LOVE!
An hour later, the hunters, on reaching the top of a hill, perceived,
about a mile ahead of them, a large village, before which three hundred
Indian warriors were ranged in battle array.
At the sight of the whites the warriors advanced at a gallop, making
their horses curvet and dance, and discharging their muskets in the air.
They uttered their war cry, and unfolded their buffalo robes,
performing, in a word, all the usual evolutions in a friendly reception.
Valentine made his companions to imitate the Indians; and the hunters,
who asked nothing better than to display their skill, descended the hill
at headlong speed, shouting and discharging their rifles, amid the yells
of joy from the redskins, who were delighted at this triumphal arrival
among them.
After the usual salutations and expressions of welcome, the Comanches
formed a semicircle round the hunters, and Pethonista advanced to
Valentine, and held out his hand, saying:--
"My brother is an adopted son of the nation. He is at home. The
Comanches are happy to see him. The longer he remains among them with
the persons who accompany him, the more pleasure he will cause them. A
calli is prepared for my brother, and a second for the White Lily of the
Valley; a third for his friends. We have killed many buffaloes; my
brothers will eat their meat with us. When our brother leaves us, our
hearts will be swollen with sorrow. Hence my brother must remain as long
as possible with his Comanche friends, if he wishes to see them happy."
Valentine, well versed in Indian customs, replied graciously to this
harangue, and the two bands, smiling, made their entry into the village
to the sound of the chichikouis, conches, and Indian instruments,
mingled with the voices of the women and children, and the barking of
the dogs, which produced the most horrible row imaginable.
On reaching the village square, the chief conducted the guests to the
huts prepared to receive them, which stood side by side, after which he
invited them to rest, with a politeness that a man more civilised than
him might have envied, after telling them at twelve o'clock they would
be summoned to the meal.
Valentine thanked Pethonista for the kind attention he displayed to him
and his comrades: then, after installing Doña Clara in a hut with
Sunbeam, he entered his own, after recommending the hunters to display
the greatest prudence toward the Comanches, who, like all Indians, are
punctilious, irascible, and susceptible to the highest degree.
Curumilla lay down without saying a word, like a good watchdog, across
the door of the lodge inhabited by Doña Clara. So soon as the two
females were alone, Sunbeam seated herself at the Mexican lady's feet,
and, fixing on her a bright glance, full of tenderness, she said, in a
soft and caressing voice--
"Is my sister, the White Lily of the Valley, satisfied with me? Have I
faithfully fulfilled the obligation I contracted toward her?"
"What obligation was that, child?" the girl said, as she passed her hand
through the Indian's long hair which she began plaiting.
"That of saving you, my sister, and conducting you in safety to the
callis of my nation."
"Yes, yes, poor girl," she said, tenderly, "your devotion to me has been
unbounded, and I know not how I can ever requite it."
"Do not speak of that," the Indian said, with a charming pout. "Now that
my sister has nothing more to fear, I will leave her."
"You would leave me, Sunbeam?" Doña Clara exclaimed anxiously. "Why so?"
"Yes," the young woman answered, as she frowned, and her voice became
stern, "I have a duty to accomplish. I have taken an oath, and my sister
well knows that is sacred. I must go."
"But where are you going, my poor child? Whence arises this sudden
thought of leaving me? What do you intend? Where are you about to
proceed?"
"My sister must not ask me. Her questions would only grieve me, for I
cannot answer her."
"Then you have secrets from me, Sunbeam. You will not give me your
confidence? Fool! Do you fancy I do not know what you intend doing?"
"My sister knows my plan!" The Indian interrupted her with flashing eye,
while a convulsive tremor passed over her limbs.
"Yes, I do," the other answered with a smile. "Unicorn is a renowned
warrior, and my sister is doubtless anxious to rejoin him?"
The Indian shook her head in denial.
"No," she said, "Sunbeam is following her vengeance."
"Oh, yes, poor child," Doña Clara said, as she pressed the young squaw
to her heart, "I know from what a fearful catastrophe Don Valentine
saved you."
"Koutonepi is a great warrior. Sunbeam loves him; but Stanapat is a dog,
son of an Apache devil."
The two women wept for several minutes, silently mingling their tears,
but the Indian, overcoming grief, dried her red eyes with a passionate
gesture, and tore herself from the arms that held her.
"Why weep?" she said. "Only cowards and weak people groan and lament.
Indian squaws do not weep. When they are insulted they avenge
themselves," she added, with an accent full of strange resolution. "My
sister must let me depart! I can no longer be useful to her, and other
cares claim my attention."
"Go, then, poor girl. Act as your heart orders you. I have no right
either to retain you or prevent you acting as you please."
"Thanks," the Indian said. "My sister is kind. The Wacondah will not
desert her."
"Cannot you tell me what you intend doing?"
"I cannot."
"At any rate, tell me in what direction you are going?"
The girl shook her head with discouragement.
"Does the leaf detached from the tree by a high wind know in what
direction it will be carried? I am the leaf. So my sister must ask me no
more."
"As you wish it, I will be silent; but before we separate, perhaps
forever, let me make you a present, which will recall me to mind when I
am far from you."
Sunbeam laid her hand on her heart with a charming gesture.
"My sister is there," she said, with emotion.
