Kitabı oku: «The White Squaw», sayfa 2

Chapter Four.
Cris Carrol

Nelatu recovered from his wounds.

Warren had conducted him to a hut, the temporary residence of a man of the name of Cris Carrol.

This individual was a thorough specimen of a backwood’s hunter.

He was rough in manner, but in disposition gentle as a child.

He detested the formalities and restrictions of civilisation.

Even a new settlement had an oppressive air to him, which he could not endure.

It was only the necessity of disposing of his peltries and laying in a stock of ammunition that brought him into any spot where his fellow creatures were to be found.

To Cris Carrol the sombre forest, the lonely savannah, or the trackless swamp, were the congenial homes, and bitterly he adjured the compulsory sojourn of a few days every year amongst those to whom society is a pleasure.

It was always a joyful day to him when he could shoulder his rifle, sling his game bag over his shoulder, and start anew upon his lonely explorations.

When Warren brought the wounded Indian to Carrol’s rude hut, the old backwoodsman accepted the responsibility, and set himself to the task of healing his wounds with alacrity.

Nelatu was known to him, and he was always disposed to be a friend to the red man.

“No, of course not,” said he to Warren, in answer to his explanation; “I don’t see as how you could take the red-skin up to the governor’s house. Old dad wouldn’t say no, but he’d look mighty like wishin’ to. No, Warren, lad, you’ve done the right thing this time, and no mistake, and that there’s sayin’ more nor I would always say. Leave the boy to me. Bless you, he’ll be all right in a day or two, thanks to a good constitution, along of living like a nat’ral being, and not like one of them city fellows as must try and make ’emselves unhealthy by sleepin’ in beds, and keeping warm by sittin’ aside of stoves, as if dried leaves and dried sticks warn’t enough for ’em.”

Carrol’s skill as a physician was little short of marvellous.

He compounded and prepared medicines according to unwritten prescriptions, and used the oddest materials; not alone herbs and roots, but earths and clays were laid under contribution.

A few days of this forest doctoring worked wonders in Nelatu, and before a week was over he was able to sit at the back door of the hunter’s dwelling, basking himself in the sun.

Carrol, who had been in a fever of anxiety greater even than his patient, was in high glee at this.

After giving the Indian youth a preparation to allay his thirst, he was on the point of packing up his traps to start upon one of his expeditions, when he saw an individual approaching his cabin from the front.

Thinking it was Warren Rody, he called out to him that Nelatu was all right.

He was somewhat surprised to perceive that instead of Warren, it was his father.

“Good morning, neighbour,” said Elias.

“Mornin’, governor.”

“How is your Indian patient?” asked he whom Carrol called governor. “I hope he has entirely recovered.”

“Oh, he’s ready now, for the matter of that, to stan’ another tussle, and take another thrust. It wasn’t much of a wound arter all.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Elias; “I heard from my son Warren that it was a bad one.”

“Perhaps your son ain’t used to sich sights; there’s a good deal in that. Would you like to see the Injun? He’s outside, at the back.”

“No, thank you, Carrol; I didn’t come to see him, but you. Are you busy?”

“Well, not so busy but I kin talk a spell to you, governor, if you wishes it. I war only packin’ up a few things ready for a start to-morrow.”

Saying this, Carrol handed the governor a stool – the furniture of his hut not boasting of a chair.

“And so you’re off to-morrow, are you?”

“Yes, I can’t stand this here idle life any longer than I’m obleeged; ’taint my sort. Give me the woods and the savanners.”

At the very thought of returning to them the backwoodsman smacked his lips.

“When did you see Oluski last?” abruptly asked Elias.

“It war a fortnight ago, governor, near as my memory sarves me; just arter I’d shot the fattest buck killed this season. Oluski’s people war all in a state o’ excitement at the time.”

“Indeed; about what?”

“Wal, Oluski’s brother, who war chief o’ another tribe, died not long ’fore, and his son, Wacora, had succeeded to the chiefship. Oluski was mighty perlite to his nephy, who war on a visit to Oluski’s town when I war thar. I expect they’ll all be hyar soon. It’s about thar time o’ comin’ to Tampa.”

“Did you see this Wacora, as you call him?”

“I did so, governor,” answered Carrol, “and a likely Injun he is.”

Elias sat for some moments silent, during which time Cris busied himself over his gun.

After a time he put the question —

“Is that all you ha’ to say, governor?”

The governor, as Carrol styled him, started at this abrupt interrogatory.

