“I shall recognise this son of a dog,” rejoined Pepé, “and if I do not repay him for the anxiety he has caused me, it is because the bullet he is about to send will prevent me.”
“It is the Blackbird,” said Bois-Rose, “he is both brave and dexterous – lie close!”
The Indian once more took aim, and then fired; a branch knocked from a tree just above Pepé, fell upon him and hurt his forehead. He stirred no more than the dead wood against which he leaned, but said, “Rascal of a redskin, I’ll pay you for this before long.”
Some drops of blood fell upon the face of the Canadian.
“Is any one wounded?” said he, with a shudder.
“A scratch, nothing more,” said Pepé, “God be praised!”
Just then the Indian uttered a cry of joy, as he descended from the tree on which he had mounted, and the three friends again breathed freely.
And yet some doubt seemed to remain in the minds of the Indians, for a long and solemn silence followed the manoeuvre of their chief.
The sun had now set, the short twilight had passed away, night had come on, and the moon shone on the river, yet still the Indians did not stir.
“Our scalps tempt them, but they still hesitate to come and take them,” said Pepé, who was becoming very tired of doing nothing.
“Patience!” whispered Bois-Rose, “the Indians are like the vultures, who dare not attack a body until it begins to decay. We may look out for them by-and-bye. Let us resume our position behind the reeds.”
The hunters again quickly knelt down and continued to watch their enemies.
Before long an Indian showed himself very cautiously, another then joined him, and both approached with increasing confidence, followed by others, until Bois-Rose counted ten in the moonlight.
“They will cross the river in file, I expect,” said he. “Fabian, you fire at the first, Pepé will aim at the centre, and I at the last but one. In that way they cannot all attack together. It will be a hand-to-hand struggle, but you, Fabian, while Pepé and I wait for them knife in hand, shall load our rifles and pass them to us. By the memory of your mother, I forbid you to fight with these wretches.”
As the Canadian uttered these words, a tall Indian entered the river, followed by nine others. All advanced with the utmost caution; they might have been taken for the shades of warriors returned from the land of spirits.
Chapter Forty Two
The Blackbird
Death seemed to the eyes of the Indians to reign over the island – for the hunters held even their breath – and yet they advanced with the utmost care.
The foremost man, who was the “Blackbird” himself, had reached a place where the water began to be deep, as the last man was just leaving the bank. But just as Fabian was about to take aim against the chief, to the great regret of Pepé, the “Blackbird,” either fearful of danger, or because a ray of moonlight gleaming on the rifles told him his enemy still lived dived suddenly under the water.
“Fire!” cried Bois-Rose, and immediately the last Indian of the file fell to rise no more, and two others appeared struggling in the water, and were quickly borne off by the stream. Pepé and Bois-Rose then threw their rifles behind them as agreed upon, for Fabian to reload, while they themselves stood upon the bank, knives in hand.
“The Apaches are still seven,” shouted Bois-Rose, in a voice of thunder, anxious to finish the struggle, and feeling all his hatred of the Indians awakened within him, “will they dare to come and take the scalps of the whites?”
But the disappearance of their chief and the death of their comrades had disconcerted the Indians; they did not fly, but they remained undecided and motionless, as black rocks bathed by the shining waters of the river.
“Can the red warriors only scalp dead bodies?” added Pepé with a contemptuous laugh. “Are the Apaches like vultures who only attack the dead? Advance then, dogs, vultures, women without courage!” shouted he, at the sight of their enemies, who were now rapidly regaining the bank. Suddenly, however, he noticed a body floating on its back, whose bright eyes showed that it was not a corpse, as the extended arms and motionless body seemed to indicate.
“Don Fabian, my rifle! there is the ‘Blackbird’ pretending to be dead and floating down the stream.”
Pepé took the rifle from Fabian, and aimed at the floating body, but not a muscle stirred. The hunter lowered his rifle. “I was wrong,” said he, aloud, “the white men do not, like the Indians, waste their powder on dead bodies.”
The body still floated, with outspread legs and extended arms. Pepé again raised his rifle and again lowered it. Then, when he thought that he had paid off anguish for anguish to the Indian chief, he fired, and the body floated no longer.
“Have you killed him?” asked Bois-Rose.
