THE TORTURE.
The Apaches, who had been fastened for a long time to the stakes at
which they would be tortured, regarded the terrible preparations for
their atrocious punishment with a calm eye, and not a muscle quivering
in their stoical and indifferent faces. So great was their carelessness,
or, at any rate, it appeared so, that you might have fancied that they
were merely about to figure as spectators in the gloomy tragedy
preparing, although they were destined to play so terrible a part in it.
So soon as Valentine left him, Unicorn ordered the torture to commence,
but he suddenly altered his mind.
"My sons," he said, addressing the Comanche warriors, and pointing to
Black Cat; "this man is a chief, and as such can claim an exceptional
death, in which he can prove to us his constancy and courage under
suffering. Send him to the happy hunting grounds in such a way that the
warriors of his nation whom he meets in another life may give him a
reception worthy of him. Tomorrow the old men and chiefs will assemble
round the council fire, to invent a punishment meet for him. Take him
from the stake."
The Indians frenziedly applauded these words, which promised them so
attractive a spectacle for the morrow.
"The Comanches are boasting and cowardly women," Black Cat broke out;
"they do not know how to torture warriors. I defy them to make me utter
a groan, if the punishment lasted a whole day."
"The Apache dogs can bark," Unicorn said coldly; "but if their tongue is
long, their courage is short; tomorrow, Black Cat will weep like a
daughter of the palefaces."
Black Cat shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and the Comanches
repeated their frenzied applause.
"Unfasten him," Unicorn commanded a second time.
Several warriors approached the Apache chief, cut the cords that bound
him to the stake, and then secured his limbs and threw him at the foot
of a tree, Black Cat not deigning to make a sign evidencing the
slightest irritation. After exchanging a glance with Valentine, Unicorn
placed himself at the head of a band of warriors, who formed a
semicircle round the prisoners. The chieftainess placed herself
opposite to him, with the women; the band struck up more noisily than
ever, and the torture began.
The squaws and warriors danced round the prisoners, and in passing
before them, each, whether a man or woman, cut off a strip of flesh with
long, sharp scalping knives. In making these wounds, the Comanches
employed the utmost precaution to prevent the knives running too deep
into the flesh, lest the victims should run the chance of dying at once,
which would have unpleasantly modified the intention of the Indians, by
depriving them of a sight from which they promised themselves so much
pleasure.
The Apaches smiled on their torturers, and excited them still more by
telling them that they did not know how to treat their prisoners; that
their wounds were only so many mosquito stings; that the Apaches were
far more skilful; and that the many Comanche prisoners they had made
endured in their tribe much more atrocious sufferings.
The unfortunate men were in a pitiable state: their bodies were only one
wound, from which the blood streamed. The Comanches grew excited and
rage seized upon them, on hearing the insults of their enemies. A woman
rushed all at once on one of the prisoners whose words were the
bitterest, and with her sharp and curved talons tore out his eyes, which
she swallowed on the spot, saying to him--
"Dog, you shall not see the sun again."
"You have torn out my eyes, but left me my tongue," the prisoner
replied, with a smile rendered more hideous by the two empty and
bleeding sockets. "'Twas I who devoured the quivering heart of your son,
Running-water, when he entered my calli to steal horses. Do what you
please, I am revenged beforehand!"
The woman, exasperated by this last insult, rushed upon him and buried
her knife in his heart. The Apache burst into a hoarse laugh, which
suddenly changed into the death rattle, and fell a corpse while uttering
the words--
"I said truly that you do not know how to torture your prisoners--dogs,
rabbits, thieves!"
The Comanches doubled their fury on the wretched victims, incessantly
hacking and stabbing them, and though the majority were dead already,
they did not leave off till they had destroyed all appearance of
humanity. The scalps were then raised, and the victims thrown into the
fire prepared for them.
The Comanches danced and howled round this fire until their voice and
strength failed them, and they fell exhausted, in spite of the drums and
chichikouis. The men and women, stretched on the ground pell-mell, soon
fell asleep, in that strange state of intoxication produced by the odour
of the blood shed during this atrocious butchery.
Valentine, despite the almost insurmountable disgust this scene had
occasioned him, did not wish to retire, as he feared lest Black Cat
might be massacred by the Comanches in a moment of mad fury. This
precaution was not vain: several times, had he not resolutely
interfered, the Apache chief would also have been sacrificed to the
hatred of his enemies, who had attained a paroxysm of fury impossible to
describe.
