THE LAST REFUGE.
We must now return to Red Cedar. When the squatter heard the yells of
the redskins, and saw their torches flashing through the trees in the
distance, he at the first start of terror thought himself lost, and
burying his head in his hands, he would have fallen to the ground, had
not Fray Ambrosio caught hold of him just in time.
"Demonios!" the monk exclaimed, "take care, gossip, gestures are
dangerous here."
But the bandit's despondency lasted no longer than a flash of lightning;
he drew himself up again, almost as haughty as he had been previously,
saying in a firm voice--"I will escape."
"Bravely spoken, gossip," the monk said; "but we must act."
"Forward!" the squatter howled.
"What do you mean?" the monk cried, with a start of terror; "why, that
leads to the redskins' camp."
"Forward, I tell you."
"Very good, and may the devil protect us!" Fray Ambrosio muttered.
The squatter, as he said, marched boldly toward the camp; they soon
reached the spot where they let down a lasso for Nathan, and which they
had beaten a retreat from in their first movement of terror. On reaching
it, the squatter parted the branches, and looked down. All the camp was
aroused; Indians could be seen running about in all directions.
"Oh," Red Cedar muttered, "I hoped all these demons would start in
pursuit of us; it is impossible to cross there."
"We cannot think of it," said Nathan, "we should be hopelessly lost."
"Let us do something," said the monk.
Ellen, exhausted with fatigue, seated herself on a branch, and her
father gazed at her in despair.
"Poor child," he said, in a low voice, "how she suffers!"
"Do not think about me, father," she said; "save yourself, and leave me
here."
"Leave you!" he cried, savagely; "never! Not if I died; no, no, I will
save you."
"What have I to fear from these men, to whom I never did any harm?" she
continued; "they will have pity on my weakness."
Red Cedar burst into an ironical laugh. "Ask the jaguars if they pity
the antelopes," he said. "You do not know the savages, poor child. They
would torture you to death with ferocious joy."
Ellen sighed, and let her head droop.
"Time is slipping away; let us decide on something," the monk repeated.
"Go to the demon!" the squatter said brutally; "You are my evil genius."
"How ungrateful men are!" the monk said, ironically, as he raised his
hypocritical eyes to Heaven; "I, who am his dearest friend."
"Enough," Red Cedar said, furiously; "we cannot remain here, so let us
go back."
"What, again?"
"Do you know any other road, demon?"
"Where is Nathan?" the squatter suddenly asked; "has he fallen off?"
"Not such a fool," the young man said, with a laugh; "but I have changed
my dress."
He parted the leaves that hid him, and his comrades gave a cry of
surprise. Nathan was clothed in a bearskin, and carried the head in his
hand.
"Oh, oh!" said Red Cedar, "That is a lucky find; where did you steal
that, lad?"
"I only had the trouble to take it off the branch where it was hung to
dry."
"Take care of it, for it may be of use ere long."
"That is what I thought."
After taking a few steps, Red Cedar stopped, stretched out his arm to
warn his comrades, and listened. After two or three minutes, he turned
to his comrades and whispered--"Our retreat is cut off; people are
walking on the trees, I heard branches creaking and leaves rustling."
They gazed at each other in terror.
"We will not despair," he went on, quickly, "all is not yet lost; let us
go higher, and on one side, till they have passed; during that time,
Nathan will amuse them; the Comanches rarely do an injury to a bear."
No one made any objection, so Sutter started first, and the monk
followed. Ellen looked at her father sorrowfully. "I care not," she
said.
"I say again, I will save you, child," he replied with great tenderness.
He took the maiden in his powerful arms, and laid her softly on his
shoulder.
"Hold on," he muttered, "and fear nothing."
Then, with a dexterity and strength doubled by a father's love, the
bandit seized the bough over his head with one hand, and disappeared in
the foliage, after saying to his son: "Look out, Nathan, play your part
cleverly, lad, our safety depends on you."
"Don't be frightened, old one," the young man replied, as he put on the
bear's head; "I am not more stupid than an Indian; they will take me for
their cousin."