“No, Carrol, that is not all. What I have to say is this. You are a friend to the red-skins?”

“Yes, siree, so long as they behaves themselves, I am,” promptly replied Cris.

“I also am their friend,” said Rody, “and want to deal fairly by them. They have, however, a foolish sort of pride that makes it difficult, especially in some matters. You know what I mean, do you not?”

“Yes, I see,” rejoined the hunter, in a careless drawl.

“Well, in a bit of business I have with Oluski, I thought a friend might manage with him better than I could myself.”

The governor paused to give Carrol an opportunity of replying.

The backwoodsman, however, did not avail himself of it.

“So you see, Carrol,” continued Elias, “I thought that you might act the part of that friend in the negotiation I allude to.”

“No, I don’t quite see that,” said Cris, looking up with an odd smile upon his face, and a twinkle in his eye. “But come, governor, tell me what you want done, and I’ll tell you whether I kin do it.”

“Well, then, Carrol, I will.”

The governor drew his stool nearer to Cris, as if about to impart some confidential secret.

Chapter Five.
Plain Speech

The backwoodsman preserved a wary look, as if suspicious of an attempt to corrupt him.

He was not alarmed. Cris Carrol knew himself to be incorruptible.

“Well, Mr Carrol,” proceeded the governor, after a pause; “you know that my settlement has prospered, and, as you may imagine, I have made money along with the rest?”

“Yes, I know that,” was the curt answer.

“And, having now got a little ahead of the world, I feel that I have a right to indulge some of my fancies. I want a better house, for instance.”

“Do you, now?” said Cris.

“And so I’ve made up my mind to build; and I want a good site. Now you see what I am driving at.”

“Well, no; I can’t say that I do exactly.”

“Why, Cris, you are dull to-day. I say I want a good site for my new house.”

“Well, ain’t you got hundreds of acres – enough and to spare for the most tremenjous big house as was ever built?”

“That’s true; but on all my land there’s not a spot I really like. Does that seem strange to you?”

“Mighty strange to me, but, perhaps, not so strange to you, governor.”

“But there is a bit of ground, Cris,” continued Elias, “that I do like exceedingly. The worst of it is it’s not mine.”

“Why don’t you buy it?”

“Just what I wish to do; but the owner won’t sell.”

“Perhaps you don’t offer enough.”

“No; that’s not the reason.”

“What is it, then?”

“Do you know the top of the hill?” abruptly asked Rody.

“What, where the Injuns make their camp?”

“Yes; that’s the place where I want to build. Oluski won’t sell that piece of property to me. Why, I don’t know.”

The governor did not stick very closely to the truth while talking on matters of business.

“Wal, what I have I to do with that?” asked the backwoodsman.

“Why, I thought if you were to see Oluski, perhaps you might talk him into letting me have the ground. I’ve set my mind on it; and I wouldn’t care if it cost me a good round sum. I’ll pay you well for any trouble you may take in helping me.”

Elias Rody had but one estimation of his fellow man, and that was, that every one has his price.

In the present instance he was mistaken.

“It won’t do, governor; it won’t do,” said Carrol, shaking his head. “I see now, plain as can be, what you’re after; but I won’t help you in it. If you wants the property, and Oluski won’t let you have it, then the Injun’s got his own reasons, and it ain’t for me to try and change ’em. Besides,” added he, “I don’t like the job; so no offence meant, but I must say now – and I says it once and for all. Is that all you’ve got to say to me?”

The governor bit his lips with vexation; but, possessing a wonderful command over his temper, he merely inquired what his son had said about Nelatu.

“Well, sir, he didn’t say much about anything special, except to ask me to look after the Injun lad, and see to his wounds. I did that in first-class style, and, as I told you before, he’s all right. Your son has been down every day to see my patient, as the doctor chaps calls them they physics. He ’peared mighty anxious to know how it was that he had come over to this part of the country alone, and where was the young girl, his sister.”

“Ah! so he was inquiring about her, was he?” exclaimed Rody, rising, and pacing the hut with restless steps. He was glad of a pretext for his rage.

The backwoodsman uttered a prolonged whistle.

Suddenly pausing in his impatient strides, the governor faced towards him.

“So he was anxious about her, was he?”

Elias Rody was evidently out of temper, and not now afraid to show it. But Carrol was not exactly the person to care much about this.