When the camp was plunged in silence, and everybody asleep, Valentine
proceeded cautiously in the direction where the Apache chief lay bound,
who watched him come up with a very peculiar glance. Not saying a word,
the hunter, after assuring himself that nobody was watching his
movements, cut all the cords that bound him. The Apache bounded like a
jaguar, but fell back again on the ground; the cords had been tied so
securely that they had entered into his flesh.
"My brother must be prudent," the Frenchman said gently. "I wish to save
him."
He then took his flask and poured a few drops of brandy on the pallid
lips of the chief, who gradually recovered, and at length stood on his
feet. Bending a searching glance on the man who so generously paid him
attentions he was far from expecting, he asked in a hoarse voice--
"Why does the pale hunter wish to save me?"
"Because," Valentine answered, without hesitation, "my brother is a
great warrior in his nation, and must not die. He is free."
And holding out his hand to the chief, he helped him to walk.
The Indian followed him unresistingly, but without a word. On reaching
the spot where the horses of the tribe were picketed, Valentine selected
one, saddled it, and led it to the Apache, who, during the hunter's
short absence, had remained motionless on the same spot.
"My brother will mount," he said.
The warrior was still so weak that Valentine was compelled to help him
into the saddle.
"Can my brother keep on his horse?" he asked, with tender solicitude.
"Yes," the Apache answered, laconically.
The hunter took the gun, bow, and panther skin quiver of the chief which
he handed to him, saying gently--
"My brother will take back his arms. A great warrior as he is must not
return to his tribe like a timid woman; he should be able to kill a
stag, if he met one on the road."
The Indian seized the weapons; a convulsive tremor ran over his limbs,
and joy gained the victory over Indian stoicism. This man, who had faced
a horrible death without change of countenance, was conquered by the
Frenchman's noble conduct; his granite heart was softened; a tear,
doubtless the first he had ever shed, escaped from his fever parched
eyes, and a sob burst from his overcharged breast.
"Thanks," he said, in a choking voice, so soon as words could find their
way to to his lips; "thanks, my brother is good, he has a friend."
"My brother owes me nothing," the hunter replied, simply; "I act as my
heart and my religion order me."
The Indian remained pensive for a moment, then he muttered, shaking his
head dubiously:
"Yes, I have heard that said before, by Father Seraphin, the Chief of
Prayer of the palefaces. Their God is omnipotent, He is before all
merciful; is not that a blessing?"
"Remember, chief," Valentine quietly interrupted him, "that I save your
life in the name of Father Seraphin, whom you seem to know."
The Apache smiled softly.
"Yes," he said, "these are his words, 'Requite good for evil.'"
"Remember those divine precepts which I put in practice today,"
Valentine exclaimed, "and they will support you in suffering."
Black Cat shook his head.
"No," he said, "the desert has its own laws, which are immutable; the
red skins are of a different nature from the palefaces: their law is one
of blood, and they cannot alter it. Their law says: 'Eye for eye, and
tooth for tooth.' The maxim is derived from their fathers, and they are
obliged to submit to it, and follow it; but the redskins never forget an
insult or a kindness. Black Cat has a great memory."
There was a silence of some minutes, during which the two men regarded
each other attentively. At length the Apache spoke again.
"My brother will lend me his gourd."
The hunter gave it to him; the Apache quickly raised it to his lips, and
took a mouthful. Then, bending down to Valentine, he placed his hands on
his shoulders, and kissed him on the lips, while allowing a portion of
the fluid he held in his mouth to pass into the hunter's.
On the prairies of the Far West this ceremony is a species of mysterious
initiation, and the greatest mark of attachment one man can give
another. When two men have embraced in this way, they are henceforth
friends, whom nothing can separate save death, and they help one another
without hesitation under all circumstances.
Valentine knew this, and hence, in spite of the disgust he internally
experienced, he did not oppose the action of the Apache chief. On the
contrary, he yielded to it joyfully, comprehending the immense
advantages he should, at a later date, derive from this indissoluble
alliance with one of the most influential Apache sachems, those allies
of Red Cedar, on whom he had sworn to take an exemplary revenge.
"We are brothers," Black Cat said, gravely. "Henceforth, by day or
night, wherever the great pale hunter may direct his footsteps, a friend
will constantly watch over him."
"We are brothers," the hunter replied; "Black Cat will ever find me
ready to come to his assistance."
"I know it," said the warrior. "Farewell; I will return to the warriors
of my tribe."
"Farewell," Valentine said.
And vigorously lashing his horse, the Apache Chief started at full
speed, and soon disappeared in the darkness. Valentine listened for a
moment to the echo of his horse's hoofs on the hardened ground, and then
returned thoughtfully to the calli, in which Ellen was nursing White
Gazelle.