had saved me from. So
I made a virtue of necessity, and resolved to make the best of the
situation; and that I succeeded in obtaining a certain amount of
ascendancy over him you may judge from the style in which I am allowed
to live. He has always treated me well, and I have never been molested
in the smallest degree from the time it was an understood thing that I
was his property. I have more than once been the means of saving a
wretched prisoner, not from death--that would be beyond even my power--
but from the frightful ordeal of the stake. The reason why those two
unhappy wretches were done to death outside the village the last time
instead of here, in its midst, was on my account. The horrible sights I
have witnessed here would make even you turn sick. Well, I laid myself
out to acquire influence among the Indians, doctoring them in a small
way and teaching them various little things; and once my position
assured I took no small pains to keep up its dignity. They soon named
me The Sun Queen."
"And do you never contemplate a return to civilisation--to your
friends?" said her listener as she paused in her narrative.
"Never. Friends! Why, I never had a real one; and as for relations,
they would spurn me from their door. No, I am accustomed to this life
now, and I shall live and die among the Sioux, the squaw of a savage.
Rather a contemptible object, am I not?" she ended, with a harsh and
bitter laugh.
"No, I should not say that," said Vipan, slowly, puffing out a great
cloud of smoke.
"What!" eagerly. "You do not despise me in your heart?"
"Certainly not. Look here. Let us put the case fairly and without
prejudice. Supposing you had lived the ordinary society life. You
might, as hundreds have done before you, have married some vulgar
_parvenu_--we'll say from force of circumstances--or a fellow who got
drunk on the quiet and threw empty bottles at you, or some execrable
gutterling who happened to be rolling in money. Civilised men and
Christians, mind. I am brutally frank, you see. Or again, more than
one Englishwoman of birth and breeding has been known to espouse some
slant-eyed, sallow-skinned Oriental for the sake of his rank and jewels,
sometimes not even that. Well, you have allowed that Mahto-sapa, as a
man, is not contemptible either in aspect or qualities. Now I call him
a king in comparison with such as I have just mentioned. Of those who
would define him as a heathen and a savage, not one in a hundred could
boast half his good points. My opinion is that you have shown sound
judgment in making the best of the situation."
"Do you know, you have taken a weight off my mind. I had often thought
of what you now say, but required someone else's opinion. No, I shall
live and die among these people. But you? I will think out and form
some plan for you to escape, but I do not disguise from you that it will
be difficult and risky. And should you find yourself threatened with
immediate danger, do not delay, take refuge at once in my lodge. I
believe they would hesitate to pursue you there."
She rose from her seat with a lithe, rapid movement, grasped his hand,
and glided from the lodge.