“He was,” was his cool answer; “but I don’t know how I’ve got anything to do with it, except to tell him, and you, too, for the matter of that, that the red man has his rights and feelings. Yes, and they’re both worth considerin’ as much as if they war pale-faces like ourselves.”

“And why to me, sir?” asked the governor.

“Well, just because I ain’t afraid to say to your face what I’d say behind your back, and that is, that your son had better stop thinking about that gurl, Sansuta, as soon as may be, and that you’d best see to it afore worse happens.”

A very outspoken man was the backwoodsman, and Elias Rody was sorry now for having visited him.

Before he could recover from his surprise, Carrol returned speech.

“There ain’t no good, governor, in mincing matters. Last year, when Oluski war here, your son war always prowlin’ ’bout the Injun encampment, and down in the grove war thar gurl used to be. He war always a talkin’ to the chief’s darter, and making presents to her. I know what I seed, and it warn’t jest the thing.”

“Perfectly natural, man,” said the governor, mastering his chagrin, and speaking calmly; “perfectly natural, all that, seeing that Nelatu, Sansuta, and my son grew up as children together.”

“All that may be; but it ain’t no use applyin’ it now that they’re most growed up to be man and woman, and you knows it, governor, as well as I do. As for Nelatu, he don’t amount to shucks; and I sometimes wonder whether he is Oluski’s son after all.”

The home truth in the first part of Carrol’s speech pleased the “governor” as little as any of his previous remarks; and, surprised at the freedom of the backwoodsman’s language, he was silent.

Not so Cris, who had evidently determined to say more. His garrulity was unusual; and, once started, he was too honest to hold his peace.

“Governor, there’s many things I’ve had in me to say to you at a convenient time. That time’s come, I reckon, and I may as well clur it off my mind. I don’t belong to yur colony. I’m only a ’casional visitor, but I sees and hears things as others don’t seem to dare to tell you o’, though why I can’t fancy; for you’re only a man arter all, although you air the head man o’ the settlement. As near as I can fix it in my mind, all yur people hev settled hyar on land that once belonged to the Injun. This bein’ the case, it seems to me that the same laws as is made for the white man is made for the red-skins too. Now, governor, it ain’t so; or, if they are made, they ain’t carried out; and, when there’s an advantage to be got for the white man at the expense of the Injun, why, you see, the law’s strained just a leetle to give it. It’s only a leetle now, but by and bye it’ll be a good deal. I know you’ll say that’s only natural, too, because that’s the way you think; but I tell you, Mr Rody,” here Carrol became excited, “that it ain’t natural no how; and it ain’t right; and, therefore, mischief’s sure to come o’ it. Now, I tell you, because you’ve more brains and more money than any o’ the rest, of course you’ve got more to answer for. So them’s my sentiments, and you’re welcome to them whether you like ’em or no.”

“Well, Mr Carrol,” replied Rody, with a withering emphasis on the “Mister,” “I’m glad you’ve given me your opinion – it’s a valuable one, no doubt.”

“I don’t know whether it’s a valyable one, but I know it’s a honest one,” answered Cris, with a quiet dignity, that, despite his rough dress, bespoke him a gentleman. “I have no object in giving advice to you, governor. I only feel it a duty, and I like to discharge my duties. The same way I thinks about your son Warren running after this Injun girl. No good’ll come o’ that neyther.”

Whatever reply the “governor” would have made to this last observation was cut short by the entrance of Warren Rody himself.

Seen now in the light of open day, the young man presented a strange contrast to his father. Of small stature, effeminate countenance, restless, shifting eyes, and a vacillating expression of mouth, he did not look like the son of the hard, rugged man who stood beside him.

He was neatly, almost foppishly dressed, and had a self-sufficient air not altogether pleasant. He seemed like one who would rather pass through the world with oily smoothness than assert himself with confidence of power and honesty of purpose.

By one of those strange mental impressions impossible to account for, both Cris and the “governor” felt that Warren had been a listener.

If so, he did not betray any sign of annoyance at what he had heard, but stood smilingly tapping his boot with a handsome riding-whip.

“Ah, father, you here? Have you come to see the invalid, or to say ‘good bye’ to the hunter, who tells me he is off to the wilderness to-morrow?”

His father did not answer him, but, turning to Carrol, said —

“The matter I intended to have spoken to you about will do at another time; but I’m still much obliged to you for your good advice.”

This was spoken with as much cutting politeness as could be well pressed into the speech.

As he turned to leave, he said aside to his son, “Be home early, Warren. I have something particular to say to you.”

