VINNIE’S STRATAGEM.
Vinnie’s face was very pale, but she did not cry out. A wild fear, an
awful terror, was tugging at her heart, but she would not give way to
it. She knew she would need all her native courage and coolness in the
ordeal which she foresaw she must endure.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s hand retained its rough grip on her arm, and his
harsh voice repeated:
“Come. Sun-Hair must go!”
Resistance would, she knew, be of no avail. It would only serve to
arouse the Indian’s passions to a still higher pitch of intensity—to
make him, if possible, still more demoniac, and still more determined
than ever to fulfill his vow, and carry out his intention to abduct and
bear her away to his wigwam.
She must have recourse to stratagem.
So, to gain time, she said as calmly as possible, but with a wild
throbbing at her heart which she tried in vain to still:
“So the great chief loves the pale-face maiden? He would make her a
queen? He would spend his whole life to make her happy? Is it not so?”
“Yes,” he said, eagerly. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah loves Sun-Hair as the bird
loves its mate. He will always make her happy. She shall never know what
it is to weep. Her life shall always be pleasant. It shall be like a day
when the green grass is new on the ground, and the dancing waters, freed
from their cold bonds of ice, are laughing in the bright sunlight.”
“And my life shall be like one long day in the bright spring-time?” she
said, as bravely as she could, smiling through all her fear.
“Yes,” again said the chief, with a searching look in her white face.
He had expected tears and opposition, and he received instead, smiles,
and apparent acquiescence, and he was surprised and partially thrown off
his guard.
“May be the white maiden will go with her Indian lover,” said Vinnie.
“Give her time to think. It is very hard for her to leave her home and
her kind old father. Does the chief think he can make Sun-Hair happier
than she has been here? Can he make her forget her father and her home?”
“Did not Ku-nan-gu-no-nah tell the beautiful Sun-Hair that she should be
a queen? She shall wear robes as dazzling as the light of the sun. She
need not work like the Indian women. She need do nothing but sit and
sing like a bird all day long. The red-women will bow their heads in
shame before her bright face, and the warriors will sing songs about her
beauty. They will think of their beautiful queen when they go on the
war-path, and they will always return with the scalps of their dead
enemies hanging in their belts. What more can Sun-Hair wish?”
“I think I will go,” said the girl, slowly. “Only give me time to
think.”
“Ugh! It is well!” grunted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with another of his sickish
smiles. Then frowning darkly, and with a significant tap on the handle
of his tomahawk:
“But Sun-Hair no fool the chief! If she does he will kill her! She can’t
get away. Take care!”
The Indian let her free now; and he sat down on a low stool near the
door, as if half fearing some treachery on Vinnie’s part, but he was
pretty well assured, after all, that she would go with him without much
resistance. Vinnie stood for some time, striving to think of some plan
by which she might escape the Indian, who watched her every motion from
under his heavy, overhanging brows, as closely as a cat watches a mouse.
There was such a look of half-suspicious triumph on his dark face and in
his cruel eyes as is sometimes seen in the eyes of the panther, as it
sits quietly by, watching its prey, and suffering it to live and exult
in a few moments more of life that the moment of its annihilation, when
it comes suddenly and unlooked for, may be the harder to bear.
But the poor girl rejected plan after plan as impracticable. At one time
she thought of making some excuse to enter an adjoining apartment and
secure a pistol which she knew her father kept there; but she feared
that the savage would discover her intention and tomahawk her at once.
Then she contemplated making a rush for the door at the cabin and
escaping into the forest; but her reason told her that the chief would
overtake her before she was fairly outside the door.
At last, when she had nearly given up in despair, a thought suggested
itself to her brain—how, she never knew, it was so wild and strange—that
made her heart leap with a newborn hope—a hope that she might yet outwit
her captor and gain time until something—she know not what—should
intervene to save her from the fate he had marked out for her.
She sat down by the table and opened the small box of polished wood, of
which mention was made in our first chapter, the Indian watching her the
while from his place near the door.
This casket, on being opened, prove to be a small galvanic battery; and
Vinnie was but a moment preparing it for action.
When all was in readiness, she took a pair of electric slippers from a
drawer in the table and placed them beside the battery.
Then, knowing the superstition of the Indian race, she arose, and waving
her hands several times very slowly around her head, seemed to be
invoking a charm. Her eyes were fixed apparently on vacancy, and she
stood motionless for several minutes; then smiling sweetly, she turned
to Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, who had advanced to the center of the room, and
stood regarding her mystic performance with a sort of awed wonder, she
said in a low, soft voice, that sounded to him like the murmuring of a
distant brooklet:
“Does the chief know that the Great Manitou has given the white maiden a
mysterious power, greater than is possessed by any of the Indian
medicine-men? Would Ku-nan-gu-no-nah like to see evidence of the white
maiden’s power?”