We know what happened, and how this trick, at first so successful, was
foiled by Curumilla. On seeing his son fall, the squatter was
momentarily affected by a blind rage, and pointed his rifle at the
Indian. Fortunately the monk saw the imprudent gesture soon enough to
check him. "What are you about?" he hoarsely whispered, as he struck up
the barrel; "you will destroy your daughter."
"That is true," the squatter muttered.
Ellen, by an extraordinary hazard, had seen nothing; had she done so, it
is probable that her brother's death would have drawn from her a cry of
agony, which must have denounced her companions.
"Oh," Red Cedar said, "still that accursed Trail-hunter and his devil of
an Indian. They alone can conquer me."
The fugitives remained for an hour in a state of terrible alarm, not
daring to stir, through fear of being discovered. They were so close to
their pursuers that they distinctly heard what they said, but at length
the speakers retired, the torches were put out, and all became silent
again.
"Ouf!" said the monk, "they have gone.
"Not all," the squatter answered; "did you not hear that accursed
Valentine?"
"That is true; our retreat is still cut off."
"We must not despair yet; for the present we have nothing to fear here;
rest a little while, while I go on the search."
"Hum!" Fray Ambrosio muttered; "why not go all together? That would be
more prudent, I think."
Red Cedar laughed bitterly. "Listen, gossip," he said to the monk, as he
seized his arm, which he pressed like a vice: "you distrust me, and you
are wrong. I wished once to leave you, I allow, but I no longer wish it.
We will perish or escape together."
"Oh, oh! Are you speaking seriously, gossip?"
"Yes; for, trusting to the foolish promises of a priest, I resolved to
reform; I altered my life, and led a painful existence; not injuring
anybody, and toiling honestly. The men I wished to forget remembered me
in their thirst for revenge. Paying no heed to my wish to repent, they
fired my wretched jacal and killed my son. Now they track me like a wild
beast, the old instincts are aroused in me, and the evil leaven that
slept in my heart is fermenting afresh. They have declared a war to the
death. Well, by heaven, I accept it, and will wage it without pity,
truce, or mercy, not asking of them, if they captured me, less than I
would give them if they fell into my hands. Let them take care, for I am
Red Cedar! He whom the Indians call the _Man-eater_ (Witchasta Joute)
and I will devour their hearts. So, at present, be at your ease, monk,
we shall not part again: you are my conscience--we are inseparable."
The squatter uttered those atrocious words with such an accent of rage
and hatred, that the monk saw he really spoke the truth, and his evil
instincts had definitively gained the upper hand. A hideous smile of joy
curled his lips. "Well, gossip," he said, "go and look out, we will
await you here."
During the squatter's absence not a word was uttered. Sutter was asleep,
the monk thinking, and Ellen weeping. The poor girl had heard with
sorrow mingled with horror her father's atrocious sentiments. She then
measured the fearful depth of the abyss into which she was suddenly
hurled, for Red Cedar's determination cut her off eternally from
society, and condemned her to a life of grief and tears. After about an
hour's absence Red Cedar re-appeared, and the expression of his face was
joyous.
"Well?" the monk anxiously asked him.
"Good news," he replied; "I have discovered a refuge where I defy the
cleverest bloodhounds of the prairies to track me."
"Is it far from here?"
"A very little distance; but that will prove our security. Our enemies
will never suppose we had the impudence to hide so close to them."
"That is true; we will go there, then."
"When you please."
"At once."
Red Cedar told the truth. He had really discovered a refuge, which
offered a very desirable guarantee of security. Had we not ourselves
witnessed a similar thing in the Far West, we should not put faith in
the possibility of such a hiding place. After going about one hundred
and fifty yards, the squatter stopped before an enormous oak that had
died of old age, and whose interior was hollow.
"It is here," he said, cautiously parting the mass of leaves, branches,
and creepers that completely concealed the cavity.
"Hum!" the monk said, as he peered down into the hole, which was dark as
pitch; "Have we got to go down there?"
"Yes," Red Cedar replied; "but reassure yourself, it is not very deep."
In spite of this assurance the monk still hesitated.
"Take it or leave it," the squatter went on; "do you prefer being
captured?"
"But we shall not be able to stir down there?"
"Look around you."
"I am looking."
"Do you perceive that the mountain is perpendicular here?"
"Yes, I do."