“No, I only wished to break his shoulder bone, that he may always have cause to remember the shudder he gave, and the treason he proposed to me. If he were dead, he would still float.”
“You might have done better to have killed him. But what is to be done now? I hoped to finish with these demons, and now our work is still to be done. We cannot cross the river to attack them.”
“It is the best thing we can do.”
“With Fabian, I cannot decide to do it, or I should be now on the bank opposite, where you know as well as I do they still are breathing their infernal vengeance.”
The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders with stoical resignation.
“Doubtless,” said he, “but we must decide either to fly or to stay.”
“Carramba!” continued he, “if we two were alone we would gain the opposite bank in a minute; the seven who are left would catch us no doubt, but we should come out of it, as we have out of more difficult situations.”
“It would be better than to stay here like foxes in their hole.”
“I agree: but Fabian! and the unlucky scalped man, whom we cannot abandon thus to the mercy of the wretches who have already treated him so cruelly. Let us wait at least until the moon has set, and darkness comes on.”
And the old man hung his head with an air of discouragement – which made a painful impression on the Spaniard – raising it only to glance anxiously at the sky; where the moon held on her ordinary course over the starry blue.
“So be it,” said Pepé; “but, stay! we killed first five Indians, then three, that makes eight; there should have been twelve left; why did we only count ten in the water? Depend upon it, the Blackbird has sent the two others to seek for reinforcements.”
“It is possible: to remain here or to fly are both terrible.”
For some time the hunters thus continued to deliberate; meanwhile the moonbeams began to fall more obliquely, and already a part of the tops of the trees were in shadow. More than an hour had elapsed since the attempt of the Indians, and Pepé, less absorbed than Bois-Rose, was watching anxiously.
“That cursed moon will never go down,” said he, “and it seems to me that I hear something like the noise of feet in the water; the buffaloes do not come down to drink at this time of night.”
So saying, he rose and leaning right and left, looked up and down the stream, but on each side extended an impenetrable veil of fog. The coolness of the American nights which succeeds the burning heat of the day, condenses thus in thick clouds the exhalations of the ground, and of the waters heated by the sun.
“I can see nothing but fog,” said he.
Little by little the vague sounds died away, and the air recovered its habitual cairn and silence. The moon was fast going down, and all nature seemed sleeping, when the occupants of the island started up in terror.
From both sides of the river rose shouts so piercing that the banks echoed them long after the mouths that uttered them were closed. Henceforth flight was impossible; the Indians had encompassed the island.
“The moon may go down now,” cried Pepé with rage. “Ah! with reason I feared the two absent men, and the noises that I heard; it was the Indians who were gaining the opposite bank. Who knows how many enemies we have around us now?”
“What matter,” replied Bois-Rose gloomily, “whether there are one hundred vultures to tear our bodies, or a hundred Indians to howl round us when we are dead?”
“It is true that the number matters little in such circumstances, but it will be a day of triumph for them.”
“Are you going to sing your death-song like them, who, when tied to the stake, recall the number of scalps they have taken?”
“And why not? it is a very good custom, it helps one to die like a hero, and to remember that you have lived like a man.”
“Let us rather try to die like Christians,” replied Bois-Rose.
Then drawing Fabian towards him, he said:
“I scarcely know, my beloved child, what I had dreamed of for you; I am half savage and half civilised, and my dreams partook of both. Sometimes I wished to restore you to the honours of this world – to your honours, your titles – and to add to them all the treasures of the Golden Valley. Then I dreamed only of the splendour of the desert, and its majestic harmonies, which lull a man to his rest, and entrance him at his waking. But I can truly say that the dominant idea in my mind was that of never quitting you. Must that be accomplished in death? So young, so brave, so handsome, must you meet the same fate as a man who would soon be useless in the world?”
“Who would love me when you were gone?” replied Fabian, in a voice which their terrible situation deprived neither of its sweetness nor firmness. “Before I met you, the grave had closed upon all I loved, and the sole living being who could replace them was – you. What have I to regret in this world?”
“The future, my child; the future into which youth longs to plunge, like the thirsty stag into the lake.”
Distant firing now interrupted the melancholy reflections of the old hunter; the Indians were attacking the camp of Don Estevan. The reader knows the result.
Suddenly they heard a voice from the bank, saying, “Let the white men open their ears!”