The Indian stood quite still while she was speaking, with a look of
mingled doubt and awe on his face. At last he said in his harsh voice:
“Ugh! Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see what Sun-Hair can do. She is not a great
medicine-woman. There is but one who has a mighty power from the Great
Spirit, and that is Yon-da-do, the great conjuror of my tribe. Sun-Hair
can’t get away. The chief will kill her if she tries. Let
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see!”
“Let the chief look and be convinced!”
Vinnie attached the slippers to the conductors leading from the battery,
and set them side by side on the cabin floor.
Then, taking up her position behind the table, she commenced to operate
the machine slowly at first, then faster, until the slippers began to
skip about, dancing a sort of shuffle, which caused the Indian’s face to
take on a look of still greater wonder.
“See,” she said, turning the little crank faster, causing the magic
slippers to jump higher and oftener than before. “Do you longer doubt my
power? You, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, strong brave though you are, can not hold
those dancing moccasins when I command them to move!”
The chief’s face lighted up in an instant with a look of scorn and
contempt. No one had ever doubted his strength before. Surely he could
hold those skipping bits of leather.
“Look!” he said. “Let Sun-Hair see the chief hold them so fast they can
not tremble.”
He stooped down and raised them from the floor, holding one in each
hand.
He clutched them firmly, and then went on:
“See the chief hold them. A pappoose could do it. See—”
His words were cut short suddenly, the slippers dropped from his hands,
and with a wild shriek of terror, he ran to the further side of the
room.
He stood motionless several minutes, his dusky face the picture of blank
amazement, looking at the palms of his hands as if he would see what had
acted upon them with such powerful effect. He could not conceal his
chagrin as Vinnie said, tauntingly;
“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a great brave. He is very strong. He can not hold a
pair of moccasins. They jump out of his hands, and he runs away like a
whipped dog! The big chief is very strong. What a warrior he must be!”
“It is a lie!” yelled the Indian, almost beside himself with rage and
mortification. “I _can_ hold the dancing moccasins!”
“Try it,” said the beautiful magician, sententiously. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
advanced timidly, and took the slippers up daintily between his thumbs
and fore-fingers.
“Get a firm hold,” said Vinnie. “You will need all of your boasted
strength. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, a great chief and a brave warrior, has said
that a pappoose could hold the dancing moccasins. Let us see if he can
do what a pappoose could do. He says that Sun-Hair has no mysterious
power, more terrible than that of the Indian medicine-man, Yon-da-do. He
will see. Is he ready?”
The savage gripped the magic slippers with all his strength, seeming
determined that this time he would give the fair conjuror no opportunity
to taunt him with lack of success.
“Ugh!” he grunted, “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is ready.”
“You have them fast now, have you?”
Vinnie could not repress a smile as he answered, clutching the electric
slippers tighter than before:
“Yes; they not stir now.”
She muttered a few words in a low tone, passing her hands backward and
forward before her face, and commanded the slippers to dance.
At the same instant she set the battery in action, and the chief’s
hands, acted upon by the electricity, which she had made more powerful
than before, seemed to clutch the slippers like a vise.
A horrible expression of mingled rage and pain crossed his distorted
face, and he gave utterance to a shrill scream of fear and agony that
might have been heard, so loud and resonant was it, fully a mile away.
At last Vinnie ceased to turn the machine, and Ku-nan-gu-no-nah reeled
back and sunk down in a corner of the cabin almost exhausted.
His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, his mouth twitched nervously,
his long, coarse black hair stood half-erect, and he trembled with an
awful, superstitious fear in every fiber of his being.
“What does the chief think now of the white maiden’s power?” asked
Vinnie. “What does he think of the little box and the dancing moccasins?
Where now is his vaunted strength? Can the great brave do what a
pappoose can do? Does he want to try again?”
“No! No!” panted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with chattering teeth. “Sun-Hair is a
great conjuror. She has a power from the Great Spirit! She has a
_devil-box_, and moccasins such as are worn where the Long-knives go
when they die—where there is fire always! Hell, they call it. The white
maiden is a greater conjuror than Yon-da-do. She has a _devil-box_ and
_hell-moccasins_!”
At this moment there were sounds of footfalls outside the door. The
noise came nearer, and there was a sharp, scratching sound on the door
like that produced by some keen-pointed instrument.
Vinnie felt a terrible fear forcing its way to her heart.
“My God!” she thought. “What if it should be some of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s
warriors? Would they show me any mercy after the trick I have played on
their chief?”
The scratching noise was repeated, louder than before, and she could see
the heavy door tremble. With a white face, she stood awaiting—she knew
not what!
The Indian still cowered down in the corner, apparently heedless of what
was passing around him.