Warren nodded, and his father passed out of the house, not at all pleased with the interview between himself and the backwoodsman.

Nothing disconcerts scheming men more than blunt honesty.

As soon as the governor was gone, Carrol commenced humming a song. His new visitor waited for several moments before speaking to him.

“How is Nelatu?” he at length asked. “Will he be strong enough to travel to-morrow?”

“Not quite,” said Carrol, pausing in the chorus part of his ditty; “he’d best remain here till his people come. They won’t be long now, and the stay will give him time to get right smart.”

“What was it that vexed my father, Cris?”

“Well, I don’t know ’cept he’s took somethin’ that’s disagreed with him. He do seem riled considerable.”

“But, Cris, are you really off to-morrow?”

“By sunrise,” answered Carrol.

“Which way are you going?”

Cris looked slily at his questioner before answering.

“I don’t know for sure whether it’ll be along the bay, or across the big swamp. The deer are gettin’ scarce near the settlement, and I have to go further to find ’em. That’s all along of civilisation.”

“If you go by the swamp you might do me a service,” said Warren.

“Might I?” Then, after a thoughtful pause, the back woodsman continued – “Well, you see, Warren, it won’t be by the swamp. I’ve made my mind up now, and I’m goin’ along the bay.”

Warren said, “All right; no matter.”

Then, with a word of explanation, parted from Cris, and proceeded to find Nelatu.

As soon as he was out of sight, Carrol’s behaviour would have furnished a comic artist a capital subject for a sketch. He chuckled, winked his eyes, wagged his head, rubbed his hands, and seemed to shake all over with suppressed merriment.

“A pair of the artfullest cusses I ever comed across. Darn my pictur if the young ’un ain’t most too good. War I goin’ by the swamp, ’cos then I might do him a service? No, no, Mister Warren, this coon ain’t to be made a cat’s paw of by you nor your father neyther. I ain’t a goin’ to mix myself up in either of your scrapes, leastways, not if I knows it; nor Nelatu shan’t if I can help it. I don’t let him stir till his fellow Injuns come, and, may-be, that’ll keep him out o’ trouble. No, Master Warren, you must do yur own dirty work, and so must your father. Cris Carrol shan’t help either o’ you in that. If the young ’un don’t mind what he’s heard, altho’ he made b’lieve he didn’t, and his father don’t mind what I told him, there’ll be worse come of it.”

Chapter Six.
Crookleg

When young Rody took his departure from Carrol’s hut, he went off in no very enviable mood.

His interview with Nelatu, although of the briefest, had been as unproductive of results as that with the blunt old backwoodsman.

The plain speaking indulged in by Carrol, and which he had overheard before entering the cabin, had annoyed him, while the oracular manner adopted by Cris in no way assuaged the feeling.

The fact of the matter is that the old hunter had made a clear guess at the truth.

Warren had a passion for Sansuta, the daughter of Oluski.

Not a manly, loving passion, though.

Her beauty had cast a spell upon him. Had his soul been pure, the spell would have worked its own cure. Out of the magic of her very simplicity would have arisen chaste love.

But his heart was wicked, and its growth weeds.

Hitherto the difference of race had shielded from harm the object of his admiration. He would have been ashamed to avow it in an honest way.

Secretly, therefore, he had forged a false friendship for her brother, as a mask to conceal his base treachery.

In the incident with which our tale opens, he had found a ready means of advancing his own interests by more closely cementing Nelatu’s simple friendship, and moulding it to his will.

We have said that Red Wolf, the would-be assassin, fell by the bullet of his rifle.

With his hand upon the trigger, and in the very act of sending this wretch to his account, a thought had flashed across young Rody’s mind, which made his aim more certain.

Let us explain.

Nelatu said that Red Wolf had spoken wicked words of Sansuta and of Warren.

The very conjunction of their names supplied the calumny.

Nelatu spoke truly; but what he did not know was, that the wretch who paid the forfeit of his life for his foul speech was only the dupe of Nelatu’s own friend, Warren Rody.

Red Wolf, an idle, drunken scamp, had been a fit instrument in Rody’s hands to be employed as a messenger between him and the Indian girl.

For these services Red Wolf received repeated compensation in gold.

But the old story of the bad master becoming discontented with a bad servant was true in this case.

Warren was afraid that Red Wolf would, in one of his drunken orgies, talk too much, and betray the secret with which he had entrusted him.