“It is the ‘Blackbird’ again,” cried Pepé. It was indeed he, supported by two Indians.
“Why should they open their ears?” answered Pepé.
“The whites laugh at the menaces of the ‘Blackbird,’ and despise his promises.”
“Good!” said the Indian; “the whites are brave, and they will need all their bravery. The white men of the south are being attacked now; why are the men of the north not against them?”
“Because you are a bird of doleful plumage! because lions do not hunt with jackals, for jackals can only howl while the lion devours. Apply the compliment; it is a fine flower of Indian rhetoric,” cried Pepé, exasperated.
“Good! the whites are like the conquered Indians, insulting his conqueror. But the eagle laughs at the words of the mocking-bird, and it is not to him that the eagle deigns to address himself.”
“To whom then?” cried Pepé.
“To the giant, his brother, the eagle of the snowy mountains, who disdains to imitate the language of other birds.”
“What do you want of him?” said Bois-Rose.
“The Indian would hear the northern warrior ask for life,” replied the Blackbird.
“I have a different demand to make,” said the Canadian.
“I listen,” replied the Indian.
“If you will swear on the honour of a warrior, and on your father’s bones, that you will spare my companions’ lives, I shall cross the river alone without arms, and bring you my scalp on my head. That will tempt him,” added Bois-Rose.
“Are you mad, Bois-Rose?” cried Pepé.
Fabian flew towards the Canadian: “At the first step you make towards the Indian, I shall kill you,” cried he.
The old hunter felt his heart melt at the sound of the two voices that he loved so much. A short silence followed, then came the answer from the bank.
“The Blackbird wishes the white man to ask for life, and he asks for death. My wish is this, let the white man of the north quit his companions, and I swear on my father’s bones, that his life shall be saved, but his alone; the other three must die.”
Bois-Rose disdained to reply to this offer, and the Indian chief waited vainly for a refusal or an acceptance. Then he continued: “Until the hour of their death, the whites hear the voice of the Indian chief for the last time. My warriors surround the island and the river. Indian blood has been spilled and must be revenged; white blood must flow. But the Indian does not wish for this blood warmed by the ardour of the combat, he wishes for it frozen by terror, impoverished by hunger. He will take the whites living; then, when he holds them in his clutches, when they are like hungry dogs howling after a bone, he will see what men are like after fear and privation; he will make of their skin a saddle for his war-horse, and each of their scalps shall be suspended to his saddle, as a trophy of vengeance. My warriors shall surround the island for fifteen days and nights if necessary, in order to make capture of the white men.”
After these terrible menaces the Indian disappeared behind the trees. But Pepé not willing that he should believe he had intimidated them, cried as coldly as anger would permit, “Dog, who can do nothing but bark, the whites despise your vain bravados. Jackal, unclean polecat, I despise you – I – I” – but rage prevented him from saying more, and he finished off by a gesture of contempt; then with a loud laugh he sat down, satisfied at having had the last word. As for Bois-Rose he saw in it all only the refusal of his heroic sacrifice.
“Ah!” sighed the generous old man, “I could have arranged it all; now it is too late.”
The moon had gone down; the sound of distant firing had ceased, and the darkness made the three friends feel still more forcibly how easy it would have been to gain the opposite bank, carrying in their arms the wounded man. He, insensible to all that was passing, still slept heavily.
“Thus,” said Pepé, first breaking silence, “we have fifteen days to live; it is true we have not much provision, but carramba! we shall fish for food and for amusement.”
“Let us think,” said Bois-Rose, “of employing usefully the hours before daylight.”
“In what?”
“Parbleu! in escaping!”
“But how?”
“That is the question. You can swim, Fabian?”
“How else should. I have escaped from the Salto de Agua?”
“True! I believe that fear confuses my brain. Well! it would not be impossible, perhaps, to dig a hole in the middle of this island, and to slip through this opening into the water. The night is so dark, that if the Indians do not see us throw ourselves into the water, we might gain a place some way off with safety. Stay, I shall try an experiment.” So saying, he detached, with some trouble, one of the trunks from the little island; and its knotty end looked not unlike a human head. This he placed carefully on the water, and soon it floated gently down the stream. The three friends followed its course anxiously; then, when it had disappeared, Bois-Rose said:
“You see, a prudent swimmer might pass in the same manner; not an Indian has noticed it.”