"Good; we are on the edge of the precipice which poor Nathan told us
of."
"Ah!"
"Yes; you see that this dead tree seems, as it were, welded to the
mountain?"
"That is true. I did not notice it at first."
"Well; going down that cavity, for fifteen feet at the most, you will
find another which passes the back of the tree, and communicates with a
cavern."
"Oh!" the monk exclaimed gleefully, "How did you discover this hiding
place?"
The squatter sighed. "It was long ago," he said.
"Stay," Fray Ambrosio objected; "others may know it beside yourself."
"No," he answered, shaking his head; "only one man knows it beside
myself, and his discovery cost him his life."
"That is reassuring."
"No hunter or trapper ever comes this way, for it is a precipice; if we
were to take a few steps further in that direction, we should find
ourselves suspended over an abyss of unknown depth, one of the sides of
which this mountain forms. However, to quiet your fears, I will go down
first."
Red Cedar threw into the gaping hollow a few pieces of candlewood he had
procured; he put his rifle on his back, and, hanging by his hands, let
himself down to the bottom of the tree, Sutter and the monk curiously
watching him. The squatter struck a light, lit one of the torches, and
waved it about his head; the monk then perceived that the old scalp
hunter had spoken the truth. Red Cedar entered the cavern, in the floor
of which he stuck his torch, so that the hollow was illumined, then came
out and rejoined his friends by the aid of his lasso.
"Well," he said to them, "what do you think of that?"
"We shall be famous there," the monk answered.
Without further hesitation he slipped into the tree and disappeared in
the grotto. Sutter followed his example, but remained at the bottom of
the tree to help his sister down. The maiden appeared no longer
conscious of what was going on around her. Kind and docile as ever, she
acted with automatic precision, not trying to understand why she did one
thing more than another; her father's words had struck her heart, and
broken every spring of her will. When her father let her down the tree,
she mechanically followed her brother into the cave.
When left alone, the squatter removed with minute care any traces which
might have revealed to his enemies' sharp eyes the direction in which he
had gone; and when he felt certain that nothing would denounce him, he
entered the cave in his turn.
The bandits' first care was to inspect their domain, and they found it
was immense. The cavern ran for a considerable distance under the
mountain; it was divided into several branches and floors, some of which
ran up to the top of the mountain, while others buried themselves in the
ground; a subterranean lake, the reservoir of some nameless river,
extended for an immense distance under a low arch, all black with bats.
The cavern had several issues in diametrically opposite directions; and
they were so well hidden, that it was impossible to notice them outside.
Only one thing alarmed the adventurers, and that was the chances of
procuring food; but to that Red Cedar replied that nothing was easier
than to set traps, or even hunt on the mountain.
Ellen had fallen into a broken sleep on a bed of furs her father had
hastily prepared for her. The wretched girl had so suffered and endured
such fatigue during the last few days, that she literally could not
stand on her feet. When the three men had inspected the cave, they
returned and sat down by her side; Red Cedar looked at her sleeping with
an expression of infinite tenderness; he was too fond of his daughter
not to pity her, and think with grief of the fearful destiny that
awaited her by his side; unhappily, any remedy was impossible. Fray
Ambrosio, whose mind was always busy, drew the squatter from his
reverie.
"Well, gossip," he said, "I suppose we are condemned to spend some time
here?"
"Until our pursuers, tired of seeking us in vain, at length determine to
go off."
"They may be long; hence, for the greater secrecy, I propose one thing."
"What is it?"
"There are blocks of stone here which time has detached from the roof;
before we go to sleep, I propose that we roll three or four of the
largest into the hole by which we entered."
"Why so?" the squatter asked abruptly.
"In our present position two precautions are better than one; the
Indians are such cunning demons, that they are capable of coming down
the tree."
"The padre is right, old one," Sutter, who was half asleep, said; "it is
no great task to roll the stones; but in that way we shall be easy in
our minds."
"Do what you like," the squatter answered, still continuing to gaze on
his daughter.
The two men, with their chief's approval, rose to carry out their plan,
and half an hour later the hole was so artistically closed up, that no
one would have suspected it had he not known it before.
"Now we can sleep, at any rate," said Fray Ambrosio.