So far, he was right; for it was whilst endeavouring to warn Nelatu of his sister’s danger that Red Wolf made use of language about the girl.

He had reviled Nelatu’s sister while traducing his friend.

The issue is already known.

Wicked were Warren’s thoughts as he stood, rifle in hand, watching the two.

If Red Wolf – and he recognised him at once – were removed in the very act of killing Nelatu, a dangerous tongue would be for ever silenced, while Nelatu’s friendship would be further secured, and Sansuta eventually become his.

The decision was taken, the bullet sent through Red Wolf’s brain, and Warren Rody accomplished a part of his design.

Having succeeded so far, it was terribly mortifying to find that one clear-sighted individual had penetrated his schemes, and, without appearing to do so, had placed a restraint upon the otherwise warm sense of gratitude with which Nelatu regarded him.

All this Cris Carrol had done, and therefore Warren Rody was angry with him.

He left the cabin vowing vengeance upon Carrol, and casting about for the means to accomplish it.

He had not long to wait, or far to seek.

At the end of the bye-road upon which the backwoodsman’s dwelling stood, he encountered the very tool suitable for his purpose.

It was in the person of a negro, with a skin black as Erebus, who was seen perched upon the top of a tall fence.

He was odd enough looking to attract the attention of the most careless traveller.

His head, denuded of the old ragged piece of felt he called hat, was unusually large, and covered with an enormous shock of tightly-curling wool.

This did not, however, conceal the apeish form of the skull, that bore a strong resemblance to that of a chimpanzee.

Rolling and sparkling in a field of white, were eyes preternaturally large, and wickedly expressive, above a nose and mouth of the strongest African type.

His arms were ludicrously long, and seemed by their unusual proportions to make up for the shortness, and impish form of the body.

He was whistling in a discordant strain some wild melody, and kicking his heels about like one possessed.

As Warren Rody approached, he paused in his ear-splitting music, and leaped nimbly from his perch, whilst flourishing his tattered felt in a sort of salutation.

It might have been observed that he was lame, and the few halting steps he took imparted a droll, hobbling motion to his diminutive body.

His dress was a curious warp of rags – woven, as it were – upon a still more ragged woof.

They were held together more by sympathy than cohesion.

In his right hand was a stout gnarled stick, with which he assisted himself in his frog-like progress.

At sight of young Rody, the huge mouth of this uncouth creature seemed to open from ear to ear.

“Ha, ha! Who, whoo! Gor bress me, if it ain’t Massa Warren hisself dat I see! My stars, massa, but dis ole man am glad to see ye, dat he is!”

Such was his salutation.

The young man came to a stop, and surveyed the negro with a smile.

“Well, Crookleg, what do you want with me, you old fiend?”

“Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Bress him, what a brave young gen’lman it is! How han’som’ – jess like a pictur’. What do the ole fien’ want? Why he want a good deal, massa, good deal.”

“Are you out of work again?”

“Ha, ha, ain’t done a bressed stroke of work, massa, for more nor two week! Ain’t, ’pon dis old nigger’s solemn word! Ain’t had it, massa, to do. Poor Crookleg am most used up, sa, most used up.”

As if to prove his last assertion the hideous wretch cut a high caper into the air, and settled down again in a grotesque attitude.

Young Rody laughed heartily at this feat, slapped his riding-whip roughfully across the negro’s back, pitched a piece of silver to him, and passed on.

Whilst Crookleg stopped to pick up the coin he glanced after him under his arm, and saw, with some surprise, that the youth had paused at a few paces distance as if in thought.

After a time the latter faced round and came back along the road.

“By the way, Crookleg,” said he, “come up to the house, my sister may have something to give you.”

“Ha, ha! he, he! Miss Alice, bress her, so she may, massa! I’ll come, sartin; dis old nigger’s always glad to get what he can from Miss Alice.”

“And,” continued Rody, “ask for me when you come. I may find something for you to do that’ll help you along a little.”

Not staying to hear the voluble expressions of gratitude with which Crookleg overwhelmed him, Warren strode on, and was soon lost to sight.

The moment of his disappearance the darkey perpetrated another aerial leap, and then hobbled off in a direction opposite to that pursued by the governor’s son.

He could be heard muttering as he went —

“Wants to see dis chile, does he? Why, dat looks good for de old nigger; and, who knows, but what de long time am a coming to an end, and all dis old nigger’s work is gwine to be done for him by odder folk. He, he! dat would make dis chile bust a laffin! He, he, he!”