“That is true; but who knows that their eyes cannot distinguish a man from a piece of wood?” said Pepé. “Besides, we have with with us a man who cannot swim.”
“Whom?”
The Spaniard pointed to the wounded man; who groaned in his sleep, as though his guardian angel warned him that there was a question of abandoning him to his enemies.
“What matter?” said Bois-Rose; “is his life worth that of the last of the Medianas?”
“No,” replied the Spaniard; “and I, who half wanted a short time ago to abandon the poor wretch, think now I would be cowardly.”
“Perhaps,” added Fabian, “he has children, who would weep for their father.”
“It would be a bad action, and would bring us ill luck,” added Pepé.
All the superstitious tenderness of the Canadian awoke at these words, and he said —
“Well, then, Fabian, you are a good swimmer, follow this plan: Pepé and I will stay here and guard this man, and if we die here, it will be in the discharge of our duty, and with the joy of knowing you to be safe.”
But Fabian shook his head.
“I care not for life without you; I shall stay,” said he.
“What can be done then?”
“Let us think,” said Pepé.
But it was unluckily one of those cases in which all human resources are vain, for it was one of those desperate situations from which a higher power alone could extricate them. In vain the fog thickened and the night grew darker; the resolution not to abandon the wounded man opposed an insurmountable obstacle to their escape, and before long the fires lighted by the Indians along each bank, threw a red light over the stream, and rendered this plan impracticable. Except for these fires, the most complete calm reigned, for no enemy was visible, no human voice troubled the silence of the night. However, the fog grew more and more dense, the stream disappeared from view, and even the fires looked only like pale and indistinct lights under the shadowy outline of the trees.
Chapter Forty Three
A Feat of Herculean Strength
Let us now glance at the spot occupied by the Blackbird. The fires lighted on the banks threw at first so strong a light that nothing could escape the eyes of the Indians, and a sentinel placed near each fire was charged to observe carefully all that passed on the island. Seated and leaning against the trunk of a tree, his broken shoulder bound up with strips of leather, the Blackbird only showed on his face an expression of satisfied ferocity; as for the suffering he was undergoing, he would have thought it unworthy of him to betray the least indication of it. His ardent eye was fixed continually on the spot where were the three men, whom he pictured to himself as full of anguish.
But as the fog grew thicker, first the opposite bank and then the island itself, became totally invisible. The Indian chief felt that it was necessary to redouble his surveillance. He ordered one man to cross the river, and another to walk along the bank, and exhorted every one to watchfulness.
“Go,” said he, “and tell those of my warriors who are ordered to watch these Christians – whose skins and scalps shall serve as ornaments to our horses – that they must each have four ears, to replace the eyes that the fog has rendered useless. Tell them that their vigilance will merit their chief’s gratitude; but that if they allow sleep to deaden their senses, the hatchet of the Blackbird will send them to sleep in the land of spirits.”
The two messengers set off, and soon returned to tell the chief that he might rest satisfied that attention would be paid to his orders. Indeed, stimulated at once by their own hatred of the whites, and by the hope of a recompense – fearing if sleep surprised them, not so much the threatened punishment as the idea of awaking in the hunting-grounds of the land of spirits, bearing on their foreheads the mark of shame which accompanies the sentinel who gives way to sleep – the sentinels had redoubled their vigilance. There are few sounds that can escape the marvellous ears of an Indian, but on this occasion the fog made it difficult to hear as well as to see, and the strictest attention was necessary. With closed eyes and open ears, and standing up to chase away the heaviness that the silence of nature caused them to feel, the Indian warriors stood motionless near their fires, throwing on on from time to time some fagots to keep them ablaze.
Some time passed thus, during which the only sound heard was that of a distant fall in the river.
The Blackbird remained on the left bank, and the night air, as it inflamed his wounds, only excited his hatred the more. His face covered with hideous paint, and contracted by the pain – of which he disdained to make complaint – and his brilliant eyes, made him resemble one of the sanguinary idols of barbarous times. Little by little, however, in spite of himself, his eyes were weighed down by sleep, and an invincible drowsiness took possession of his spirit. Before long his sleep became so profound, that he did not hear the dry branches crackle under a moccasin, as an Indian of his tribe advanced towards him.