"Listen," the maiden continued: "last night I gave you a bracelet; here
is another. These ornaments are useless to me, and I shall be happy if
they please you."
She unfastened the bracelet, and fastened it on the Indian's arm. The
latter allowed her to do it, and, after kissing the pearl several times,
she raised her head and held out her hand to the young Mexican.
"Farewell!" she said to her, with a shaking voice. "My sister will pray
to her God for me: He is said to be powerful, perhaps He will come to my
help."
"Hope, poor child!" Doña Clara said, as she held her in her arms.
Sunbeam shook her head sadly, and, making a last sign of farewell to her
companion, she bounded like a startled fawn, rushed to the door, and
disappeared.
The young Mexican remained for a long time pensive after Sunbeam's
departure; the Indian's veiled words and embarrassed countenance had
excited her curiosity to the highest degree. On the other hand, the
interest she could not forbear taking in this extraordinary woman, who
had rendered her a signal service, or, to speak more correctly, a gloomy
presentiment warned her that Sunbeam was leaving her to undertake one of
those dangerous expeditions which the Indians like to carry out without
help of any soul.
About two hours elapsed. The maiden, with her head bowed on her bosom,
went over in her mind the strange events which had led her, incident by
incident, to the spot where she now was. All at once a stifled sigh
reached her ear; she raised her head with surprise, and saw a man
standing before her, humbly leaning against a beam of the calli, and
gazing on her with a strange meaning in his glance. It was Shaw, Red
Cedar's son.
Doña Clara blushed and looked down in confusion; Shaw remained silent,
with his eyes fixed on her, intoxicating himself with the happiness of
seeing and contemplating her at his ease. The girl, seated alone in this
wretched Indian hut, before the man who so many times had nobly risked
his life for her, fell into profound and serious thought.
A strange trouble seized upon her--her breast heaved under the pressure
of her emotion. She did not at all comprehend the delicious sensations
which at times made her quiver. Her eye, veiled with a soft languor,
rested involuntarily on this man, handsome as an ancient Antinous, who
with his haughty glance, his indomitable character, whom a frown from
her made tremble--the wild son of the desert, who had hitherto known no
will but his own!
On seeing him, so handsome and so brave, she felt herself attracted to
him by all the strength of her soul. Though she was ignorant of the word
love, for some time an unconscious revolution had taken place in her
mind: she now began to understand that divine union of two souls, which
are commingled in one, in an eternal communion of thoughts of joy and
suffering.
In a word, she was about to love!
"What do you want with me, Shaw?" she asked, timidly.
"I wish to tell you, señorita," he answered, in a rough voice, marked,
however, with extraordinary tenderness, "that, whatever may happen,
whenever you have need of a man to die for you, you will have no
occasion to seek him for I will be there."
"Thanks," she answered, smiling, in spite of herself, at the strangeness
of the offer and the way in which it was made; "but here we have nothing
to fear."
"Perhaps," he went on. "No one knows what the morrow has in store."
Women have a decided taste for taming ferocious animals: like all
natures essentially nervous, woman is a creature of feeling, whose
passion dwells in her head rather than in her heart. Love with a woman
is only an affair of pride or a struggle to endure: as she is weak, she
always wishes to conquer, and above all dominates at the outset, in
order to become presently more completely the slave of the man she
loves, when she has proved her strength, by holding him panting at her
feet.
Owing to that eternal law of contrasts which governs the world, a woman
will never love any man but him who, for some reason or another,
flatters her pride. At any rate, it is so in the desert. I do not
pretend to speak for our charming European ladies, who are a composite
of grace and attraction, and who, like the angels, only belong to
humanity, by the tip of their little wing, which scarce grazes the
earth.
Doña Clara was a Mexican. Her exceptional position among Indians, the
dangers to which she had been exposed, the weariness that undermined
her--all these causes combined must dispose her in favour of the young
savage, whose ardent passion she divined, with that intuition peculiar
to all women.
She yielded so far as to answer him, and encourage him to speak. Was it
sport, or did she act in good; faith? No one could say: woman's heart is
a book, in which man has never yet been able to construe a word.
One of those long and pleasant conversations now begun between the two
young people, during which, though the word "love" is not once uttered,
it is expressed at every instant on the lips, and causes the heart to
palpitate, which it plunges into those divine ecstacies, forgotten by
ripe age, but which render those who experience them so happy.
Shaw, placed at his ease by the complacent kindness of Doña Clara, was
no longer the same man. He found in his heart expressions which, in
spite of herself made the maiden quiver, and put her into a confusion
she could not understand.
At the hour indicated by Pethonista, a Comanche warrior appeared at the
door of the calli, and broke off the conversation. He was ordered to
lead the strangers to the meal prepared for them in the chief's lodge.
Doña Clara went out at once, followed by Shaw, whose heart was ready to
burst with joy.
And yet what had Doña Clara said to him? Nothing. But she had let him
speak, and listened to him with interest, and at times smiled at his
remarks. The poor young man asked no more to be happy, and he was so,
more than he had ever been before.
Valentine, Don Pablo, and the two Indians were awaiting Doña Clara. So
soon as she appeared, all proceeded to the calli of the chief, preceded
by the Comanche warrior, who served as guide.