"To the unhappy death is welcome."
"Unhappy?"
"I have told you that all I love are dead?"
"Yet death is terrible."
"Your name?"
"Alice Rody."
With a cry of fiendish delight, Wacora grasped the maiden's arm.
"You, the daughter of that accursed man--the daughter of that demon in
human form! Then, by the Great Spirit above us! by the ashes of my
ancestors, you shall die! My own hand shall inflict the blow."
As he uttered these words, he drew a knife from his belt, and was on the
point of sheathing it in her heart, when his arm was seized, and a voice
full of agony vibrated in his ear--
"Spare her!--oh! spare her. Take my life instead."
"Nelatu!"
"Yes, Nelatu; your cousin, your slave, if you will--only spare her
life!"
"You forget her name."
"No, no; I know it but too well."
"You forget that her father has been the accursed cause of all this
misery?"
"No; I remember that too."
"Then you are insane thus to beg for her life. She must die!"
"I am not insane. Oh! Wacora, on my knees I implore you to spare her!"
"Rise, Nelatu; the son of Oluski should not bend his knee to man. At
your intercession, her life shall be spared!"
Nelatu rose from the ground.
"You are indeed our chief, Wacora. Your heart is open and generous."
"Stay, yet, before you mistake me. I give you her life, but `an eye for
an eye!' She shall suffer what Sansuta has suffered; spare her life,
but not her honour."
"Wacora!"
"I have said it. Here"--turning to the assembled warriors who had been
amazed witnesses of the scene--"this is the child of our enemy, Elias
Rody. I have, at Nelatu's entreaty, spared her life; I bestow her upon
the tribe; do with her what you will."
Nelatu leaped before the advancing braves.
"Back!" he cried. "The first who lays hands upon her, dies!"
Wacora gazed upon his cousin.
In his breast rage contended with wonder.
"Heed him not; he is insane."
"No; not insane."
"Speak; what then?"
"I love her! I love her!"
The young girl, who had stood like a statue throughout all the previous
scene, gave a start, and, cowering to the ground, buried her face in her
hands.
To Wacora the words of Nelatu were no less surprising.