Straight and motionless as a bamboo stem, an Indian runner covered with blood and panting for breath, waited for some time until the chief, before whom he stood, should open his eyes and interrogate him. As the latter showed no signs of awaking, the runner resolved to announce his presence, and in a hollow, guttural voice, said —
“When the Blackbird shall open his eyes, he will hear from my mouth words which will chase sleep far from him.”
The chief opened his eyes at the voice, and shook off his drowsiness with a violent effort. Ashamed at having been surprised asleep, he muttered:
“The Blackbird has lost much blood; he has lost so much that the next sun will not dry it on the ground, and his body is more feeble than his will.”
“Man is made thus,” rejoined the messenger, sententiously.
The Blackbird continued without noticing the reflection:
“It is some very important message doubtless, since the Spotted Cat has chosen the fleetest of his runners to carry it?”
“The Spotted Cat will send no more messengers,” replied the Indian. “The lance of a white man has pierced his breast, and the chief now hunts with his fathers in the land of spirits.”
“What matter! he died a conqueror? he saw, before he died, the white dogs dispersed over the plain?”
“He died conquered; and the Apaches had to fly after losing their chief and fifty of their renowned warriors.”
In spite of his wound, and of the empire that an Indian should exercise over himself, the Blackbird started up at these words. However, he restrained himself, and replied gravely, though with trembling lips —
“Who, then, sends you to me, messenger of ill?”
“The warriors, who want a chief to repair their defeat. The Blackbird was but the chief of a tribe, he is now the chief of a whole people.”
Satisfied pride shone in the eye of the Indian, at his augmented authority.
“If the rifles of the north had been joined to ours, the whites of the south would have been conquered.” But as he recalled to mind the insulting manner in which the two hunters had rejected his proposal, his eyes darted forth flames of hatred, and pointing to his wound, he said, “What can a wounded chief do? His limbs refuse to carry him, and he can scarcely sit on his horse.”
“We can tie him on; a chief is at once a head and an arm – if the arm be powerless the head will act, and the sight of their chief’s blood will animate our warriors. The council fire was lighted anew after the defeat, and the warriors wait for the Blackbird to make his voice heard; his battle-horse is ready – let us go!”
“No,” replied the Blackbird, “my warriors encompass, on each bank, the white hunters whom I wished to have for allies; now they are enemies; the ball of one of them has rendered useless for six moons, the arm that was so strong in combat; and were I offered the command of ten nations, I would refuse it, to await here the hour when the blood that I thirst for shall flow before my eyes.”
The chief then recounted briefly the captivity of Gayferos, his deliverance by the Canadian, the rejection of his proposals and the vow of vengeance he had made.
The messenger listened gravely; he felt all the importance of making a new attack on the gold-seekers, at the moment when, delighted at their victory, they believed themselves safe, and he proposed to the Blackbird to leave some one behind in his place to watch the island; but the Blackbird was immovable.
“Well!” said the runner, “before long the sun will begin to rise; I shall wait until daylight to report to the Apaches that the Blackbird prefers his personal vengeance to the honour of the entire nation. By deferring my departure, I shall have retarded the moment when our warriors will have to regret the loss of the bravest among them.”
“So be it,” said the chief, in a grave tone, although much pleased by this adroit flattery, “but a messenger has need of repose after a battle followed by a long journey. Meanwhile, I would listen to the account of the combat in which the Spotted Cat lost his life.”
The messenger sat down near the fire, with crossed legs, and with one elbow on his knee and his head leaning on his hand, after a few minutes’ rest, gave a circumstantial account of the attack on the white camp – omitting no fact which might awaken the hatred of the Blackbird against the Mexican invaders.
This over, he laid down and slept, or seemed to sleep. But the tumultuous and contrary passions which struggled in the heart of the Blackbird – ambition on the one hand, and thirst for vengeance on the other – kept him awake without effort. In about an hour the runner half rose, and pushing back the cloak of skin which he had drawn over his head he perceived the Blackbird still sitting in the same attitude.
“The silence of the night has spoken to me,” said he, “and I thought that a renowned chief like the Blackbird might, before the rising sun, have his enemies in his power and hear their death-song.”
“My warriors cannot walk on the water as on the warpath,” replied he; “the men of the north do not resemble those of the south, whose rifles are like reeds in their hands.”
“The blood that the Blackbird has lost deceives his intellect and obscures his vision; if he shall permit it, I shall act for him, and to-morrow his vengeance will be complete.”
“Do as you like; from whatever side vengeance comes, it will be agreeable to me.”
“Enough. I shall soon bring here the three hunters, and him whose scalp they could not save.”
So saying the messenger rose and was soon hidden by the fog from the eyes of the Blackbird.
On the island more generous emotions were felt. From the eyes of its occupants sleep had also fled – for if there be a moment in life, when the hearts of the bravest may fail them, it is when danger is terrible and inevitable, and when not even the last consolation of selling life dearly is possible to them. Watched by enemies whom they could not see, the hunters could not satisfy their rage by making their foes fall beneath their bullets as they had done the evening before. Besides, both Bois-Rose and Pepé knew too well the implacable obstinacy of the Indians to suppose that the Blackbird would permit his warriors to reply to their attacks; a soldier’s death would have seemed too easy to him.
Oppressed by these sad thoughts, the three hunters spoke no more, but resigned themselves to their fate, rather than abandon the unlucky stranger by attempting to escape.
Fabian was as determined to die as the others. The habitual sadness of his spirit robbed death of its terrors, but still the ardour of his mind would have caused him to prefer a quicker death, weapon in hand, to the slow and ignominious one reserved for them. He was the first to break silence. The profound tranquillity that reigned on the banks was to the experienced eyes of the Canadian and Pepé only a certain indication of the invincible resolution of their enemies; but to Fabian it appeared reassuring – a blessing by which they ought to profit.
“All sleeps now around us,” said he, “not only the Indians on the banks, but all that has life in the woods and in the desert – the river itself seems to be running slower! See! the reflections of the fires die away! would it not be the time to attempt a descent on the bank?”
“The Indians sleep!” interrupted Pepé, bitterly, “yes, like the water which seems stagnant, but none the less pursues its course. You could not take three steps in the river before the Indians would rush after you as you have often seen wolves rush after a stag. Have you nothing better to propose, Bois-Rose?”
“No,” replied he as his hand sought that of Fabian, while with the other he pointed to the sick man, tossing restlessly on his couch of pain.
“But, in default of all other chance,” said Fabian, “we should at least have that of dying with honour, side by side as we would wish. If we are victorious, we can then return to the aid of this unfortunate man. If we fall, God himself, when we appear before him, cannot reproach us with the sacrifice of his life, since we risked our own for the common good.”
“No,” replied Bois-Rose; “but let us still hope in that God, who re-united us by a miracle; what does not happen to-day, may to-morrow; we have time before us before our provisions fail. To attempt to take the bank now, would be to march to certain death. To die would be nothing, and we always hold that last resource in our own hands; but we might perhaps be made prisoners, and then I shudder to think of what would be our fate. Oh! my beloved Fabian, these Indians in their determination to take us alive give me at least the happiness of being yet a few days beside you.”
Silence again resumed its reign; but as Bois-Rose thought of the terrible dénouement he clutched convulsively at some of the trunks of the dead trees, and under his powerful grasp the islet trembled as though about to be torn from its base.
“Ah! the wretches! the demons!” cried Pepé, with a sudden explosion of rage. “Look yonder!”
A red light was piercing gradually through the veil of vapour which hung over the river, and seemed to advance and grow larger; but, strange to say, the fire floated on the water, and, intense as was the fog, the mass of flames dissipated it as the sun disperses the clouds. The three hunters had barely time to be astonished at this apparition, before they guessed its cause. A long course of life in the desert and its dangers had imparted to the Canadian a firmness which Pepé had not attained; therefore, instead of giving way to surprise, he remained perfectly calm. He knew that this was the only way to surmount any difficulty.
“Yes,” said he, “I understand what it is as well as if the Indians had told me. You spoke once of foxes smoked out of their holes; now they want to burn us in ours.”
The globe of fire which floated on the river advanced with alarming rapidity, and confirmed the words of Bois-Rose. Already amidst the water, reddened by the flame, the twigs of the willows were becoming distinct.
“It is a fire-ship,” cried Pepé, “with which they want to set fire to our island.”